All Stars Then and Now: NL Edition

I think a lot about the kind of baseball fan I was at 10. More to the point, I wonder if I would be the same kind of fan if I was 10 years old today. That’s not to say that it’s a better time to be a fan today – or worse – but it’s definitely different. In 1977, there was no 24 hour sports talk on the radio, for instance. There was only one sports talk show in the world as far as I knew, and that was The Pete Franklin Show on 1100 WWWE (I can still hear the jingle: “Eleven hundred, Cleveland, 3WE!”).

Pete, you probably know, was one of the original – maybe THE original – sports shock jock. The guy ranted about everything. He hung up on people. He yelled at kids. When he disagreed with a caller (which was pretty much all the time) he would subtly make his point by saying something like, “Did the asylum loosen your straight jacket so you could make this call or did someone dial the phone for you?”

In other words, he was absolutely great, but he was on after the games, and that was way past my 10-year-old bedtime, so I didn’t hear him that much then. There was no other sports talk. There was no Internet to read up on the teams. There was no USA Today. The Indians back then, I would say, broadcast about 18 games on television. Maybe. My Dad could take me to about five games a year, if I begged.

So there were really only three or four places where I could learn about my team:

-- The radio broadcasts. That would be announcer Herb Score. I’ve written this before, but people in Cleveland called him “Herb No Score” for the obvious reason that he would sometimes go hours without giving the score of the game. It’s really funny to think about it now, but you sort of built your listening habits around it. You might tune into the game to catch a score, and if there was nobody out you would just turn off the radio and check back later because the only time Herb ever gave the score was at the end of innings or during pitching changes.

He was beautiful though. I loved him – every kid should love the radio voice that calls the games. I remember once reading an answer Herb gave to my friend Terry Pluto – Plutes had asked Herb why he didn’t discuss strategy during the game. For instance, if there were runners on first and second and nobody out in the eighth inning, tie score, Herb would never say something like, “Well, this might be a bunting situation.” Terry asked him why not, and Herb said: “That’s not my job. That’s a father’s job to tell his son.”

Sure, I know it’s sappy, but I’m sappy, and I can remember listening to the games with my Dad and him filling in the gaps, just like Herb said. Anyway, Herb was great, but he obviously wasn’t giving the full picture of the club. With Herb at the mike, you always expected Ron Pruitt to come through and Don Hood to put out the fire. And you were always surprised when they didn’t.

-- The newspaper accounts. Of course, I loved reading the newspaper. But you know what I used to love to read most of all, though? The “How They Scored” feature. Am I alone in this? I just loved going through the How They Scored, imagining the situation, visualizing Rick Manning dancing off second while Sugar Bear Blanks stood at the plate and … I am alone in this, aren’t I?

-- The Sporting News. This was the heyday of the Sporting News, back when it was the only place you could find trade rumors and minor league reports and little tidbits like, “Duane Kuiper has 12 hits in his last 43 at-bats.” Really? He does? That’s awesome! And then you would do the math (maybe) and you would find that meant Kuiper was hitting .279 in his last 43 at-bats, which really isn’t that good. But who cares! It was information. When I was 10 years old, I realize now, I was dying for good information, anything I could get, anywhere I could get it. Anywhere. Such as …

-- Baseball cards! Yes. I would spend hours looking at the back of my baseball cards, memorizing the details. For a while, I used to keep a little notebook of things I had learned scouting players through my baseball cards. I lost that notebook years ago, sadly, but I know it had entries such as:

John Lowenstein is a speedy base runner (Editor’s note: He is?). He is the only Major Leaguer born in Montana.

Charlie Spikes was voted the Tribe’s most outstanding Player in 1973 Training Camp by the news media! (Editor’s note: This was on his 1977 baseball card).

Buddy Bell almost quit baseball in 1969, but he called his Dad Gus (a former Major Leaguer!) and told him his feelings. His Dad drove 19 hours to make Buddy feel better!

Each baseball weight 5 to 51/2 ounces.

Rick Manning’s first Major League homer was an inside-the-park homer.

Ron Pruitt once played semi-pro ball in Alaska.

