The Baseball Digest Archives
January 1985
Baseball Digest issues with a January cover date contained two annual traditions: a wrap up of the previous year’s World Series along with the magazine’s announcement of their Player Of the Year award. The 1984 WS was a relatively drab affair; the Tigers were the class of the league from Opening Day onward, and the Padres were terribly outmatched in the World Series. I never got the sense that they had a chance.
Ryne Sandberg was an easy call for Player of the Year. Combining a productive bat with elite defense at second base, he played a major role in the Cubs breaking a postseason drought that had lasted 39 seasons. It was more than just him, however. A chart in a different article in the magazine showed that the 1984 Cubs were only the 6th team in history with at least 6 men who drove in more than 80 runs. The lineup was filled with batters who hit line drives and kept the line moving.
What to look for in the 1985 major league season? The magazine chose the Mariners, Dodgers, and Yankees as clubs that would make big strides in the next season. Two out of three ain’t bad. The Dodgers would go on to win the NL West in ‘85, and the Yankees made a strong showing in the AL East only to fall short. The Mariners on the other hand finished well back in 1985, finishing 6th in the AL West. Baseball Digest was counting on the likes of Jack Perconte and Bob Kerney to make huge breakthroughs. It didn’t happen.
The magazine once again published an article discussing increasing parity in major league baseball. This one wasn’t wrong. Not only were there 5 different World Series champs in the first 5 years of the 1980’s, but there were 10 different pennant winners. That carousel continued to spin for the rest of the decade; the Dodgers were the only franchise to win the WS twice in the 1980’s.
As for some of the other features in this issue: 1984 was the final season of Jim Palmer’s career, and he ended on a down note. He went winless with an ERA above 9, so the magazine looked at other HOF pitchers who had similar dismal final seasons. On a happier note, this issue also included an interview with Pee Wee Reese a few months after his long overdue induction into the Hall. There are features on two of the game’s young stars. The cover story was on Alan Trammell, who had won the World Series MVP award. 1984 was also Eric Davis’s rookie season. The article in this issue built up his promise; he still struggled a bit in 1985. It would not be until 1986 that he showed his full 5-tool glory, although his struggles to remain healthy were also evident that early. I’m getting an Eric Davis vibe from Ronald Acuna Jr. For the sake of baseball fans everywhere, let’s hope that Acuna is able to have the career that Davis should have had had his body not betrayed him so frequently.
Finally, there’s this. I noticed a familiar name in the letters to the editor section, sabermetrics pioneer Craig Wright. It is definitely him; I looked it up and he was working for the Texas Rangers at the time, so the Arlington address next to his name checks out. FWIW, I don’t fully agree with the premise of his letter; I believe that Enos Slaughter is in fact a deserving Hall of Famer. I am in 100% agreement about Arky Vaughan. He was a glaring omission; thankfully the Veterans Committee finally voted him in only a few weeks after this issue was published.
WNBA Check-In
Almost every team in the WNBA has completed 25% of their schedule, so now seems like a good time for a mini progress report. In a minor upset, the two-time defending champion Aces are only off to a middling start, largely due to the fact that Chelsea Gray is still out due to a foot injury. The Sun & the Liberty have the two best records, but it sure looks like there’s gonna be a tight scramble for those precious home court advantage slots come playoff time.
Even though the Aces have yet to take off, you can’t blame A’ja Wilson for that. Last season’s MVP voting sure seems to have given extra motivation to both Wilson and Alyssa Thomas; each has elevated their play even higher. That’s a great side benefit to the attention that this year’s rookie class has brought to the league. Tune in to see Caitlin Clark, but once you see A’ja Wilson play you will want to see as much of her as you can.
Clark of course continues to inspire some of the most insipid discourse - I won’t amplify their comments further, but both Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith sounded terribly foolish. And come on, an Indiana Congressman is asking the league to look into the physical play directed towards Clark? “Show me what ya got, rook. Prove yourself” has been a plot point in sports for ages. Remember the way Michael Jordan was frozen out in his first NBA All-Star Game? I think he took that personally. Clark is taking her lumps in her rookie season, but she’ll be fine.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about her team’s struggles either. News flash, the reason that the Fever had the #1 pick in the draft to begin with is that they are not a very good team. It stood to reason both that they would continue to lose and that she would find the pro game more difficult than college. She turns the ball over a lot, and she’s being guarded a lot more tightly, so she is not as wide open as she used to be. The raw talent remains obvious, however. I have zero concern about her ability to reach stardom. The other two high profile rookies (Kamala Cardoso missed the first few weeks due to injury so she gets an incomplete for now) have similarly shown their potential while also taking their rookie lumps. Angel Reese needs to expand her shooting range, but she is already a force on the boards and is tough to stop in the post. It seems puzzling that she wasn’t drafted until pick #7. Cameron Brink has made an impact much more quickly than I had anticipated. When I saw her in college my concern was that despite her outstanding footwork her thin frame would present a challenge in the pros. No worries so far, she is already one of the league’s best shot blockers.
