The Baseball Digest Archive

May 1979

There is so much interesting content in this week’s featured issue, so let’s get right to it.

There are some terrific choices on the most-underrated players list, including guys such as Jose Cruz and Al Oliver whom I have previously spoken of. Roy White just might be the single most underrated Yankee of my lifetime. Even the honorable mention section has some great names. Sixto Lezcano! Don Money! In addition, this 1979 season was the year in which Keith Hernandez went on to share the NL MVP award with Willie Stargell. He would no longer be an underrated player.

You have to feel bad for Dennis Leonard; he really tempted fate by saying that his goal was to make the Hall Of Fame. I don’t think he was really on a HOF track. He won 20 games 3 times, but none of his peripherals were much to write home about. He had relatively high ERA’s even in his best seasons. He racked up high totals of innings pitched, but the injuries that ultimately cut his career short had nothing to do with a heavy workload. He once suffered two broken fingers in his pitching hand after he was hit by a line drive. The more devastating blow was a torn patellar tendon; he missed almost two full seasons (he only pitched 2 innings in 1985) and was ineffective when he finally returned.

The 40 best fielding shortstops of all time. Seeing that this issue came out in 1979 tells us two things. First, that Ozzie Smith will be nowhere to be seen on the list. 1978 was his rookie season, and although his defensive brilliance was immediately apparent, it was waaaaaay too early to make such a judgement on his defensive ranking. Second, at this time analysis of defense began and ended with fielding percentage. This 40 best list was simply a listing of the shortstops with the highest career fielding percentage, with no extra points giving for range, arm strength, etc. Among the top ranked players here were such well known defenders as Mark Belanger and Dal Maxvill, but #1 was Larry Bowa. I have no recollection if there was a consensus pick for the top defensive shortstop at the time the way that Ozzie is now, but I’m confident in saying that it wasn’t Bowa.

As I have looked back on these old issues, I find myself wondering to what extend the magazine served as an unofficial house organ for major league owners. An article about the biggest free agent flops almost feels like it’s saying “look how overpayed these guys are.” To be fair, the six listed - Andy Messersmith, Don Gullett, Joe Rudi, Ron Blomberg, Oscar Gamble, and Wayne Garland - all severely underperformed due to injury, age, or both. But the article mentioned other names as well, including Bobby Grich. That was premature; he rebounded and over the next several years he went on to solidify a career that merits HOF consideration. In addition, I will not stand for any Oscar Gamble slander.

The article on computer data focused on one of the game’s true iconoclasts, Mike Marshall. He won the 1974 NL Cy Young after a season in which he not only led the league in saves, but he also appeared in more than 100 games and threw more than 200 innings. As a reliever! He always marched to the beat of his own drum and insisted that pitchers are trained incorrectly. He offered his own career as proof of concept. He knew what he was doing, so as long as everyone followed his lead they would obviously replicate his durability. I remember years after his retirement watching a profile on him in which he showed radical motions that he was teaching young pitchers, insisting that he had found the secret of injury avoidance. None of that took; IIRC the motion he was teaching looked so awkward that I felt pain just watching it. In this article, he placed himself at the forefront of applying data to improve performance. I thing this quote is very wise. “You have to blend the scientific with the intuitive. The computer is only as smart as the person programming it.”

Finally, a word on Billy Herman. Largely forgotten to the casual fan today, he was elected to the Hall Of Fame in 1975, and deservedly so. He wasn’t as good as the quartet of the greatest second basemen of the pre-integration era - Collins, Gehringer, Hornsby, and Lajoie - he ranks up there with Frankie Frisch at the top of the next level down. He’s a perfect example of why it’s so important to honor players like him in the Hall. The Hall loves to mention that stat which states that only the top 1% of players in major league history have made the Hall. Herman was absolutely in that 1%, and while he may not have hit one of those magical milestones or produced a historic World Series moment (he was a Cub after all) that plaque will always hang in the gallery. Take a look at next year’s induction ceremony when the returning Hall Of Famers step on the stage. There are going to be several men who will someday fade from memory just like Billy Herman has. That is not a reflection on their worthiness.