I have absolutely no idea how any of this was supposed to help my knowledge of the Indians or the game. But, hey, it’s all we had. It’s just different now. It’s like video games. These days, kids have baseball games so realistic you can actually get fired as manager of your own game. You can see the batter’s eyebrows move. When were kids, we played handheld video games where a blinking was supposed to represent the baseball and another blinking light represented the bat and other blinking lights represented base runners. We thought it was great. We didn’t know any better. You know why? We were stupid.

Now, a 10-year-old in Cleveland can watch every single Indians game on television. The highlights are on countless times. He (or she) can scout one of dozens of Cleveland Indians blogs – heck, he can create his own. He can listen to countless hours of talk radio chatter about Mark Shapiro (I’m pretty sure at 10 I didn’t even know who the Indians general manager was) and potential trades and Jhonny Peralta’s laser eye surgery and God knows what else. Nobody needs to wait for The Sporting News now. He can get the statistics updated instantly, and buy baseball cards that are so sharp you could cut tomatoes with them (but without the chalky gum), and get information sent directly to their cell phone (if parents allow 10 year old kids to have cell phones – I think I’m against that). Yes, it’s a great time to be a young baseball fan.

The only thing we had, I guess, was a lot more room for imagination.

OK, it’s time for the match-up, 1977 vs. today, National League.

First base: Prince Fielder vs. Steve Garvey.
My pick: Garvey.

Thoughts: It’s just too early to pick Fielder – he may very well end up being better than Garvey, he probably will, but he’s only in his second full year, and I want to give Captain America his due respect. I should tell that story again about Buck O’Neil and Prince Fielder from The Soul of Baseball: The Book because apparently I’m doing a terrible job using this blog as a promotional device. One friend sends this email: “Love the blog, but (I’m telling you this as a friend) it has to be the worst promotional blog I’ve ever seen. How are you going to sell Buck O’Neil books by looking at Yaz’s season from 1967?” Sigh. I was never any good at selling stuff.

It’s hard to imagine a player who has been slapped around more by history than Steve Garvey. Kids today might find it hard to understand, but Garvey was a superhero in 1977, he was one of the two or three most popular (and anti-popular) American athletes. I’m not sure there’s an athlete today who permeates American culture to the extent that Garvey did at that time – Garvey did game shows, he hosted talk shows, heck his WIFE at the time was relatively famous. She would become again, but for different reasons.

As a ballplayer, he seemed to have it all. Who knew about on-base percentage in 1977? Nobody. Garvey batted .300 every year, he knocked 200 hits every year (he would write “200” in his glove; apparently he had some sort of involved system for getting 200 hits in a year – a system that included, if I recall correctly, 12 bunt hits per season). He drove in 100 runs most of his prime, he hit 15 to 33 homers, and he won Gold Glove awards every year at first base. He’d steal the occasional base, score 90 runs, and give you 35 doubles or so. We thought he was invulnerable.

And then things started happening. First of all, he fathered those two kids out of wedlock. That was a major deal – Garvey was supposed to be squeaky clean. He was a Boy Scout; he wasn’t supposed to be starting his own Boy Scout troupe. The Garvey jokes were everywhere. There were the “Garvey is not my Padre” bumper stickers. I remember Pete Rose calling me over once to ask me: Did you hear about the Breeders’ Cup?”

“No,” I said.

“Mantle drank out of it, I bet on it and Garvey won it.”

(I’ve always loved that Pete Rose could tell a joke where he was a part of the punch line. The only thing cooler would be if you were playing some sort of Trivial Pursuit type game, and you asked a question where you were the answer).

Also, our focus shifted a bit. All those things Garvey did that seemed so great in 1977 – 200 hits, double-digit homers, solid number of RBIs, solid first base defense – do not seem quite so wonderful now. We like OPS now – and Garvey’s .775 OPS isn’t all that great (it’s about the same as George Hendrick, Doug DeCinces and lower than Kevin Seitzer and Dave Kingman). He really almost never walked; it’s rather stunning. He didn’t quite hit for the power you would hope for in a first baseman, even in the no-power 1970s. Garvey, perhaps more than any player of my childhood, played for the values of his time. He wanted to be a star, and so he did all the things you had to do to be a star in the 1970s. Then, the values changed.

