The Baseball Digest Archives

April 1984

Let’s begin by answering the question on this issue’s cover. Can Mike Boddicker do it again? He had an impressive rookie season in 1983, culminating with complete game shutouts in both the ALCS & the World Series, winning the ALCS MVP award to boot. He followed it up with his best season in 1984, leading the American League in both victories and ERA. So yes, he did it again.

This issue also served as the 1984 preview, and the magazine correctly predicted 2 of the 4 division winners. They were on target with the 2 eventual pennant winners - the Tigers, who had a dominant wire to wire year, and the Padres, who won the first league championship in franchise history. They whiffed big time on the other two. They picked the AL West winning Royals to finish in 6th, predicting that the team’s core was starting to break down. (A core that would win the World Series the next year.) They also predicted a last place finish for the Cubs, who would go on to win the NL East and reach the postseason for the first time since 1945.

This chart is both historically fascinating and a bit sobering, as the issue contained an article lamenting the drop in complete games. This lists the year by year decline going back to the 1968 season. As you can see, this is another one of those perennial arguments. A 1984 writer is complaining that they just don’t make pitchers like they did in 1968. Wanna bet that there were similar articles written in 1968 asking why pitchers didn’t tally as many complete games as they did in 1952? 1952 writers then had the same complaint and so on and so on. I miss complete games as much as the next guy, but it’s certainly not a new criticism.

The exclusive batting club that Jim Rice was about to join in 1984? The 300 home run/.300 career batting average club. Batting average may have fallen out of favor since, but the list of players who had achieved that mark at the time is pretty impressive - 14 men, all members of the Hall of Fame. (Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Foxx, Williams, Ott, Gehrig, Musial, DiMaggio, Mize, Greenberg, Simmons, Hornsby, Klein.) Rice did in fact hit the number of home runs in 1984 that he needed to join that club, but he dipped under .300 in his final season so he had to return his key to that clubhouse. BTW, 7 additional players have joined that club in the years since this article was written - in addition to the still active Freddie Freeman, there are Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Vladimir Guerrero, Todd Helton, Manny Ramirez, and…. Moises Alou. Mike Trout was until recently part of this group, but his career average dropped below .300 earlier this year.

I’ll close my look at this issue with an article that contains a tinge of sadness. The thought that Bill Doran and Dickie Thon would become a star middle infield was not a reach. Doran had a promising rookie year in 1983 and Thon had already established himself as one of the top hitting shortstops in the game. It changed suddenly when Thon was hit in the face by a pitch early on in the 1984 season. Doran would go on to become a reliably productive second baseman for the next several years, but Thon was never the same player again. He has a place in the What Could Have Been file.

Break Time

It’s All Star break time for MLB, a chance for everyone to take a quick breath before the rush to the trading deadline. It’s also time for my two annual complaints. First, stop with the generic uniforms! When players wore their team threads in the ASG it provided such a wonderful mosaic. Second, when will one of those cowards lay down a bunt during Home Run Derby? No one would ever expect that!

Really, who doesn’t love the above visual?

The Mets have had quite a first half. I’m not saying that I’ve started to obsessively look at the Fangraphs playoff odds each morning, but then again I’m not not saying that. If during Memorial Day weekend you had told me that the Mets would be in a playoff position at the All Star break I would not have believed you. Yet here we are. Never doubt Grimace Power.

As expected, several all-star players have withdrawn from the game, resulting in at least a few of the initially overlooked players to get the call for a trip to the game. There is no need to vent over the selections until now. When all is said & done, most of the deserving players get in. Here and there you can find a Brice Turang or a Brandon Nimmo who really got screwed. It’s sadly unavoidable. There are always going to be more deserving guys than there are available slots.

Finally, I know this would never happen, but here is my out of the box theory to make the game more exciting. The starters are the best players in the game and the people whom the fans want to see, yet most of them are generally removed from the game around the 5th inning. Why not leave the voted starters out at the beginning and then bring them into the game in the 4th? Wouldn’t you rather see Shohei Ohtani or Aaron Judge take an at bat in the 9th? If that won’t work, it’s an exhibition game. Tweak the rules. Have the starters start, bring in a set of backups in the middle of the game so that each can get an at bat, but then allow the big names to reenter the game in the late innings.

And for the record, your current playoff teams at the All-Star break are:

NL - Division leaders - Phillies, Brewers, Dodgers. Wild card - Braves, Cardinals, Mets.

AL - Division leaders - Orioles, Guardians, Mariners. Wild card - Yankees, Twins, Red Sox.

The Doctor & The Fitness Instructor

It seems oddly fitting that Dr. Ruth Westheimer and Richard Simmons died on the same day. Both were among the most frequently seen talk show guests in the 1980’s. Both spoke on important topics and did not seem to care if they were made the butt of jokes; what was important was to get their message out. Both were 100% authentically true to themselves. There was no one else quite like either, a quality that was very effective in making them stand out from the pack.

