Today’s Thoughts
The Outsiders - Third Base
Third base continues to be the position with the fewest Hall of Fame members. There are a number of reasons for that, starting with the fact that for a long time voters were reluctant to acknowledge the importance of the position. It’s not as crucial a defensive position as the middle infield, but it’s close. The best third basemen have often been strong power hitters, but usually not as prolific as first basemen or corner outfielders. As a result, there are lots of worthy candidates for the list of Top 10 Third Basemen Not In the Hall Of Fame.
Dick Allen (156 OPS+, 58.7 bWAR)
Bob Elliott (124, 50.9)
Ken Boyer (116, 62.8)
Graig Nettles (110, 67.9)
Sal Bando (119, 61.5)
Hank Thompson (123, 30.7)
Toby Harrah (114, 51.5)
Robin Ventura (114, 56.1)
Matt Williams (113, 46.6)
Ron Cey (121, 53.7)
Reggie Jackson’s story of playing minor league ball in the Deep South should put Dick Allen’s career in better perspective. Allen played in that atmosphere earlier than Jackson did, and had to put up with s*** that no one should ever have to. No wonder he was moody. Look at his 10 year peak - if you leave out 1973 in which he missed a big chunk due to injury, from 64-74 he averaged over 30 homers & 90 RBI, won an MVP award & a ROY, and led his league in OPS 4 separate times. Plus, he was the subject of one of the greatest Sports Illustrated covers of all time. Bob Elliott spent the first half of his career pre-integration, but I’ll include him because the majority of his best seasons came after 1947, including an MVP in ‘47.
Ken Boyer’s profile isn’t all that different from that of Scott Rolen. An MVP winner, a prolific run producer, and a multiple Gold Glove winner, I believe he would be in the Hall if voters during the time he was on the ballot were more willing to dig deeper and see what a fine all-around player in the same way that current voters do. If you want a player with the ideal combination of great power and elite defense, then Graig Nettles is your man. In addition to winning a home run crown he almost single handedly won Game 4 of the 1978 World Series with his glove work.
Sal Bando was the captain of the 1970’s Oakland dynasty, and he finished in the top 4 of the MVP vote 3 different times. Hank Thompson was a star at the tail end of the Negro Leagues and was one of the first to follow Jackie Robinson into the majors. He initially failed, but a couple of years later returned to play with the Giants for several years. Like many of his contemporaries his career would have looked much better in a less racist society. He should have reached the major leagues earlier than he actually did, and if he had he would have put up some impressive numbers.
In addition to being baseball’s greatest palindrome (sorry Robb Nen) Toby Harrah was a much better player than people may remember. He had above average power for that era, and a keen batting eye raised his on base percentage almost 100 points higher than his batting average. I don’t recall his having a reputation as a great defender, but his defensive metrics are quite good. Robin Ventura did have the defensive reputation, and he was also an absolute line drive machine and reliable run producer.
People sometimes forget that Matt Williams was on pace to threaten Roger Maris’s home run record before the 1994 strike ended the season prematurely. His game was pure power. Finally, every list could use a penguin, which helps Ron Cey earn the last slot above the like of Darrell Evans or Buddy Bell. A perennial all star & a member of history’s longest lasting infield, Cey was yet another one of those power hitting third basemen so prevalent in the 1970’s.
Next week I’ll round out the infield with my look at the top shortstops not in the Hall.
Classic SNL Recap: Season 11, Episode 9
One of the tough things about watching old SNL episodes on Peacock is that they are edited down from the original airings, usually due to music clearance fees. That makes it difficult to accurately gauge the quality of an individual episode. For example, this week’s episode was cut down to a run time of 37 minutes. Even taking the musical guest into account, that leaves more than 20 minutes of comedy buried in a vault somewhere. This episode is another season 11 one that is unfunny, at times painfully so. Was there something in the additional material that would have made it somewhat salvageable?
Probably not, as one of this week’s sketches was one that I recall had some notoriety when it initially aired. It was hosted by Ron Reagan, who pointed out in his monologue that the second most powerful man in the world would logically be the President’s youngest son. His cue card reading was awkward and uncomfortable, which did not bode well for his sketch work. However, he did not appear in a single sketch in the Peacock stream. As for the aforementioned well-known sketch not seen on Peacock? (Not to sound like a broken record, but it’s because of the music.) In a Risky Business parody, Reagan was alone in the White House and did the Tom Cruise Old Time Rock & Roll dance. Couch fainters of the time heavily criticized the piece, feeling that it was inappropriate for the son of the current President to dance on national television in his tighty-whities.
As I alluded to, there’s little that was memorable here with one exception that I’ll get to momentarily. There’s another edition of the Pat Stevens Show, and by this point Dennis Miller had further solidified his Update persona. A. Whitney Brown was now a part of Update with his regular Big Picture monologues. With the caveat that I don’t know what the footage not included on Peacock contains, Joan Cusack and Robert Downey Jr. continue to make little impression. Downey in particularly leans dangerously towards Luke Null territory. Truthfully the younger cast member who had the most opportunity to show his stuff was Damon Wayans, and he was only a featured player, not a full-fledged member of the cast.
