Today’s Thoughts

The Outsiders - First Base

There is a certain image that comes to mind with first base - one of those classic lumbering power hitters. The drawback is that this type of player tends to age rapidly, and also because there are so many first sackers with similar profiles they tend to blend together. That’s why some recent retirees with impressive looking career numbers were one-and-dones on the BBWAA ballot. What really differentiates Carlos Delgado from Paul Konerko from Prince Fielder and on & on? That’s part of the reason why I searched for different types on my ranking of the top first basemen not in the Hall Of Fame. (Reminder, once again I’m only including players who have aged off the ballot, hence no Albert Pujols or Miguel Cabrera.) Also, I’m treating position players a little differently than pitchers. For pitchers I lean more towards guys that were dominant for a brief stretch before injuries took their toll. With position players I look a little more towards longevity. Here goes:

1. Keith Hernandez (128 OPS+, 60.3 bWAR)

2. Norm Cash (139, 52.0)

3. Steve Garvey (117, 38.0)

4. Boog Powell (134, 39.1)

5. Mark McGwire (163, 62.1)

6. Rafael Palmeiro (132, 71.9)

7. Mark Teixeira (126, 50.6)

8. Don Mattingly (127, 42.4)

9. Mickey Vernon (116, 35.5)

10. Will Clark (137, 56.5)

I find it a little ironic that in the broadcast booth Keith Hernandez sometimes shows a disdain towards analytics, because if he does make it into the Hall it will be the sabermetric argument that gets him there. Arguably the greatest defensive first baseman in the game’s history, he was also a supreme line drive hitter and run producer. Norm Cash is another one of those former Tigers who doesn’t get the recognition that he deserves. He was harmed by the fact that his best years were in the dominant pitching era of the 60’s, so his numbers don’t jump out from the page. But if you put his production in the proper context, he holds up very well.

It takes more than a few sentences to properly discuss Steve Garvey, so I’m giving him a separate section below. Boog Powell was one of the great power hitters of his era, with an MVP award to his name. He also runs a mean barbecue stand. That Orioles mini-dynasty was a historically memorable team, and he was a crucial part of that run.

In these rankings I’m largely going with a guy’s on field accomplishment, hence the inclusions of McGwire & Palmeiro despite the PED stuff. McGwire in particular is tough to properly evaluate. For years he was a prolific home run hitter with so many nagging injuries that he was unable to stay on the field very long. And then, things changed. I personally think the narrative that McGwire and Sammy Sosa saved baseball is a bit overblown, but at the same time I will always remember how much I enjoyed that home run chase. I’m only going to punish him so much. As for Palmeiro, he put together a rare 3000 hit/500 home run combo. He was seldom a truly elite player, but it’s still meaningful to have put together a career like that.

Of the assorted big power hitting first basemen that emerged within a few years of each other, I believe Teixeira was the best of them. Outstanding power, the type of keen batting eye that was so valuable, solid defense. He was a good one. I know a lot of people think Mattingly should be higher, but once he suffered a back injury his value plummeted. The home runs turned into weak warning track fly balls, the doubles turned into soft singles. He was essentially Lyle Overbay the last half of his career; as great as he was at his peak that peak did not last long enough.

Mickey Vernon debuted in the integration era, but enough of his best seasons took place post-1947 that I will include him. More of a high average hitter than a power guy, he was an outstanding hitter for more than a decade. There is no shortage of worthy candidates for slot #10, but I chose to go with Will Clark. He had one of those picture perfect left handed swings.

Next week I’ll move one slot over on the infield and take a look at the best second baseman not (yet) in the Hall. There are a few great ones.

Classic SNL Recap - Season 5 Finale

This seems odd in retrospect, but by the end of season 5 Lorne Michaels was tired of everything. He was tired of dealing with NBC brass, with network standards & practices, and with the breakneck pace it took to have the show ready by 11:30. It was a given that he and the cast would leave, the only question was if the show would go on without him.

The first golden age ended with the 10th and final hosting stint for Buck Henry, and the season also featured one of SNL’s all-time classic sketches. Henry addressed the ambiguity surrounding the show’s future by announcing in the monologue that the show would return with an all-new cast. He then introduced the alleged new cast, who were actually assorted crew members. One was a guy wearing a wacky tuxedo t-shirt, one was a guy doing a bad Groucho impression, and one was a guy introduced as having a great Don Pardo impression. “That’s right Buck!” This was of course the actual Don Pardo.

