The Auto Racing Digest Archive 1/77

January 1977

This week instead of Baseball Digest I pulled a random issue of Auto Racing Digest out of the box. Early 1977 was a much different era for the sport. These days motorsports is a niche sport, but in the pre-cable days of 1977 it was REALLY a niche sport. Unless ABC or CBS aired a race - and more often than not it would be highlights, not a complete race - the event occurred in a vacuum. At the same time, racing was lumped together as one big sport. Since every form of the sport was treated as part of that small corner in the sporting world, a magazine such as this treated each equally. This issue doesn’t just cover NASCAR and Formula One, it also handles sports cars and drag racing.

What that means is that a lot of the drivers featured in this issue are not very well known these days. That’s not the case with the cover subject, Janet Guthrie. This follows the 1976 season, in which she made the historic attempt to become the first woman to qualify for the Indy 500. She didn’t make the race, but she ran in a handful of NASCAR races. 1977 turned out better; not only did she make the Indy field but she qualified for the Daytona 500 as well. She only had middling success. To be fair, it’s difficult to gauge her career. She rarely had an opportunity to drive top level cars; if she had access to better equipment, who knows?

As for the other drivers featured here, there is little reason to remember Salt Walther were if not for his name. He was one of those drivers who usually struggled to qualify for a spot on the Indy grid, but I always rooted for him just because his name sounded so cool. Dave Marcis had a long career in NASCAR, and he earned a bit of fame because he used to wear wingtip shoes while racing. Don Garlits was one of the biggest names in drag racing history, and for those of us of a certain age his name probably rings a bell even among those who never watched a drag race. Those ubiquitous “Racing! Racing!” ads that ran on the radio always promoted an appearance by Big Daddy Don Garlits! It was the greatest show on wheels! wheels!

Finally, the article on Bobby Allison was strangely timed. He was in the midst of a prolonged slump, and the article indicated that there were retirement rumors surrounding him. Narrator: he did not retire. In fact, the best was yet to come. In the following years he would win 3 Daytona 500’s as well as a cup title, and he was one of the participants in the post-race brawl at the 1979 Daytona race that shone a huge national spotlight on the sport. Allison, who passed away just last month, currently stands in 4th place on the all-time victory list.

The Ballot Countdown

Newcomer #8 Hanley Ramirez - Because the last decade or so of his career was fairly meh it’s easy to forget just how good of a player Hanley Ramirez was in his first 4 seasons. He won a Rookie of the Year award, was a runner-up for MVP - one of 3 consecutive years in which he finished in the top 11 of the vote - completed each of those years with an OPS above .900, and earned 1 batting title to boot. His advanced numbers were just as strong. In that 4 year period he had an average bWAR of 5.8 and an average OPS+ of 138.

But 4 years do not a Hall of Fame career make. His production began to dip at a relatively young age, and he also moved off of shortstop. He went from a big-hitting middle infielder to a slightly above average hitting corner infielder. That is a huge drop in value.

This was still a terrific career that probably deserves more respect than it does. He falls a bit short of nice round number milestones; one more big season and he could have wound up with 2000 hits, 300 home runs, and 1000 RBI’s, but he didn’t reach any of those marks. His career rate stats look much better - an .847 OPS & a 124 OPS+. That’s impressive.

Holdover #8 Mark Buehrle - Buehrle is not dissimilar from Andy Pettitte. Both were durable left handed pitchers who had long careers in which they were consistently among the better starters in the American League, a slight notch below the upper echelon. Buehrle was an absolute workhorse; he started at least 30 games in 15 consecutive seasons and his final season was the only of those in which he failed to tally 200 innings pitched. In that year he threw 198.2. Slacker.

He also accumulated a few bonus points in his career. He was one of the top fielding pitchers of his time, winning 4 Gold Gloves. He threw a perfect game. And he was an exceptionally fast worker; there would not have been as much of a need for a pitch clock had more pitchers worked at his pace.

He falls short of the Hall because he just wasn’t elite enough; in fact, he only earned Cy Young votes once in his career. 214 victories with a career ERA+ of 117 are nice totals, but not HOF level.

It’s Been… One Week

Last Sunday morning I thought to myself that a perfect day would have meant that I would go to bed knowing that Dick Allen was now a Hall of Famer and that Juan Soto was now a Met. Done and done. I also appreciate that the Mets (unintentionally?) exorcised the LOLMets hashtag when they sent out the official photo of Soto signing his contract. It’s almost as if they decided to tell The Internets that they can have one final laugh at the Mets’ expense. This makes it look like the deal was sealed after a game of Skee-Ball. In this case he didn’t cash in his tickets for a stuffed animal, he cashed it in for $765 million.

Kidding aside, as if it weren’t already obvious that the Wilpon Method of running a franchise is a thing of the past this clinches it. My dream at the beginning of the season was that Soto would enjoy playing in New York, but not necessarily with the Yankees. Well… as it turns out I’m not delusional. As many factors that come into play when a free agent decides on a team, total dollars offered are reasons #1, 2, & 3. Yet I can’t help but believe that the pivot that Mets vibes took in the second half of the season changed everything. Regardless of how much money was on the table, would you want to make that sort of commitment to a team whose primary image was that of Jorge Lopez tossing his glove into the stands? The Grimace/OMG Met squad is a much more enticing atmosphere to wish to be a part of.

