The Baseball Digest Archive 5/78

May 1978

I found it interesting that the cover blurb on this issue proclaimed Cesar Cedeno as the game’s best all-around center fielder. A strong argument could be made that this was the case in 1978, but my memory of the time is that many regarded him as a disappointment; partially due to the fact that playing his home games in the Astrodome kept his home run totals low. Analysts in that era payed little attention to park factors. Still, at his peak he was a perfect example of a five-tool talent; little did anyone know that his prime years were almost done. At the time of this issue he had recently signed a 10 year contract with the Astros. “I’ll play here forever.” Well, he suffered through an injury-plagued 1978 in his age 27 season. He only had one more strong season in his career, & Houston traded him away following the 1981 season.

This month’s issue was very stat-heavy; the last 30 pages consisted almost entirely of the career statistics for each active player. As a result, the issue is relatively light on written content. Pete Rose went into the season only 34 hits shy of 3000; the impetus for the article comparing Rose to Ty Cobb was not because the editors felt that he would one day break Cobb’s career hits record. Instead it was the fact that in 1977 Rose tied a different record that Cobb held; most seasons with 200 hits. Rose would break that record in 1979. Ichiro Suzuki has since matched Rose’s record of 10 seasons with more than 200 hits; in Ichiro’s case he accomplished it in consecutive seasons.

Another record that a then active player was making a run on was the mark for most career pinch hits. Smoky Burgess held the record at the time, but Manny Mota was gradually making progress and stood in second place at the time. Mota would go on to surpass Burgess in 1979, although he too has been passed himself and now stands in third behind Lenny Harris and Mark Sweeney. See more on Mota below.

There are back to back articles on future Hall Of Fame catchers. Carlton Fisk caught 151 games in 1977, an unusually heavy workload. The article compared Fisk to several other great catchers from the past. The only HOF catcher to catch more than 150 in a single season (keep in mind that the 162 game schedule was not in place during the careers of most of the past greats) was Ray Schalk, and he only did that once. The Ted Simmons article speculated on his chances of winning a batting title some day, being that he had already hit over .300 5 times. He continued to mash in the succeeding years, but he never quite managed to win a batting crown.

A lengthy article focused on the story of Ryne Duren. I’m not sure how well known he is these days, but he was famous for having been one of the hardest throwers the game had ever seen. He was done in by his inability to control that blazing fastball as well as a debilitating case of alcoholism. In retirement he had straightened out his life, having been sober for years and working as a counselor. Once again the magazine wrapped up that year’s Hall of Fame vote, this time with a feature on newly elected executive Larry MacPhail, along with a side article on the elections of Eddie Mathews and Addie Joss. It still boggles my mind that Mathews had to wait until his 5th year of eligibility. You have to wonder what voters were possibly thinking.

The Ballot Countdown

Newcomer #14 - Fernando Rodney. Once again I reiterate that it is no insult whatsoever to place someone at the bottom of the Hall of Fame ballot. To put together a career significant enough to even make it onto the ballot is a tremendous achievement. That said, somebody has got to be #14, and Fernando Rodney it is. This is partially because I raise the bar pretty highly for a relief pitcher. Rodney led the league in saves once, and was generally among the league leaders, but he had the classic profile of a modern closer. He bounced around the league A LOT, pitching for 11 teams in total, almost always for only a season or two. The Tigers were the only team for whom he pitched more than 2 seasons. You also see the pendulum swinging widely throughout his career; there are several poor seasons interspersed among his stronger ones.

He currently ranks 19th on the career saves list, but at the same time his career ERA of 3.80 is subpar, and his career ERA+ of 110 is rather meh. And yet, there are aspects of his personality which will ensure that his memory will live on. Just hearing his name conjures memories of his distinctive sideways cap style, as well as his famous shooting the arrow gesture upon completion of a save. Baseball is a game, it’s supposed to be fun. Fernando Rodney was the type of guy who provided some of that fun.