There is an inevitable finality to this episode; everything was the last this or the last that. The honor of declaring the final “live from New York” in the original era fell to Harry Shearer. In the cold open he portrayed ABC anchor Frank Reynolds giving a halftime report of the 1980 campaign, including highlights of a consolation debate between Ted Kennedy (Bill Murray) and George Bush (Jim Downey) in the fight for third place. Downey is one of the most legendary writers the show has ever had, but he made for a surprisingly effective George Bush. For the record, the final sketch was a beer commercial parody. It was the standard men in a cabin ad, gradually revealing that the beer brand was called Mommy Beer, complete with a nipple on the bottle.

There were also final appearances from several recurring characters. Update included one last look at Roseanne Roseannadanna as well as Chico Escuela. In this one he explained how he single-handedly ended a potential baseball strike by speaking directly to the players and owners, telling each that baseball has been berry, berry good to them. It was also the finale for Nick the Lounge Singer. Here he was Nick Lava, performing at a tiki bar in Buffalo. The final song he sang was Stairway To Heaven.

The episode also included the last appearance of the infamous Uncle Roy. I’ll say again that this concept blows past cringe comedy into uncomfortable to watch territory, but it closes with a kicker. As Jane Curtin tells Roy that he’s one in a million, Henry turns toward the camera and says that there are more people like him than you would think.

This many paragraphs in & I still haven’t gotten to the episode’s highlight. With the next season being #50 there will all sorts of lists of the top sketches in show history. This week featured one that figures to rank high on any of these lists. It’s a shame that the YouTube description gives away the punchline, but even knowing what’s coming it’s still outstanding. It is a fancy dinner party taking place on the estate of Lord Salisbury and it is quickly apparent that all of the guests are people that have had things named after them. Eventually Buck Henry and Gilda Radner appear and the sketch rises from a cute concept into Hall of Fame territory.

The show ended with a performance from Andre Crouch. A rousing gospel song sounds like a joyful way to end the season. Then it’s time for the farewell. The closing goodbye starts normally, with a stern expression Henry says “good night and goodbye.” Then, instead of the usual handshakes and hugs, after a few seconds everyone matches off of the stage and the camera follows them as they exit through the stage door. The camera then tilts up towards the “on air” sign, which begins to flicker and then goes to black. And just like that the legendary initial run of SNL comes to a close.

That also ends my sampling of first 5 seasons. Next week I’ll return to where I had previously left off, which happens to be when Lorne returned for season 11. This also means I no longer have the benefit of the DVD box sets, which contain the complete episodes, musical performances included. Once again I will be dependent on the Peacock streams, which edit out a lot of each week’s material. As a result I’ll do a slight break in format and not review the season 11 premiere episode. Madonna was the host, and it must have been music heavy, because the Peacock stream runs less than 20 minutes. That is nowhere near long enough to properly judge the episode. Instead I will go with episode 2, hosted by, oh dear God, Chevy Chase again. Nevertheless, I persist.

Garv

One frequent argument made when attempting to dismiss someone’s HOF credentials is to ask “did you think you were watching a Hall Of Famer when you saw him play?” The reverse side of that argument could be made about Steve Garvey. When he was an active player it appeared that he was doing precisely everything that one would expect from a budding Hall Of Fame player, and yet, his candidacy never really took off. He remained on the BBWAA ballot the full 15 years, but his vote totals largely remained stagnant. In addition, I’ve seen little enthusiasm surrounding his chances to get in via an eras committee ballot. So what happened?

The short answer is that modern analysis does him no favors. As I said, the basics on his CV appear to be Hall-worthy. He was the middle of the order hitting star for a Dodgers club that won 4 pennants in an 8 year span. He won an MVP award & made 8 consecutive All-Star teams. He literally played every day, and still holds the NL record for most consecutive games played. Like a metronome, each season he hit .300, drove in 90+, hit a solid number of home runs. He won 4 Gold Glove awards. Plus, after leaving the Dodgers he helped lead the Padres to their first pennant. Hell, if you want to use the “fame” portion of the title for extra credit, he was one of the faces of the game.

Counterpoint - he didn’t deserve those Gold Gloves. The managers and coaches who did the voting at the time lazily just looked at his fielding percentages and thought he was a great fielder. He was legitimately skilled at digging poor throws out of the dirt, but his low error totals were due to a lack of range. You can’t make an error on a ball that you don’t get to. He had high batting averages, but he never drew walks, so his career on-base percentage was a pedestrian .329. This is the kicker; you think that a guy who played every game would have more impressive career totals. 2599 hits, 272 homers, and 1308 RBI’s are all terrific numbers, but not as massive as his reputation would lead one to believe.