We also now know who will be on this year’s Olympic team. The battle for those 12 spots is so tough; the American women have won every gold medal since 1996, and they are once again an overwhelming favorite. 9 members of this year’s team have past Olympic experience, and the 3 that don’t were on the most recent FIBA World Cup championship team. Which is why the “why isn’t Clark on the team?” hysteria is misplaced. Whose place should she take? Even if she is truly deserving, once again, there are only 12 spots on the team. There is precedence for great players - even all time greats - being left off the team. Granted, there have always been whispers that USA Basketball shows favoritism towards UConn grads, but Candace Parker was only on 2 Olympic teams. Nneka Ogwumike never played in the Olympics. For Pete’s sake, Becky Hammon played on the Russian (!) Olympic team because it was impossible to make the American squad. Clark will almost certainly be a perennial member of the Olympic team beginning in 2028. In addition, the rookie wall hits hard in the WNBA. The players go from a full college season to training camp in the space of a few weeks. The league will go on pause this season for a month while the Olympics are taking place. Clark, Reese, Brink and the rest could use that break.
The Loss Of A NASA Legend
Former Apollo astronaut William Anders died late last week at the age of 90. A small plane that he was piloting crashed in the Pacific Northwest. My initial reaction was “how could anyone still allow him to fly a plane at his advanced age?” before I remembered that he went to the moon. Who the hell am I to say that he should remain earthbound, no matter his age?
Anders was one of the first 3 men to reach the moon, as he was part of the Apollo 8 crew which completed the first lunar orbit in 1968. It was Anders who snapped one of the most famous photos in history, the “earth rise” photo which played a major role in inspiring the environmental movement. That simple shot of our planet in all its beauty put everything in perspective and then some.
As close as he came to the final frontier, Anders was not on any of the later missions that actually landed on the moon’s surface. No matter, his was a life well lived. Just think about that; he was one of the first 3 men to travel around the far side of the moon - that meant there would be a loss of contact with Mission Control for half of each orbit. To do that requires an unimaginable amount of bravery. Godspeed, William Anders.
The Oscar Mulligan - 1985
Best Picture - Out Of Africa
Other Nominees - The Color Purple, Kiss Of the Spider Woman, Prizzi’s Honor, Witness
This year’s “redo” of the Oscar race was an easy one for me. I did not like Out of Africa at all, although to be fair I was probably just a bit too young to appreciate it when I saw it. The movie looked pretty, but I just didn’t feel much chemistry between Meryl Streep and Robert Redford. It would still be a few years until the dingo took her baby, but this movie came right in the prime of that period in which Streep mastered any accent you could throw at her. This movie was one of the rare instances in which I found her performance to be little more than an impressive technical achievement which didn’t fully land otherwise.
The deserving replacement for Out Of Africa comes down to one of two choices. In a vacuum The Color Purple would have been a worthy selection. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, and the main characters were well defined. The cast was strong, most notably with two major introductions. Whoopi Goldberg already had a very successful one woman show on Broadway, but she was still largely unknown to a large number of people. And Oprah Winfrey commanded the screen from the second she is first seen. I wonder how her career would have developed had she stuck with acting, but less than a year after this movie came out her talk show went nationwide and the rest was history. She continued to act, but for the most part every character she has played has been some sort of derivative of the Oprah persona.
There is a big elephant in the room, however. This was a major step forward in Steven Spielberg’s career; one could make the argument that it was his first film made for grownups. He did a great job, BUT, was he the right person to direct it? On the other hand, this was made in 1985. Were there any African-American directors at the time who had sufficient juice that a studio would greenlight this project for them instead of a Spielberg?
With that in mind, I would give the trophy to Witness. It might be smaller in scale, but it checks so many boxes that you would look for in an Oscar winner. As opposed to Streep/Redford, the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis was palpable. The scene in which they slow dance to Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World is pure magic. The reality that they come from such different worlds that a happy ending is not possible raises the stakes in their relationship.
The movie had so many memorable scenes and lines. The barn raising sequence. The final set piece in the silo. “It’s not our way.” “But it’s my way.” I also need to give Ford his proper praise. Because he is the face behind two of the most iconic characters in movie history he doesn’t always get the credit he deserves for how talented of an actor he is. His performance in Witness is the best example of his particular talent for seeming so natural in his own skin that he doesn’t even appear to be acting. His subtlety is what makes everything about this story so believable.
Closing Laughs
Once again, a warm welcome to any and all recent additions to the Tending the Herd family. Welcome aboard, and thank you for your support. See you all once again on Wednesday.