Holdover # N/A - Manny Ramirez. I’ll treat the 2 notable names on the ballot with PED connections separately. Briefly, both Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez are about as obvious as Hall of Famers get, but… In what A-Rod had once infamously described as a loosey goosey era, PED’s were technically illegal but the league basically looked the other way. Ramirez was caught when there was testing and punishment in place. In all honesty, I don’t have a problem if steroid users make it in, but in the unlikely event that happens the first to go in should be Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, being that when they played MLB tacitly sanctioned usage. Later generations can’t make that same excuse.

Which is too bad, because Manny Ramirez was a spectacular hitter. In addition to being one of the game’s signature stars and an annual playoff presence (he won World Series MVP for the historic 2004 Red Sox) he led the AL in slugging, on base percentage, and OPS thrice each, along with earning batting, home run, and RBI titles once each. He finished in the top 10 of the MVP vote 9 times, 8 of those consecutively.

There was also the whole “Manny being Manny” vibe, which could be amusing at times, exhausting at others. There have been few characters like him, for better or worse. And let us not speak of his defense or his baserunning; he certainly cost his teams a run or two here and there from his deficiencies in those departments. Make no mistake, however, his bat more than made up for any of that. In a vacuum, his election should be a no-brainer. In reality, the other factors will keep him out. If I had an actual vote, I would love to check his name, but those PED related suspensions make it impossible to do so.

Recent Losses

A few famous people have passed away over the past several days that are worth noting. I will begin with Jim Abrahams. He teamed up with Jerry & David Zucker to form the Kentucky Fried Theater, with the team soon writing/directing/producing the cult classic Kentucky Fried Movie, and then later, Airplane! which was simply one of the funniest movies ever made. In later years the 3 would team up for other movies such as Top Secret! & Ruthless People. And their other major contribution to pop culture came with the short lived TV series Police Squad! (they sure loved exclamation points) which years later inspired the beloved Naked Gun trilogy. The 3 would go their separate ways and work on solo projects, but they were never as strong apart as they were together. Oh, and the Manny Mota reference I referred to earlier? That echo joke in Airplane! always bugged me. Mota and Pedro Borbon were never teammates, so the former couldn’t have possibly pinch hit for the latter. Unless they were teammates in winter league ball. If so, my apologies. Abrahams was 80.

When I was a kid, Rico Carty’s baseball card was one of the first which did not make any sense to me. Why were there gaps on the back of that card? He missed the entire 1968 & 1971 seasons. The latter absence was particularly puzzling. He hit .366 for Atlanta in 1970 after all. What happened, why didn’t he play the next season? I later learned the reasons. He had to sit out ‘68 because he was suffering from tuberculosis, and a serious knee injury idled him for all of ‘71. That was the one which really damaged his career. This occurred before arthroscopic surgery was routine, so it was an open surgical procedure. Never a fast runner beforehand (he only stole 21 bases in a 15 year MLB career and was thrown out 26 times) whatever limited mobility he had was gone. A trade to Texas in 1973 proved to be a godsend. Perfectly suited to be a designated hitter, with the exception of a brief stint with the Cubs he remained in the American League for the remainder of his career. And boy, could he hit. He fell just short of a .300 career batting average, along with an OPS+ of 132. That’s impressive. One of the earliest Dominican star players in the majors, Rico Carty died at the age of 85.

Legendary St. John’s basketball coach Louie Carnesecca died just over a month shy of his 100th birthday. He was the head coach at St. John’s for 24 seasons and they made it to either the NCAA or the NIT tournament in every one of those seasons, reaching the Final Four in 1985. He was about as Noo Yawk as it gets with his signature raspy voice and he was one of the true characters of the game. It tends to bug me the way that broadcasters like to overly exult over coaches in college sports, but if they’re gonna make someone the face of the game anyway, Louie was as good of a choice as any. He was one of the 4 OG Big East coaches along with John Thompson, Jim Boeheim, and Rollie Massimino who were instrumental in building the Big East into a college basketball powerhouse. And in a classic case in not appreciating what you’ve got, Carnesecca sometimes faced criticism for being more of a great recruiter than a great in-game coach. Well, St. John’s has only had intermittent success following his retirement. He was obviously doing something right to entice that much talent to commit to what was then still a commuter school. Plus, he earned bonus points for turning ugly sweaters into a fashion statement. The guy was an absolute treasure.