As for the money, yeah, that’s a lot. (I’m not going to get into the macro “athletes are overpaid” argument. Yes, there are countless jobs that are more important for which people deserve to be paid more. But sports generate billions in revenue, and the athletes who create that value deserve to be paid accordingly.) It’s basically built into every huge contract that the owners understand the last few years of the deal could be painful as players age and decline. The hope is that they produce enough in the early part of the contract that it pays off in the front half - especially if that results in a title or two.

So, yes, of course the thought of a 36 year old Juan Soto earning $50 million is not ideal. On the other hand, if revenues explode - and they very well could once MLB lines up streaming deals - $50 million could almost seem quaint. In addition, even if you believe in following the Fangraphs formula of how much each point in WAR translates to dollars, the numbers don’t fully add up. As great as Soto has been, and as great as he promises to be in the future being that his skill set is one that traditionally ages well, it will be tough to result in $765 million worth of value. That’s not the point. His presence will improve the lineup considerably, and that added value which he will bring to the franchise is immeasurable. I already shudder to think how tough it will be to get tickets to Mets games next season or how long those lines at Shake Shack are gonna be. I suppose a midweek game in April is a possibility, any weekend game is sure to be a sellout.

It’s early in the offseason, so the team still has a lot of work to do. At least one bat (bring back Alonso?) and at least one more starting pitcher are necessary, along with the continuing search for bullpen arms. But boy is it a good feeling to have such legitimate optimism about the Mets, both short and long term. Spring training can’t come quickly enough. LFGM!

Reviewing Olympic Sports

Weightlifting - As difficult as it may be to believe now, there was a time when ABC devoted a significant portion of its Olympic coverage - as well as on Wide World Of Sports - to weightlifting. More specifically, on the super heavyweight division. There were two chief reasons for this, both due to the dominance of Vasily Alekseyev. Not only has it been a longstanding policy of the networks to focus on the occasional international athlete who is so great that they cannot be ignored, but Alekseyev was the perfect man for his time. When the Olympics served as a proxy battle in the Cold War, who better than a man who personified the image of a silent Soviet strongman?

The networks quickly lost interest in weightlifting following Alekseyev’s retirement, and now it’s only shown if there is an open half hour window on the USA network schedule. It doesn’t help that it’s not a very spectator friendly sport. The format isn’t like that of, say a pole vault competition or the manner in which weightlifting was conducted on the old Superstars TV show. It’s not an elimination type of sport, in which each lifter must lift an ever increasing amount of weight with failed lifts knocking each out until there is only one left.

Instead, there are 2 separate segments consisting of 2 different techniques. The names of each appeal to the inner 12 year old in all of us. The 2 are the snatch (athlete lifts the weight from the floor to over the head in one motion) and the clean and jerk (athlete lifts the weight to their chin and then stands up and uses a second motion to complete the lift.) They gets 3 tries in each technique, the heaviest successfully completed lift in each counts as their score and whoever totals the most weight from those 2 scores is the winner.

This means that it is extraordinarily difficult for a surprise winner to emerge. If you are the 7th ranked lifter in your weight class you know going in to the competition how much weight you can reasonably expect to lift. But so do your competitors. The only way to place above your rankings is if one of the favorites fails, not if you do something special. The chief appeal of the Olympics is to see the very best in the world validate their greatness on a world stage, but there is also a special place for those who create unexpected magic. Just from an American standpoint there are so many Olympians - think of Billy Mills, or Bill Johnson, or Rulon Gardner - who had the greatest day of their lives at the perfect time. A “where did this come from?” moment isn’t impossible in weightlifting, but the chances are miniscule.

In addition, weightlifting is a sport that has long had a serious steroid problem. Its place in the Olympic program has been tenuous for some time, and were it not for its deep roots in the Ancient Greek games, it could very well have gotten the ax by now. As it is, it’s near the bottom of the current Olympic hierarchy, and is a sport that is not on my radar either. I did not watch a single moment of it in Paris, and I do not expect that to change going forward.

50 Years Ago - A Personal Milestone

Months ago when I wrote about the movie Earthquake I mentioned that it was the first time I went to see a movie in a theater without any adult or older sibling supervision. 1974 produced another first for me. That year was also the first time I purchased a record. I already had a small collection, but it consisted entirely of records that I had gotten as birthday or Christmas gifts. It was not until now that I walked over to Modern Records and plunked down allowance money to purchase a 45 single for myself.

I wish I could say that at that young age my musical tastes were already so refined that I spent my money on something adventurous. Sadly, that’s not the case. My first record instead was exactly the type of single that you would expect an 8 year old kid to like.

The Streak was a silly little novelty record written and recorded by Ray Stevens, who built much of his career on precisely the type of records that would receive a lot of airplay on Dr. Demento’s show. He would have the occasional hit that broke through big, such as this one. I might be a little embarrassed over owning this, but I wasn’t alone. It actually spent 3 weeks at #1 on the Hot 100.

The song capitalized on the streaking craze of the time, and it contained lyrics that would make a child giggle. “He’s just in the mood to run in the nude.” “He’s always making news, wearing just his tennis shoes.” I do have to admit that “he likes to turn the other cheek” probably went over my head at the time.

Rest assured, my musical taste approved as I grew older. Now one more time for those of you who may have forgotten this classic.

Closing Laughs

That will be all for today. Thanks for tuning in and we will be back with an all-new edition on Wednesday. Have a great day you good people.