I’d like to focus on the two regulars who did not make a huge mainstream splash in later years. There is historical significance attached to both Terry Sweeney and Danitra Vance. Sweeney was the show’s first openly LGBTQ cast member, and it took a lot of bravery to be so out in 1986. Unfortunately there was a bit of a square peg in a round hole situation for him here. The little that I have seen of his work on SNL makes it look like the show didn’t quite know what to do with him, causing him to largely fly solo rather than act as part of the ensemble. Vance had the similar hurdle. She was the first African-American female regular, and as anyone who watched Garrett Morris can attest, an almost all-white writing staff did her no favors. This week’s episode gave her one spotlight sketch that really demonstrated her untapped potential. It was a solo piece called Shakespeare In the Slums, in which she acted out portions of Romeo & Juliet on a fire escape. It showed how well she could have succeeded had she been given more opportunities. Sadly, she died tragically young from breast cancer at the age of 40.
That’s 2 episodes of season 11 that I have sampled and 2 duds. Next week I’ll tackle the season finale, which was also the final appearance for almost the entire cast. It was hosted by the legendary comedy team of… Anjelica Huston & Billy Martin?
TV Of the 21st Century - The Office
There’s not much I can say about The Office that hasn’t already been said. Not only was it a huge ratings hit, it was also an awards show magnet and it remains just as popular to this day in both syndication and in streaming. Rather than wax poetically about how funny the show was, there are a couple of aspects of the show that I can discuss.
When I was a kid it was often pointed out that All In the Family and Sanford & Son were American adaptations of hits from British television, but those were exceptions to the rule. The graveyard of American television is filled with the remains of failed American versions of British shows, such as Coupling or Men Behaving Badly. How many of you remember Amanda’s? That was a short-lived American take on Fawlty Towers, starring Bea Arthur. No one else? Just me? OK.
The Office could have very easily been a similar failure. The producers made the tactical error of making the pilot essentially a straight remake of the original recipe version. The stapler in the jello prank, Jim’s despair when he saw that Dwight stole his top client, Michael pretending to fire Pam, all were in the British pilot episode as well. When I watched the new version, I thought to myself “why bother?” It did not take long for everyone to realize that in order to succeed they would need to diverge from the inspiration, especially with the main character.
The British & American TV models are vastly different from each other. With only 6 episodes per season, it’s OK to have a lead character as toxic as David Brent, but there is no way that American audiences could tolerate that 22 times a year. As early as the third episode they figured out how to differentiate Michael Scott. Like Brent, he was needy and desperately wanted to be friends with his employees. The space provided by the larger number of episodes allowed Steve Carell to find the humanity within the character.
Of the other core 4 characters, the parallels probably remained strongest between Pam & Dawn. Her character grew over the course of the show’s long run, but both had the same essence. Tim was much more of a sad sack than Jim was, especially as time went on Jim was a much more assertive and ambitious man than Tim. There was a much bigger difference between Gareth and Dwight. Gareth was a classic brown noser and a considerably more believable character. As funny as Dwight usually was, he felt very sitcomy. There were multiple occasions in which he acted in a way that no human being plausibly would. Once again, it was a comedy series. It wasn’t necessarily the place you would look to for gritty realism. It’s just that Gareth was a perfectly realized character that it felt like a shame that Dwight was so odd.
Once again, the British version ran for 12 episodes + a Christmas special. The American one ran for 188 episodes. One of the benefits of that is that this gave the side characters plenty of opportunities to shine, and they were all wonderful. Kevin, Creed, Angela, Kelly, Erin, Oscar, Darryl, etc. They all had their share of spectacular moments.
The chief criticism I have of the show is one that is common in long-running series. They did not know when to pull the plug. Carell’s departure at the end of season 7 felt like it should have been the natural end point for the show, but it dragged out for 2 additional years. That final stretch also included some poor creative choices. The show tried to add some drama by introducing some troubles in the Jim/Pam marriage, made worse by turning Jim into a bit of a jerk. And after all those years the show finally acknowledged the documentary crew. That took away the illusion; there have been other shows that have used the faux documentary as a narrative device. But after a time it stops making sense that a crew would follow these people around for so long. Is a struggling paper company located in a small city that fascinating that their escapades would be filmed for 9 years? I prefer the choice that Parks & Rec and Modern Family made. After a while they stopped pretending that the shows were supposed to be documentaries.
That’s nitpicking. Ultimately The Office fully hit stride much more quickly than most sitcoms do, it remained funny through much of its run (there were still laughs to be had even in those unnecessarily final 2 seasons) and it remains great comfort food television. The dinner party episode is one of the classic examples of cringe comedy. Finally, the show has inspired an endless supply of memes. So, hand this show a well deserved Dundee Award and always be prepared to throw out a timely “that’s what she said” joke.
Originally aired on: NBC
Currently streaming on: Peacock
Closing Laughs
For the second game in a row Paul Skenes’s manager pulled him from the game while he was working on a no-hitter. SMDH. Anyhoo, thanks to all of you for reading Tending the Herd. See everybody once again on Friday.