I suppose that kind of stinks, really. Imagine you’re a car salesman, and your job as you understand it is to sell the most cars. And you sell more cars than anybody else. You are the star. You set car-selling records. And then, at the end of your career, it becomes apparent that the key is not selling the MOST cars, it’s selling the MOST EXPENSIVE cars. You look back and realize that 2/3 of the cars you sold are Ford Escorts – and now everybody thinks you weren’t much good. That’s got to hurt, no?

Anyway, I would say Garvey looked to be a sure Hall of Famer right up to 1985 – the last true Garvey year. He was 36 years old, he banged 184 more hits, hit 17 homers, drove in 84 runs, hit .281, made the All-Star Team. At that time, he had 2,441 hits and looked to be at least an even bet to get to 3,000.

But that was pretty much it. The next year, he did knocked 21 homers, but he hit just .254 – his lowest average for a full season. And it was clear that it was coming to an end. In 1987, he got only 76 at-bats, and he retired. It seemed quite possible that he might become president someday, and then the paternity suits were filed, his ex-wife wrote a vicious book about him, rumors about numerous shady dealings were whispered – and those are still whispered about Garvey now.

Then Garvey’s baseball career was re-examined. His first eligible year, he received 41 percent of the Hall of Fame vote – which isn’t bad at all for a first year guy. Most people who get that many votes their first year get into the Hall. By 2002, though, he was at 28 percent. Then 24 percent. Then 21 percent. So it goes. I’m not saying anything happened to Steve Garvey that is unfair – it’s just strange and a little sad to see someone who was so much larger than life in 1977 fall back to earth.

One other point: Had the voters chosen Pujols instead of Fielder, this would have been no contest.

Second base: Joe Morgan vs. Chase Utley
My pick: Morgan.

Thoughts: Morgan is, in many ways, the opposite of Garvey. I’m not sure many people realized just how good he was in the 1970s. Yes, everyone knew he was good – I mean, he did win back-to-back MVPs – but in retrospect he was better than that. Take 1977. He did not receive a single MVP vote in ’77. Not one. It’s pretty remarkable. I mean, there are logical reasons why he didn’t get a vote – he was coming off the back-to-back MVP years already, so people were tired of voting for him maybe. The Dodgers finally passed the Reds. His teammate George Foster hit .320 with 52 homers and 149 RBIs – numbers that seemed like an optical illusion in those no-power 1970s. He won the MVP, and the voters obviously felt like that was enough for the Reds.

Still, I do recall people thinking that Morgan had something of a down year in 1977 – that his career was winding down. But lookit: In 1977, Morgan walked 117 times, he had a .417 on-base percentage, he hit 22 homers, he stole 49 bases, he scored 113 runs, he won a Gold Glove. Sure it may have been Morgan’s third- or fourth-best season. But it’s also probably one of the 10 best all-around seasons for a second baseman ever. I just don’t think we knew that at the time.

Morgan did so many things that were not appreciated by the 1970s crowd – he didn’t (generally) hit for a high average, he didn’t get a lot of hits, he didn’t bang 30 homers, he didn’t steal 80 bases, he didn’t drive in 100 runs (well, he did once – his second MVP year).

Instead, he got on base, he stole bases at a high rate, he scored runs, he walked a ton. Joe Morgan was the best player in baseball when I was a kid, and probably by quite a lot. But I had no idea.

(We are going to try to have an entire Morgan entry without commenting on his announcing).

Chase Utley is a very good player who might win a batting title in the next few years.

Shortstop: Jose Reyes vs. Dave Concepcion
My pick: Reyes.

Thoughts: I got an email from someone about Reyes, and how he has to be the most overrated player in baseball. I can’t find the email right now, sadly, but it seems to me the point was that Reyes was a fraud who didn’t get on base, didn’t get much done, wasn’t exciting to watch, etc. I think you might have made that argument in 2005 when Reyes had the .300 on-base percentage and the 80 OPS+.

But the Reyes we’re seeing this season – with the .396 on-base percentage, the 41 steals in 52 attempts, the 130 OPS+, the guy on pace to get 210 hits, 34 doubles, 16 triples, 8 homers, 90 walks and score 116 runs – I’d take him any day. And I do love to watch him play.