Dr. Ruth lived quite a life pre-fame. She escaped the Nazis, lost her entire family to the Holocaust, and was a trained sniper. Well into adulthood, having established herself as a professional sex therapist, she started a radio talk show dispensing sexual advice which immediately exploded in popularity. She was a regular presence on both the Carson and Letterman shows, and it was a special treat to watch them squirm as she matter of factly discussed some of the often graphic advice that she provided. The incongruity of hearing such frank talk from a grandmotherly type - she stood well under 5 feet & never lost her heavy accent - was a major part of her appeal, and she put that to good use. She certainly recognized that she could get away with saying things that someone younger could not. Particularly in the 1980’s it was so vitally important to provide honest and accurate information about sex. Her time as a pop culture figure eventually waned, but she continued to work well into her old age. Westheimer was 96.

Simmons built a mini empire; the guy was omnipresent for quite a few years. After losing a massive amount of weight as a young man he brought his physical fitness methods to a mass audience. One of the signature characteristics of his Sweatin’ To the Oldies videos is that they included people of all shapes and sizes. They were aerobic workout routines for literally everyone. He was unabashedly, unapologetically himself. Flamboyant, with his signature tank top and short shorts, his oversized personality was perfect for television. So what if Letterman was never quite sure what to make of him; his appearances gave him the platform to spread his message of healthy living. Simmons was 76.

We also lost Shannen Doherty this weekend. She had been gravely ill for several years, so her death did not come as a huge surprise. Even knowing that, 53 is a tragically young age to pass away. In the wake of the battle over Britney Spears’s conservatorship, there has been a reassessment of the way that young famous women have been treated, and that is the case with Doherty as well. Going back to the earliest days of 90210 there were stories of her being “difficult” or “unlikable.” My defenses go up whenever I hear that. I’ve seen that movie enough times to know that the exact same behavior that brands a man as “driven” is also used as evidence that a woman is a b-word. In Doherty’s case I have no idea if there was fire where the smoke was. But let her legacy be that she starred in two iconic television series. I wasn’t exactly the target demographic for either, so I can’t honestly say that I cared much for either Beverly Hills, 90210 or Charmed. But she will always be a Heather to me.

May You Live In Interesting Times

I’m not going to say much about the events from this past weekend. There’s entirely too much speculation flying around from people who know nothing. I’m certainly not going to add to that. I just want to make a few general points beyond the obvious ones - there is too heavy of a proliferation of guns, particularly with people who should have no business accessing deadly weapons so easily, and the current atmosphere is untenable. It’s one thing to have genuine disagreements, but once it degenerates into branding the other side as vermin or inhuman it has crossed a line.

Whatever disagreements one may have, violence is never ever ever ever ever the solution. I believe with every fiber of my being that a second Trump term would be a catastrophe from which our nation can never recover. Having said that, what happened on Saturday horrified me, whatever the motive of the shooter may be. This also stood out to me. Almost immediately virtually every prominent Democrat condemned the shooting and offered prayers for Trump and his family. Contrast that with the reaction to the attack on Paul Pelosi. The optimist in me wishes that saner voices in the GOP will notice this and try to tamp down on the ugliness. The realist in me recognizes that is unlikely.

50 Years Ago - Chinatown

“Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown.” Robert Towne’s recent death regenerated the talk about his script for Chinatown possibly ranking as the single greatest screenplay ever written. Wherever it does ultimately rate, that script is only one of many elements that made the movie so special. The direction, the casting, the acting, the production design all combined to create an all-time classic.

Inspired by classic film noir, Jack Nicholson stars as J.J. Gittes, your prototypical low rent private detective who finds himself over his head. He becomes ensnared in a murder case involving an engineer for the LA Water Department and the power brokers who diverted the water that helped make Los Angeles a livable city. Faye Dunaway embodied the femme fatale role, with John Huston filling the role of a most devious villain.

This movie has been so embedded in our collective pop culture that I suspect even people who have not seen it - and if you haven’t, what’s taken you so long? - are very familiar with many elements, starting with the iconic closing line. There is also the shocking plot twist in the third act, and the visual of Nicholson setting his vanity aside to appear in a large chunk of the movie with an oversized bandage on his nose.

The movie was directed by Roman Polanski - who appears in a cameo as well - in what would prove to be the final film that he directed in the United States. (Insert separate the artist from the art comment. The reason why he is unable to return to the States is absolutely nauseating.) Let’s ignore Polanski and instead focus on a different legendary director, who served as an actor here. John Huston was outstanding as Noah Cross. Even in his sixties he cut an imposing figure, and that character was a perfect example of the ways in which the rich and powerful can get away with virtually anything.

The 1970’s was such a classic era for American film. (Yes, I know Polanski is Polish, but all of the other creative forces in this movie are American.) One of the reasons is that filmmakers still had a good amount of creative freedom; they could get away with unhappy endings. SPOILER ALERT FOR A 50 YEAR OLD MOVIE! Downbeat endings don’t get much more downbeat than it did here.

Closing Laughs

Today I’m going to be sincere in unironically sharing the old Jerry Springer quote - take care of yourselves and each other. May peace and sanity prevail, and I will see you all again on Wednesday.