Wednesday Newsletter
The Outsiders - Second Base
As you can see, second base is a position that’s very top heavy, so I have to reach to fill out the top 10 second sackers not in the Hall Of Fame. Remember, my policy is that I’m only including players that have been removed from the BBWAA ballot. Dustin Pedroia is unlikely to make the Hall, and Ian Kinsler feels like a future one-and-done guy. Both of those would improve the quality of the list.
Lou Whitaker (117 OPS+, 75.1 bWAR)
Bobby Grich (125, 71.1)
Jeff Kent (123, 55.4)
Jim Gilliam (93, 44.7)
Eddie Stanky (109, 41.5)
Willie Randolph (104, 65.9)
Davey Lopes (107, 42.4)
Chuck Knoblauch (106, 44.6)
Johnny Ray (101, 24.2)
Ron Hunt (105, 32.8)
No worries about the quality up top. I am prepared to officially declare Lou Whitaker as the single most deserving non HOF player. Yet another former Tiger who doesn’t get the appreciation he deserves, he is also the type of player that does everything well but not one specific thing spectacularly. Voters tend to prefer objects shinier and brighter than a Whitaker type. Damn, was he a fine player. Consistently high batting averages, consistently excellent on base percentages, power production much better than a typical middle infielder of his era, a multi Gold Glove winner, there was no shortage of ways in which he helped his teams. The same could be said about Bobby Grich. His defense was often elite, and he had a similar high OPS/strong power combo. I wonder if he would have been held in higher esteem had his best year not been the 1981 strike year. If his numbers had been projected over a full 162 games, it could have looked like a monster season.
Speaking of power, no second baseman hit more homers than Jeff Kent. His reputation suffers slightly when his career is put into better context. He hit those home runs in an era in which power exploded; the totals are impressive but not historically so. Plus, his defense at a crucial position was pedestrian at best. He loses a few votes there. Jim Gilliam is another victim of the segregation era. He established stardom in the Negro Leagues while still a teenager, yet he did not make his Dodgers debut - in which he won the Rookie of the Year award - until his age 24 season. He missed at least 2 or 3 crucial years in which he could have added to his career totals and accumulated some outstanding counting stats. As it is, the recent integration of Negro League stats into the major league record pushed his career hit total past 2000. He should have had much more.
Eddie Stanky was the living embodiment of the term “scrappy.” His career was split across pre & post integration, but he had enough big years post-1947 to qualify for my list. He had a keen batting eye - career on base percentage above .400 - and everything I have ever read about him makes it seem like he was the sort of pest that you would hate if he was on the other team but love if he was on yours. Willie Randolph was a steady glue presence on some outstanding Yankee teams for more than a decade. He was another player with such a wide range of skills that he could contribute in 4 different ways across a span of 4 games.
Like Gilliam, Davey Lopes was someone whose career would have looked so much better had he gotten a chance earlier. He didn’t complete his rookie season until his age 28 year, but once he entered the Dodgers lineup he did not leave. He served as the second baseman for MLB’s longest serving regular infield and he once held the record for most consecutive stolen bases without being thrown out. He’s probably best remembered these days for the throwing yips which marred his time with the Yankees, but Chuck Knoblauch was terrific when he began his career in Minnesota, winning the 1991 AL Rookie of the Year award and leading the league in doubles and triples once each.
I’m a little surprised at Johnny Ray’s low WAR. I remember him as being a better player than that. He led the league in doubles once and finished second (behind fellow second baseman Steve Sax) in the 1982 NL Rookie of the Year race. Ron Hunt is remembered for two things. He was the first Met to start in the All-Star Game, and he was a master at getting hit by pitch. He led the league in that category in 7 consecutive seasons, including a post-1900 record of 50 plunks in the 1971 season alone. He currently ranks at #6 (#4 post-1900) on the career list. That’s a lot of taking one for the team.
Next week I’ll switch over to the hot corner. Third base is the position that has the lowest representation in the HOF, so there are plenty of great players to choose from.
Classic SNL Recap - Season 11, Episode 2
As you have probably guessed by now, I am a very loyal viewer of SNL. While acknowledging the show’s flaws, I am also quick to defend it. Those flaws have been baked into the show from the very beginning, even the glory years. I’m not blind, however. There have been a few occasions in which I watched a season premiere, thought to myself “man, this sucks” and abandoned the show for the remainder of that year.
