1) Wade Boggs. 2440 games, 3010 hits, 118 HR, 1014 RBI, .328 lifetime average. Little power, adequate fielder.

2) George Brett. 2707 games, 3154 hits, 317 HR, 1595 RBI, .305 average. Batting titles in three decades. Adequate fielder. Did that home run against Gossage wind up counting?

3) Eddie Mathews. 2391 games, 2515 hits, 512 HR, 1453 RBI, .271 average. Numbers comparable to Schmidt, but not in his class in the field.

4) Robinson. 2896 games, 2848 hits, 28 HR, 1357 RBI, .267 average. Sparky Anderson, after the 1970 World Series: "I'm beginning to see Brooks Robinson in my dreams. If I dropped a paper plate, he'd pick it up on one bounce and throw me out at first." Lee May: (hold on, maybe I'd better not quote him).

5)Schmidt: 2404 games, 2234 hits, 548 HR, 1595 RBIs, .267 average. Excellent fielder.

6) Pie Traynor. 1941 games, 2416 hits, 58 HR, 1273 RBIs, .320 average. Considered the best fielder of his time. The traditional choice.

Being conservcative by nature, I'm leaning toward Traynor. After all, we've got Bench and Ruth and Gehrig and Williams to hit home runs; it can't hurt to have somebody get on base in front of them. But I've got a soft spot in my heart for Brett, of all people.

1) I hadn't looked up Ryne Sandberg's statistics before, and was surprised to see how well he compares to Morgan: better BA (.285 to .271) more home runs (282-268) in nearly 500 fewer games, and close in RBIs (1061-1133). The big difference is steals, where Morgan stole twice as many (689-344), but that's still a good total for Sandberg. However, I wouldn't go so far as to call him a better hiter, but he certainly wasn't worse.

2) By the way, I take Gold Gloves about as seriously as I take fielding percentage. They become a popularity contest after awhile; once a player wins a couple, he's likely to keep on winning until he spends a year on the disabled list or switches positions.

3) I meant to menton above: Traynor, Schmidt, Robinson and Brett all spent their entire careers with one team. Apparently, once a team gets a world class third baseman they try to hold on to them.

4) Alex Rodgriguez may be the best left-side infielder of all time, but I'd find it hard to think of him as either the best SS or best 3B.

DH is a special position. IMO, to qualify for consideration as the all-time DH, a player should satisfy two conditions:

1. Great hitter.
2. Lousy fielder.

But why did Brooks Robinson get in, while Santo and Ken Boyer did not, despite better batting statistics? Longetivity played a role (20+ years vs. 15 or so), and there does occasionally seem to be an East Coast bias (look at how many questionable former Yankees and New York Giants are in).

But I think there's another factor here: <The Defining Moment>, the one spot in their career when a player has all the attention focused on them and creates a memory that lives forever.

Robinson had it in the 1970 World Series. Santo and Boyer never had such a moment.

It's becoming obvious that the Tigers have the pitching to do well against bad teams, but lack the firepower to compete sucessfully with the elite. I'd just as soon they don't win the division and embarrass themselves in the playoffs.

I had a friend who claimed Mossi was so ugly that you had to store his trading card face down. Let's see:

http://eastwindupchronicle.com/wp-c...

The radio broadcasts stopped when the Giants moved to Candlestick Park. That left only the hated Yankees in The Other League. Frank Lary became a much venerated figure in our house, going 6-0 (!) against the legendary 1961 Yanks.

Very briefly in 1962 the Giants were back on the radio out here, when they were going down the stretch neck and neck with the Dodgers. I hope this memory is not too painful for <You Rang>. But that truly was the end of regular Giants coverage for us faithful. Only the box scores in the daily newspaper remained, plus the Giants' season series with the Mets.

PP: Yes, games at Seals Stadium were great, though I was too young really to appreciate it. And though Mays did cover the whole outfield, the outfield wasn't that big. We really saw how much ground he could cover when the team moved to Candlestick. Also learned how a ball he drove to left field could come straight down to an outfielder's glove on the warning track--the wind blew in from left.

My second reaction is that it's amazing that a guy who had 7 wins when he turned 27 could possibly win 300. I can only remember Warren Spahn who was so strong from the age 35 to 40.

My most lasting impression of Johnson, as it probably is for many, was in the All-Star game where he fired the first pitch over John Kruk's head against the screen. Then he threw him three sliders in the dirt away, and Kruk went back to the bench laughing in relief.