The Baseball Digest Archive 4/79

April 1979

This month’s issue was dubbed the Annual Player Facts Issue, which was just a fancy way of saying 1979 season preview. It contained the standard array of spring training rosters, season predictions, etc. The magazine went 0 for 4 in successfully predicting the division winners, but to be fair they did not know at the time that Sister Sledge would inspire the Pirates all the way to the World Series.

My favorite article this month tabulated the results of a major league survey. The magazine surveyed players, managers, writers, & broadcasters on a wide variety of topics. It did not specify exactly how many responses they received, but it is still a fascinating snapshot in time and some of the results raise an eyebrow. First off, this spells out once again just how good Dwight Evans was, winning both best AL defensive outfielder and best outfield arm. The most surprising was the fact that Johnny Bench was nowhere to be seen in the best throwing catcher vote, or that Ted Simmons, whose defensive reputation always suffered in comparison to Bench, finished a close second behind Gary Carter in that vote. One likely explanation for Bench’s absence came from Lou Boudreau, who mentioned that Bench suffered from an elbow injury in the 1978 season which hampered his throwing. The respondents whiffed in their choices for best managerial prospect. Sal Bando was a GM for several years, so they did correctly predict that he would have a successful post-playing career, just not in the position that was anticipated. But Steve Garvey? With all those kids, where would he have found the time to manage?

The Willie Mays article was written in conjunction with the fact that this was the year he was elected to the Hall of Fame. The accompanying chart which included the vote totals irks me. No matter how many times I see it I just can’t understand how 23 voters looked at his career and said, “nope.” Even more outrageous than the 23 voters who passed over Mays was the 1 who voted for Hal Lanier. I swear, if that vote came from one of the Mays naysayers I’m going to fire up my flux capacitor, go back to 1979, and smack that guy silly. There’s also this. Look at the top 13 vote getters on the left column. 11 of them were eventually elected. I’m a broken record on this point, but who does it serve to make people wait year after year for the honor? Current voters have been noticeably more amenable to voting players in promptly, so that’s less of an issue than it used to be. I’ll also say that only 20 votes for Ken Boyer is outrageous. He should be in; he might have a chance this year. More on this year’s vote below.

The batter who pinch hit for both Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski was Carroll Hardy, and the article about him stuck with me all these years later. He’s one of my go-to names on Immaculate Grid when I’m searching for a good score.

Finally, Baseball Digest would intermittently fill space with a compilation of some of longtime Padres play-by-play man Jerry Coleman’s greatest gaffes. This one doesn’t include his bigger classics - “Rich Folkers is throwing up in the bullpen.” “Winfield leaps for the ball! He hits his head on the outfield fence! It’s rolling towards the infield!” - but there are some great ones here nonetheless.

The Free Agent Frenzy (?) Begins

The 5 day period in which free agents are only allowed to negotiate with their current club ends today at 5PM, so everyone from Juan Soto on down will be eligible to sign at any moment. Take a chill pill, however. Since there is no salary cap in MLB there is no rush to sign. If this were the NBA or the NFL, within 5 minutes of the buzzer going off we would hear reports of virtually every big name reaching agreement on a contract. In MLB the process will drag out for weeks, if not months. Bottom line, it’s doubtful that Soto will have chosen a team by Thanksgiving. More likely we will need to wait until the winter meetings in early December for resolution. The larger question is if the sport will be in a holding pattern until Soto makes his decision, or if enough clubs recognize they are out of the running and turn their attention elsewhere.

Today is also the day that the Hall of Fame will release the 8 names on this year’s Eras Committee ballot. This year’s ballot is for what they classify as the Classic Baseball Era - any player, manager, executive, or umpire who made their greatest impact on the game before 1980. Or to put it another way, the screening committee must somehow narrow down more than 100 years of the game’s history into only 8 people. When you take into account that MLB has officially incorporated the Negro Leagues into the official record, you can see what an impossible task this is going to be. I’ll have more to say when we see what the actual ballot looks like. It’s safe to say that Dick Allen - who fell an agonizing one vote shy on each of last two ballots for which he was eligible, including once when he was still alive - will be one of the 8, but beyond that I won’t even hazard a guess.

One More Day

I have an odd feeling that as of Wednesday morning I will stop receiving multiple texts and emails from James Carville. It’s almost as if he doesn’t actually care all that much about me after all.

I have made a concerted effort throughout the campaign to avoid getting emotionally invested in the polls, whether any of them holds good news or bad. Among the many lessons I learned in 2016 was to assume nothing. But I did use a coping mechanism whenever rough numbers would come out. I am still convinced that pollsters are failing to take post-Dobbs reality into account. For example, late last week a Times/Siena poll came out which once again said that the race is a tie, as is virtually every swing state. But if you look at the methodology it presupposed that turnout would DROP for females 18-29. Absolutely not. There is no scenario in the current climate in which younger women are going to stay away from voting.