Season 11 was one such case. I so hated the season premiere that I did not watch it again until the renaissance year of season 12. To be fair I didn’t exactly go into it with an open mind. I felt that Lorne Michaels needed to reprove himself after he returned following a five year absence. As for the new cast? Obviously in 1985 I had no idea that Joan Cusack & Robert Downey Jr. would have such promising futures. But I did know 2 of the other cast members, both of whom were head scratchers. Our current image of Randy Quaid is that of a classic conspiracy theorist weirdo, but back then he was a highly honored actor. In 1985 National Lampoon’s Vacation was a couple of years old, so he had already established his comedic bona fides, but there was no evidence that live sketch comedy was in his wheelhouse. Same deal with Anthony Michael Hall. Back then I was a tall, lanky, somewhat socially awkward dork, so I had a natural affinity for the types of characters that Hall generally played in those 1980’s movies. There was still little reason to believe that he could hold his own on SNL.
Watching this episode (as a reminder the Peacock stream of the Madonna hosted season premiere only runs less than 20 minutes so I chose to go with episode 2 instead) tells me that I made the correct choice in skipping the season. Lord, was this painfully unfunny. The show was hosted by Chevy Chase and as early as the monologue he was clearly phoning it in. The showcase sketch featured him returning as Gerald Ford visiting Ronald Reagan (Quaid) to assist him in preparing for an upcoming summit with Mikhail Gorbachev. Chase was in his forties by now, so no full-blown fall here. Just a lot of stumbling and generic stupidity.
I’ll get a little further into the season 11 cast next time; for now I’ll mention that each of the only 3 that were asked to return the next year had a recurring sketch spotlight this week. Nora Dunn starred in her Pat Stevens Show sketch, and Jon Lovitz appeared as the famous pathological liar Tommy Flanagan, already trying to convince America that Morgan Fairchild is his wife. And yes, as early as this episode Update anchor Dennis Miller was producing as many obscure references as he could think of.
The only sketch that I found mildly amusing was titled Those Unlucky Andersons, featuring a family befallen by constant calamity. It’s stunning that the return of the prodigal son was this poor. It wasn’t just Lorne Michaels, he brought SNL royalty with him. Franken & Davis were writer/producers. Jim Downey was head writer. Don Novello and Herb Sargent were back; even Michael O’Donoghue returned. Among the other writers were future stars such as A. Whitney Brown, Jack Handey, Carol Leifer, and Robert Freakin’ Smigel. How could so much talent produced this mess?
Next week I’ll check in on the midseason episode with the hopes that this group found their footing. The host? Ron Reagan. (That would be Reagan the son, not the prez. Although the mental image I’m now having of Michael O’Donoghue pitching sketches to Reagan makes me giggle.) I suspect that will not prove to be a great comeback episode.
The Streaming Orphans - Duckman
Truly deranged adult animation existed long before Adult Swim and South Park. One great example was Duckman. Running for 3 seasons in the mid 90’s on the USA Network, Jason Alexander voiced the title character, an anthropomorphic private eye duck who was irritable and misanthropic. Alexander channeled the Costanza vibe in an entirely different way; as bad as George Costanza often behaved, at least he had some redeeming social characteristics. Not so with Duckman.
There was a nice batch of valuable supporting characters. At home, he was a widower with 3 children. Helping out in the house was Bernice, the identical twin sister of his late wife, who loathed Duckman with every fiber of her being. His oldest son Ajax (voiced by Dweezil Zappa!) was the classic lazy teenager. He also had a pair of conjoined twins named Charles and Mambo.
As mentioned, he was a private detective and his long-suffering assistant - who did almost all of the work and got none of the glory - was a deadpan pig named Cornfed. His office assistants were a pair of teddy bears with high pitched voices named Fluffy and Uranus. Every hero needs an arch enemy; in this case an evil chicken voiced by Tim Curry.
Just in case my description of the basic premise didn’t do full justice, the plots took advantage of the creative freedom that animation offers. The premises were over the top & absurd. I remember well one episode in which Duckman was bombarded by a lethal amount of radiation, yet suffered no effects. That led everyone to believe that something about his physiology contained the cure for cancer. As a result, an executive from an HMO kidnapped him with the intend of murdering him, lest the cure get out into the public. He couldn’t figure out why. “Aren’t you in the health business.” “Wrong. We’re in the health CARE business. No cancer, no profit.”
For me the single funniest moment in the show came in a different Duckman Gets Kidnapped episode. Cornfed immediately rushed to Duckman’s home. While he was catching his breath, the following exchange took place:
Cornfed: I came as soon as I heard Duckman was missing.
Bernice: So did I, but then I got worried.
The show is not currently on an official streaming service, but it is on YouTube. It was a perfect example of completely demented comedy.
Closing Laughs
That’ll do, pig. Thanks as always for reading and please don’t forget to spread the word. See you again on Friday.