This all brings up an existential question, which does not solely apply to Steve Garvey. It’s one thing to use modern analysis to elevate a player who may have been overlooked in his time, but is it fair to use that same method to diminish a player? Garvey did exactly what was required from a player of his time with his skill set. If the value of drawing walks was more understood in that era, would he have done so? It’s impossible to say for sure, but this is part of the reason why I ranked him a little higher than some others likely would. He was a 1970’s first baseman, for better or worse.

It’s Time

On Monday I did some thinking out loud concerning the fallout from the Presidential debate. At the time I felt that despite Joe Biden’s shaky performance, the important players were still standing behind him and that everyone is going to keep their fingers and toes crossed and keep him on the ticket. Since then my feelings have changed dramatically.

More and more rank and file Democrats have started to publicly say out loud what many others are likely saying privately. This is the game changer - James Clyburn has said that he is concerned and plans to speak with Biden directly. This is big because it was Clyburn who urged African-Americans to vote for Biden in the 2020 South Carolina primary, which rescued his campaign when it seemed to be at its low point. It’s no exaggeration to say that Clyburn is as responsible as anyone for the Biden victory. If he has lost Clyburn….

I’ve drastically cut back on the amount of political talk in this newsletter for a variety of reasons, one being that I don’t want to lean too far over my skis. It’s one thing if I have a bad or misinformed take over a piece of pop culture, but I would rather not have a bad take over something much more important because I’m missing some crucial information. So, I say this with caution - and please correct me if I’m wrong. I may have gotten some of the exact potential procedures wrong, but now I think it’s more likely than not that soon after the 4th weekend Biden will formally withdraw and release his delegates with the request that they commit to Kamala Harris. It is also my understanding that because all campaign donations to this point point have gone to the Biden-Harris campaign she can legally access all of that cash. If this happens, it needs to be done quickly. The Ohio GOP pulled some shenanigans that require the Democrats officially nominate their candidate 90 days before the election in order to appear on the ballot. That is why the Democrats had planned a virtual roll call to nominate Biden a month before the convention.

Obviously if I’m wrong forget I ever said this but right now I’m ready to say that Harris will be the nominee.

TV Of the 21st Century - NTSF:SD:SUV

There was a time in which Adult Swim was a glorious outpost of wonderfully deranged live action comedies, one of which was NTSF:SD:SUV. Created by, co-starring, and largely written by Paul Scheer, it was a superb parody of both action series and police procedurals.

The run line through these Adult Swim series was that the network would give a funny person a 15 minute time slot, and just let them go to town. The creative freedom further encouraged even more funny people to join in on the fun - the short running time meant that it did not involve too large of a commitment, so in addition to the regular cast NTSF had an all-star cast of guest stars throughout its run. Scheer portrayed the lead agent in the titular National Terrorism Strike Force, filled with the requisite number of David Carusoesque quips. June Diane Raphael was the other key field agent, stupid enough to wonder why nothing happens when she attempts to swipe on a phone book, and physically dexterous enough to do a comical take on Catherine Zeta-Jones’s famous crawl through the laser beams.

There was also Kate Mulgrew as the head of the force - wearing an eyepatch of course because nothing screams “authority” quite like an eyepatch - Martin Starr as another in his long parade of misanthropes just a bit too smart for his own good, Brandon Johnson and Rebecca Romijn (who would be replaced by Karen Gillan in season 3) as additional agents, and Rob Riggle as the President Of the Navy. There was also an AI robot which frequently malfunctioned.

There was a certain vibe to classic Adult Swim programming, and NTSF certainly had that. It had the perfect amount of silliness; the plots were just absurd enough to generate laughs without being too dumb. And the cast members all knew the precise tone they needed to give their characters. That entire CSI universe is ripe for parody; plot turns have so often been dependent on the benefits of technology that don’t exist in the real world. This show brought that conceit down to size. With a total of 40 episodes which run only 15 minutes apiece - more like 11 when commercial breaks are taken into account - this is a fairly easy show to catch up on. It’s well worth it.

Originally aired on: Adult Swim

Currently streaming on: The Adult Swim app

Closing Laughs

Have an enjoyable 4th everyone. It could very well be our final Independence Day as a democracy, and I am not being hyperbolic. See everyone again on Friday.