An Anti-Climactic Final Month?

“More football? Oh s***! F***ing bull****! Baseball, that’s what I want to watch! - Juan Uribe

New York Mets - 30.1%. Boston Red Sox - 17.1%. As I write this, those are the only 2 teams currently out of playoff position who have playoff odds above 10% according to Fangraphs. That’s not to say that the playoff field is essentially set already; they do have to play the actual games after all. There’s always a chance that some club could go on a run similar to what the Rockies went on at the end of the 2007 season. Still, the contenders and presenters really separated themselves from each other. That stretch from a couple of months ago when it seemed that every National League team was within two games of each other is a long distant memory. (Note: I checked the new playoff odds this morning. Following yesterday’s results, the Mets’ odds have risen to 36.7% and the Sox have dropped to 14.4%.)

This has been an odd season. We’ve grown used to seeing extremes at both ends, and at the bottom of the barrel this year it’s not just the White Sox. (I’m trying to resist piling on, but not only are they behind the pace of the 1962 Mets, but now that they are in the midst of yet another double digit losing streak, they are also lagging behind the 1916 Philadelphia A’s. Those A’s played in the age of the 154 game season, so even though the Mets lost more games, the A’s have the worst winning percentage of the modern era.) The Rockies & Marlins are also both on 100 loss paces. They are in a tight battle to see which will be the first NL team officially eliminated. That will happen in the next day or two.

You would think that there would be a corresponding number of teams on track to win 100, but that’s not the case. Each of the top dogs in the league have gone through prolonged stretches in which they looked unbeatable, but have also gone through similar stretches of playing .500 ball. It’s as if they been running in quicksand. The team with the league’s best record, the Dodgers are on pace to win “only” 97 games. In short, there is no obvious superteam this year, plus there is the now-standard problem. Which teams have enough pitchers still standing that could get them through October? The playoffs could be even more of a crapshoot than normal.

Even if the race to the playoffs could be lacking in excitement, there are still plenty of reasons to stay tuned. Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge are both in the midst of historic seasons. Bobby Witt Jr. has taken his budding stardom to a whole new level. It’s been a joy to see Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knock the hell out of the ball again. And in a roster move that makes us all feel old, when the rosters expanded on Sunday, the Nationals promoted Darren Baker to the big leagues. Yes, the same Darren Baker whom J.T. Snow rescued from a potential home plate collision when he was serving as a bat boy in the 2002 World Series.

Last but not least, a few words about my New York Mets, who now sit a mere half game out of the last wild card spot, something I could have never imagined three months ago. They just went through a brutal stretch of the season; 10 consecutive games against the Orioles, Padres, and Diamondbacks. They managed that gauntlet quite well, going 6-4 in those games. They ate their vegetables and were rewarded with ice cream; a series at Guaranteed Win Field to take on the White Sox. We Met fans live in constant dread that the inevitable other shoe will drop at any time. I admit that it would be Classic Mets to have dropped two out of three in that series, but the team successfully completed that sweep. This is where I would love to say that they’re a dangerous squad if they make it to October. That pitching staff is somewhat shaky, like virtually every playoff contender, I have no idea how they will be able to put together a staff that could hold up for an entire month.

Reviewing Olympic Sports

The official Olympic website classified 45 separate sports in the Paris program of events. No wonder it’s impossible for even the most committed viewer to keep up with everything. Like everyone else I needed to pick and choose. (I suppose I could have also gone without sleep for two and a half weeks, but I wouldn’t recommend that as a healthy decision.) I decided that as a fun little experiment I’ll go through each of those 45 and essentially review the sports. Among the questions I’ll attempt to answer: Are they entertaining? How interested am I in following them between Olympic cycles? Let it begin.

3x3 Basketball - This sport was my top find following its introduction in Tokyo. It’s fast paced and action packed, with each game completed in less than a half hour, making it an easy watch. It lost a bit of appeal this time around; the quality of play was much lower. It looked a bit too much like any pickup game I used to play in when I was still physically capable of playing basketball. So many missed shots; both open jumpers and gimmes under the basket. It reminded me of little more than a sweaty Phillip Seymour Hoffmann.