Which leads to the Iowa numbers that dropped Saturday evening, showing Harris with a 3 point lead in that state. The Des Moines Register poll has long been regarded as the most accurate, giving a lot more credence to that data. It’s no coincidence that a woman, Ann Selzer, is the pollster in Iowa. If this poll is as accurate as it has traditionally been, it’s huge. Even in the likely event that you know who still manages to win Iowa, the fact that Harris is running so well in Iowa is a great harbinger for the blue wall states that she needs to win. I’m assuming nothing, but I’m now a lot more confident that I will have a restful night’s sleep Tuesday; and that the Dems will retake the House. On a related note, another lesson I have learned is that incumbency is very powerful when it comes to the Senate. Time and again I’ve gotten my hopes up that a Senator whom I dislike is on track to be sent packing, only to see those hopes dashed when the results come in. So, I’m not sure if I firmly believe that Ted Cruz is actually in trouble. I will, however, do a Snoopy dance if he goes down.

I don’t live in a swing state, so I usually have a respite from the barrage of campaign ads. I rarely see a TV ad for the Presidential race, with the exception of that vile anti-trans ad that ran as frequently as three times per game during the World Series. That truly is a repulsive ad campaign; I have to wonder if it was so over the top that it turned off more voters than it attracted. What I do see are a lot of ads for congressional races. New York contains a number of swing districts which will be instrumental in determining House control. So a massive amount of money has been pumped into the races in those districts. As a result ads for about a half a dozen races have been on a constant loop in this market. How much have those ads monopolized the local airwaves? It’s been weeks since I’ve heard Brian Cox’s voice or seen Rashida Jones’s face on my TV. It’ll feel like old friends returning come Wednesday.

Reviewing Olympic Sports

Skateboarding - Olympic skateboarding consists of two separate events, and even though the two are strikingly similar at first glance, I find one of them much more of a compelling watch than the other. The two are street & park. The best way to differentiate them is to think of snowboarding. Street is a lot like slopestyle, whereas park is akin to halfpipe.

I enjoy park more than I do street. In both of these the competitors have a certain amount of time in which they skate the course and perform tricks on their boards which will hopefully impress the judges. I like park better because it places more pressure on the athletes to perfect the routine. If they fall off the board the heat is over. (In both disciplines each athlete goes on 3 runs; only their best one counts.) In street not only are they able to get back on the board but there is also a second component to the competition. In addition to running the course multiple times they are also judged on a series of separate stunts; this all adds a lot of time to the event, so I lose interest in a while. One other thing - the athletes are awfully young, some are as young as 13. That makes me feel old just thinking about it.

Sport Climbing - This is another sport with two different disciplines. The first one is straightforward and easy to understand; speed. Two competitors face each other head to head in a single elimination bracket tournament. They race up a wall; each heat lasts only a matter of seconds. It’s fast and exciting.

The real Spider-Man stuff comes with the lead/boulder event. In that one, each climber takes a turn climbing up the course; they tally points by how far they are able to make it before slipping. It looks tough enough when it’s shown through the front angle; on occasion the broadcast will cut to the camera shooting from the side angle and you can see how insanely steep the course is. Climbing was first introduced to the Olympic program in Tokyo. I’ve enjoyed what I have seen. That boulder portion is very tense as the athletes climb higher and you can see the fatigue setting in as they reach for the rocks closer to the peak. It’s been a nice addition, with the caveat that so far it has been scheduled in the second week when I start to get a little exhausted from watching so much content.

50 Years Ago - Shazam!

For a couple of important reasons TV shows based on comic books during the 1970’s were generally infantile. First off, at the time decision makers tended to look down on the material. Comic books had begun to become more mature, but TV producers were from the era when comics were still solely written for children, so of course television shows reflected that. Second, these shows had minimal budgets, so sets looked cheap and whatever special effects any show had were primitive.

The Saturday morning live action series based on the Shazam! characters are a case in point. I don’t think I watched more than an episode or two of this one, but it was your basic shoddy children’s program. The sets looked like they were made of styrofoam, and the acting was as broad as possible. In actuality though, if there was any comic IP which warranted this tone, it would have been Shazam!

The character’s history is a bit convoluted, so I’ll try to summarize briefly. The hero was published by Fawcett Comics, later obtained by DC Comics when Fawcett went out of business. For years DC did not use the character very much, due in part to the fact that he had some superficial similarities to Superman, making him somewhat superfluous. In addition, Shazam was not the name of the hero, it was the name of the ancient wizard who gave the hero, named Captain Marvel, his powers. Needless to say, this caused a bit of a copyright hassle with the Marvel Comics hero of the same name. As a result, the Shazam line of heroes basically remained preserved in amber and never matured beyond the childish tone.

That made it ideal for a silly little Saturday morning TV show. It’s one that could be easily forgotten today, but a series of jokes in Archer helped stir some memories of the show. In a handful of episodes Michael Gray, the actor who portrayed Billy Batson on the series, was used as a character. Or, as he was always referred to, TV’s Michael Gray.

The comic book fan in me gets annoyed at people who disrespect the form. Since Shazam was always a comic clearly made for kids, it doesn’t bother me that this show was targeted to that audience as well. For the same reason the tone in the recent Zachary Levi starring movies was appropriate as well. This show is a footnote at best, but it served its purpose, as cheesy as it was.

Closing Laughs

OK everyone, please remain optimistic. See you all again on Wednesday. Let’s hope it will be a happy morning.