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May-12-11
 | | perfidious: <Phony Benoni> At a glance, I counted four managers-to-be in that '62 game: Herzog, Boros, Williams and Regan (The Vulture-what a nickname!). Anyone ever notice how often the greatest managers had unremarkable playing careers? Sparky Anderson, Earl Weaver, Walter Alston (one ML AB) and Tony LaRussa are a few who come to mind. Joe Torre was much more an exception than the rule, with a good, though not great, career; in my opinion, he'll make Cooperstown because of both phases of his baseball life-not sure he'd get there if he hadn't played, but his playing career wasn't quite enough, either. Then, there were the great players who couldn't cut it on the bench. That's a book for another post.............. |
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| May-12-11 | | Jim Bartle: Definitely marginal players make up the majority of good managers. I've heard it suggested that outstanding players often don't understand how tough it is for typical players, and therefore find it difficult to deal with them as managers. Interesting to me is the overall failure of outstanding pitching coaches to succeed as managers. Roger Craig did it, but I can't think of many other examples. I knew Regan was a ML manager. WE Giants fans just despised him in 1966, when he went 14-1 with a sub-2.00 ERA. We all knew he was scuffing the ball. (Drysdale, too. Gaylord was clean, though.) |
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May-12-11
| | perfidious: Ty Cobb, while a member of the innermost circle of the HOF, was nothing special as a manager. After Tigers won those three straight pennants at the start of his playing career, about the only time he played on teams that seriously contended was as a spare part on the '28 A's, while Tris Speaker played the other corner spot. Ted Williams was, to put it mildly, mediocre with Senators. Maury Wills might have been one of the worst managers ever. |
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| May-12-11 | | Jim Bartle: "Maury Wills might have been one of the worst managers ever." And a cheater as well. He had the grounds crew mark the batters box closer to the mound when the M's played a pitcher with a big curveball. And on the subject of Wills, how the heck did he win the 1962 MVP over Mays? The only positive result from stealing bases is more runs scored by the player, right? So Mays and Wills scored the same number of runs, and Mays edged Wills by 80 RBI. Plus, as announcer Lon Simmons shouted, "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" |
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May-12-11
| | perfidious: >Jim> Not to mention Tommy Davis, who hit .346 and had 153 RBI in a tremendous pitcher's park. |
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| May-12-11 | | Jim Bartle: Good point. Wills may not have been the MVP of his own team. Though I would guess at least 30 of the RBIs were due directly to Wills having stolen second. I was watching the game in 1965 on TV where Davis ripped up his knee against the Giants. He was running to second on a bouncer to the pitcher, started to slide, decided not to, and his cleat caught in the dirt. Terrible to see. Davis was not the same player when he came back. |
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May-12-11
 | | Phony Benoni: Wills broke a record thought untouchable. Same way DiMaggio took the MVP in 1941 over Williams (56 game streak trumps .406 average). But who knows with MVP voting? Sometimes the choice is too utterly clear-cut to dispute. I doubt Joe Hardy could have beaten out Yastrzemski in 1967. But sometimes it's just a matter of a player catching everyone's imagination, though he doesn't have the best numbers. Wills did that in 1962. Kirk Gibson did that in 1988. Zoilo Versalles in 1965. And take a look at the 1944 St. Louis Cardinals: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... And tell me that Marty Marion was the MVP of the team, much less the entire National League. He probably beats out Emil Verban, but that's it. |
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| May-12-11 | | Jim Bartle: "But sometimes it's just a matter of a player catching everyone's imagination..." Very true. The attention paid to Wills' steals that year was like McGwire-Sosa in 98. It was everywhere. And maybe voters sort of thought Mays had already gotten enough recognition, so why not honor the new guy? Mays ended up winning just two MVPs. |
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May-12-11
| | perfidious: Same was true of Mantle-he could easily have won more than the three in 1956-57 and 1962. |
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| May-12-11 | | Jim Bartle: Absolutely. Maybe Pujols the same, Barry Bonds could have won a couple more (Pendleton in 91?), though he has no complaints with seven. Ted Williams certainly could have won more, maybe Musial as well. |
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May-12-11
| | perfidious: When it comes to Williams, one vote I don't understand was in 1957, though Mantle won for the team that (again) took home the pennant. Why didn't Mantle get it in a unanimous vote? It's true that Williams hit .388 for the batting title, drew 119 BB and led the league in OPS, but Mantle was much faster and a far better defensive player. My thesis is that it may well be that Mantle's numbers paled by comparison with his Triple Crown victory in '56, so he had no chance, even in the minds of the sportswriters. Of course it's apparent to any knowledgeable fan that some of the HOF/MVP voters seem to live in a parallel reality. |
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May-12-11
| | Phony Benoni: <perfidious> That sounds about right. Here's the 1957 AL MVP voting results: http://www.baseball-reference.com/a... Speaking of parallel reality, how did Gil McDougald finish up in 5th place? |
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May-13-11
| | perfidious: Methinks it wuz dem pinstripes.