Reviewing Olympic Sports

Triathlon - Triathlon is another Olympic sport that I enjoy it enough to at least take a look at it but not enough to watch it all the way through (fast forward button comes in handy) or to pay any attention to it in the off years. Olympians do not compete in the Ironman distances, but it is still a remarkable achievement to complete the event. And I’m not even taking into account the factors that were specific to Paris - the strong currents in the Seine and the bacteria levels found in the river.

Volleyball - I had mentioned this when I discussed beach volleyball, but I actually prefer the indoor variety. It’s easier to run and jump on a hardwood floor than it is on sand, which means that the athletes can more easily showcase their explosive speed and insane vertical leaps. And volleyball athletes have some of the most amazing reflexes that you will see in any sport.

On the other hand, volleyball has some of the same drawbacks that tennis does. The matches are best 3 out of 5 sets, so there is no way to know ahead of time exactly how long a match is going to last. That makes it tough to budget how much of my time I want to spend with a volleyball match, as much as I enjoy watching it. That’s not as much of a problem with the gold medal matches. They take place in the closing weekend, when the event schedule has gotten considerably lighter. It’s not a big deal to watch a complete match. On a related note, it wasn’t that long ago that points could only be earned by the team that is serving. That led to marathon matches that were often excruciating. 5 hour long matches were not unheard of. Now it’s much more reasonable and no longer a test of endurance for athlete and spectator alike.

50 Years Ago - Second Helping

After helpfully teaching everyone the correct pronunciation of the band’s name on their debut album (which people STILL don’t get right) Lynyrd Skynyrd returned to offer the world a second helping in 1974. This sophomore album cemented their position as arguably the greatest Southern Rock band in history. Don’t @ me with The Allman Brothers; they were a white blues band, not a pure Southern Rock band.

The strength of Skynyrd, in addition to Ronnie Van Zant’s uber charisma, was their triple guitar attack. They always gave the sense that they built their songs from the riffs, and the opening riffs throughout this album catch the ear immediately. There is no better example than in the collection’s opening track, Sweet Home Alabama. That simple three note progression has been an easy needle drop for a transition into a commercial break on any sporting event ever since. The liner notes were considerate enough to specify which guitarist performed the solo on each song. For the record, it was Ed King on Sweet Home Alabama. As for a couple of the other classics on this album, it’s Allen Collins on The Needle and the Spoon and Gary Rossington on Call Me the Breeze. The band spread the wealth well.

It’s a tight, concise 8 song collection, and virtually every song has become either a classic rock standard or a staple of a standard Skynyrd concert set list. Think of Don’t Ask Me No Questions or Workin’ For MCA. My one quibble about Lynyrd Skynyrd has been the intensity with which they have embraced uncomfortable iconography; particularly the Confederate flag. But at least in these years they couldn’t be easily placed in a box. Remember, in Sweet Home Alabama they follow up the “in Birmingham they love the Governor” with a reply of “boo, boo, boo.” And The Ballad Of Curtis Loew was a compassionate look at a working class African-American blues singer.

There are lots of significant names to be found here beyond the members of Skynyrd. Al Kooper produced the record. Bobby Keys was one of the horn players on Call Me the Breeze. And yes, one of the backing vocalists heard on Sweet Home Alabama was the legend herself, Merry Clayton.

The album consists of all Skynyrd originals with the exception of the closing track, a cover version of J.J. Cale’s Call Me the Breeze. That is such a perfect album closer, the horn section rocks. In a world in which Free Bird did not exist, this would have made for an ideal closer for their shows. Lynyrd Skynyrd still had several highlights in their future before their story turned tragic. It’s not just that 3 members would be killed in a plane crash; several others would die young over the years. The band still tours, but all 7 members from this album have since passed.

Closing Laughs

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that any dinner table discussions did not get too heated. Have a great day and I will see you again on Wednesday.