I’ll give it another chance in Los Angeles, and I’ll probably take a peek at next year’s World Cup. One issue is that because of eligibility rules, it’s difficult for NBA players to qualify. That’s why the American team included Jimmer Fredette and yet another one of Rick Barry’s sons, (In case you were wondering, he did indeed shoot his free throws underhanded.) competing against teams full of Eastern European men with inordinate amounts of body hair.

Archery - In many ways this is the ideal Olympic sport that I can briefly enjoy and then ignore it for the next 3 years. The medal matchups take less than 15 minutes to complete, so it’s an easy sport to briefly sample. I really admire the way the athletes are able to slow their heart rate and block out all outside stimulus so that they can focus on those bullseyes.

One thing that always strikes me is the shooting pose. The archers hold the bow so taught against the nose & chin; shooting thousands and thousands of arrows over the course of one’s career can produce quite the facial calluses. I noticed that a few of the archers sport huge bandages on their chin as protection; others have quite noticeable chin scars. It’s the archery equivalent of a wrestler’s cauliflower ears.

Some Perspective

In 2002, the following men won the 4 major tennis titles: Thomas Johansson, Albert Costa, Lleyton Hewitt, and Pete Sampras. I mention this not because this is the tennis version of Remembering Some Guys. That is because 2002 was the last year in which neither Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, nor Novak Djokovic won a major. Until now. Late Friday night, Djokovic lost in the third round of the US Open. This doesn’t completely close the book on this golden era; Djokovic is absolutely still capable of winning a major. But this is clearly yet another reminder that Father Time is undefeated. Even the greatest of them all eventually step aside to make room for a new generation.

To put this in perspective, this is how long ago the pre-Big 3 era was. In 2002, Kenan Thompson had yet to join the cast of SNL. That’s how long. We can even extend this streak further. If you include Serena Williams to make a Big 4, she won a major in 2002, pushing that timeline back an additional year. One more. Add Venus Williams to the mix and 1998 was the last year in which there was no major winner not named Williams, Federer, Nadal, or Djokovic. That was so long ago that Mariska Hargitay had not yet begun to portray Olivia Benson. Bottom line, this has been an astonishing run of prolonged dominance from a group of historically great tennis players.

50 Years Ago - The Longest Yard

I initially wrote about The Longest Yard when I rewatched it last year, but being that it was one of the biggest movies from 1974 it’s worth a revisit. After all, it inspired a parody in Mad magazine. If that’s not a sign of a movie’s significance, then nothing is.

Comparing the original version with the Adam Sandler remake illustrates the contrast between the two eras. The Burt Reynolds version was of its time; it was a hard boiled drama with comedic undercurrents. The Sandler version showed little interest in hitting a serious tone; it was a fairly broad comedy. That was most obvious with one of the key plot points; the sudden murder of a likable character. In the Reynolds version the scene is shocking and horrifying, especially considering the fact that the other characters witnessed the brutal manner in which the character died. Even taking into account the fact that these men are all hardened criminals, it must have been terribly traumatizing to witness. The scene did fit in with the tone of the rest of the movie. In the Sandler version, the incident in question was much more jarring. What is this scene doing in the middle of a yuck fest? It didn’t fit.

Not much more to add to what I had previously said other than to mention that this is a perfect example of what was so wonderful about movies from the 1970’s. Yes, it was a crowd pleaser, but it had a lot of depth to it. This was a time period when studios were sometimes more willing to trust the filmmaker and trust the story. There was no need to shoehorn an awkward or inappropriate happy ending. Plus, even though Paul Crewe was a character with the innate Burt Reynolds charm, the movie acknowledged his dark side. He was a complex man; not a one-dimensional bad guy, but there was no hiding the fact that he belonged in prison. And yet, in true us against the world fashion, the villain of the piece was the warden. The greatest football movie of the decade? No, that would be Dallas North Forty. This one comes close, however.

Closing Laughs

That brings us to the end of yet another day. Hope the holiday weather was great wherever you were & you were able to fully enjoy the long weekend. See you once again tomorrow.