There's no logical answer which comes to mind, at least. |
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May-13-11
 | | keypusher: <And tell me that Marty Marion was the MVP of the team, much less the entire National League. He probably beats out Emil Verban, but that's it.> Wow. By the way, why weren't Musial, Marion, Kurowski etc. in the Army? What determined whether you served or not? Were they married? |
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May-13-11
| | perfidious: <keypusher> Maybe they were all 4F, which would certainly have washed them out. Not everyone spent 4-5 years in service-some were only in for two years, if their turn came up near the end of the war (1944 or so) and they were then demobilised in 1945-46, as most units were which did not serve as occupational forces. |
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May-13-11
| | Phony Benoni: Musial did serve in 1945. Here's a paragraph from a biography available through Retrosheet: <During the off-season, Musial took part in the war effort, working for the American Steel & Wire Co. back in Donora. In addition, he and some other players went on a goodwill trip to the Aleutians to visit the troops. The War Department had canceled a scheduled trip to the Pacific in September of 1943. Although no evidence suggests that Musial sought or received any special treatment concerning the draft, coming from an area that had a large number of draft-age males along with being a father kept him out of military service for most of the war.> Kurowski had a deformed right arm from which several inches of bone and tissue had been removed when he was a child due to a bone infection. He managed to overcome the disability as a baseball player, but it probably would have kept him out of the military. |
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May-13-11
| | perfidious: Musial, as was Walter Payton in football, is regarded as a better human being than sports figure, which speaks volumes. Donora, Pennsylvania was a hotbed of baseball talent, when one considers that Ken Griffey Sr is the third-best player to have been born there. |
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| May-13-11 | | Jim Bartle: I know Musial has always been regarded as a fine person, and of course the symbol of the Cards. But he was certainly one of the best 20 players of all time, so he'd really have to be a fine person to beat that. I still think Musial is sort of the forgotten great, overshadowed by all the (deserved) praise of Williams as the greatest (or second-greatest) hitter ever. But he hit for a really high average every year, and with power, though not Williams-level power. I think I'd put Warren Spahn (or warnspah, as Juan Marichal pronounces it) in the same overlooked category. |
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May-13-11
| | perfidious: <Jim> Bill James once wrote that Musial made a better statue, as he didn't marry a famous film star, throw tantrums or get out of line in any other way a la Babe Ruth. The man just went out and put up numbers for a long time. Sportsman's Park probably helped Musial a little, but there were plenty of players who played there who didn't hit .330+ with power, year after year. Williams, playing in Yankee Stadium, would more than likely have had seasons in which he hit 50+ HRs, though I don't know that he could really have threatened Ruth's record, as he drew so many walks. For all his power, Fenway hurt him a bit, and he was the stubborn type who'd never have dinked fly balls over the Green Monster. Spahn was all about control, same as Greg Maddux-he was never going to overpower anyone. If Sandy Koufax had had a twenty-year career, people would be talking about him as the greatest pitcher in history, because he blew opponents away, but finesse pitchers at any level aren't regarded in quite the same way. |
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May-13-11
| | perfidious: On another baseball great, good luck, Killer!! May you have peace in your last days! http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/... |
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| May-13-11 | | Jim Bartle: I remember Spahn as throwing pretty hard, though not like Koufax or Feller, or probably his teammate Burdette. He also never had that really incredible year, with an ERA below 2.00 and only four or five losses as Koufax and others did. (Two years at something like 22-7, though.) But he was amazingly consistent. I saw an interview with Marichal about the 15-inning scoreless duel with Spahn in 1963, and he was clearly in awe of Spahn. Dark wanted to take him out every inning starting with the tenth, but Marichal wanted to stay in as long as the 40-year-old guy did. |
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May-13-11
| | perfidious: <Jim> Therein lies the difference between the greatest seasons of finesse vs power pitchers; they may put up numbers such as 21-7 with good teams behind them (such as the 1957-58 Braves), but expect to see them fall off when on .500 teams, or worse.
If Mike Cuellar or Dave McNally had pitched on the 1969 Yankees, they'd never have been noticed. Not a snowball's chance any control-type pitcher could have had Steve Carlton's monster 1972 season with Phils, which probably would have lost 100 games if not for the strike. |
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| May-13-11 | | Jim Bartle: If you want a model of consistency without ever having that great, great season, look at the other starter from those Orioles teams, Jim Palmer. 20-22 wins eight years out of nine, never fewer than nine losses, ERA in the twos. Without looking I'd say Maddux had at least a couple of really great seasons, the type you'd expect from a Clemens or Randy Johnson. |
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May-13-11
| | perfidious: <Jim> Completely agree with you on Palmer. The foundation of those strong Oriole teams of the 1970s, and small wonder he has some hardware. He was the goods. Maddux' best seasons were sick, given the numbers hitters were posting in the mid 1990s. At his greatest, he may well be the exception that proves the rule. |
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May-13-11
| | Phony Benoni: Speaking of power pitchers: as of this moment, Justin Verlander has allowed no hits through the first five innings. |
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