Concepcion was a personal favorite of mine in 1977, the one guy on the Big Red Machine that I allowed myself, as a Clevelander, to like. He really was a dazzling defensive shortstop, one of the best ever, and he probably was cheated a little by fate. He won five Gold Gloves, which is nice, but he could have had more. He only played half a season in 1973 – and still probably should have won the award over Roger Metzger. I think Metzger might be the worst pick ever for Gold Glove shortstop – worse than Jeter. At least you understand WHY Jeter won the Gold Glove (he always makes a few high-impact plays, he’s a great hitter which influences voters even if it shouldn’t, the AL shortstop crop is pretty thin). But Roger Metzger?

Larry Bowa took the Gold Glove away from Concepcion in 1978, and Bowa was OK, steady, didn’t make many errors, but I don’t think Bowa on his best day was in Concepcion’s class as a fielder. And then in 1979, Hurricane Ozzie took over, and the Gold Glove was (rightfully) his for the next 13 years.

Anyway, because of the Gold Glove situation, I’m not sure people have ever appreciated that Concepcion was a truly magnificent defensive shortstop, better perhaps than Luis Aparicio. And I think he was a better hitter than Aparicio too. I’m not making a Hall of Fame case for him here because I’m not sure Aparicio should be in there either. But Aparicio IS in there, and I think Concepcion was better.

Third base: David Wright vs. Ron Cey
My pick: Wright, but it’s very close.

Thoughts: The National League team is so young, that it’s sort of hard to compare these guys. But it appears Wright is settling into a nice pattern -- .300 average, .380 OBP, .520 slugging, 25-30 homers, 100-plus RBIs, 20-plus stolen bases, 100 runs, a nice 137 OPS+.

Cey did just about all of those things in a much tougher hitting environment. He didn’t hit .300, but he walked 90 times a year so his on-base percentage was in the .380 range as well. He’d give you 25-30 home runs when that really meant something. He’d drive in 100 runs. He didn’t steal bases (he was the Penguin, after all), but his OPS+ for his five prime years was 134. Close. Very close.

Left field: Barry Bonds vs. Greg Luzinski
My pick: Duh

Thoughts: Barry Bonds is 42 years old. He’s beat up. He’s disliked. He’s got intense pressures weighing on him every day. If most of us think he was taking steroids and other performance enhancing drugs before, I’d say most of us also think he probably isn’t taking the stuff now. There’s too much heat now.

And yet Barry Bonds, RIGHT NOW, is having one of the greatest offensive seasons in baseball history. It’s amazing. He’s been so good the last few years, so unbelievably good (using all meanings of the word “unbelievably”), he has set such absurd standards, that I’ve actually read stories saying that Bonds is having some sort of off-year.

Look:

-- Barry Bonds has a .517 on-base percentage. You know how many players since 1900 have had an on-base percentage that high for a season? Three. Babe Ruth. Ted Williams. Barry Bonds.

-- Barry Bonds had a .614 slugging percentage. That leads the National League.

-- Bonds is hitting a homer every 11.6 at-bats. That’s better than Babe Ruth’s career average.

-- Bonds has a 200 OPS+ -- which is the same as Ty Cobb in 1912 (when he hit .409), Musial in 1948 (when he had his legendary season – he hit .376 with 46 doubles, 18 triples, 39 homers and 131 RBIs), and Dick Allen’s MVP year in 1972.

-- He also has been intentionally walked 30 times. At age 42. He’s made a mockery of this game.

Hey, how about a weird list? How about players who were intentionally walked more times than years they have lived? Sure, why not? There have been 20 seasons. One guy sort of dominates the list.

+81 -- Barry Bonds, 2004 (120 IW, 39 years old)
+31 -- Barry Bonds, 2002 (68 IW, 37 years old)
+23 -- Barry Bonds, 2003 (61 IW, 38 years old)
+15 -- Barry Bonds, 1993 (43 IW, 28 years old)
+14 -- Willie McCovey, 1969 (45 IW, 31 years old)
+11 -- Ryan Howard, 2005 (37 IW, 26 years old)
+9 -- John Olerud, 1993 (33 IW, 24 years old)
+8 -- Willie McCovey, 1970 (40 IW, 32 years old)
+6 -- Vlad Guerrero, 2002 (32 IW, 26 years old)
+5 -- Kevin Mitchell, 1989 (32 IW, 27 years old)
+5 -- Sammy Sosa, 2001 (37 IW, 32 years old)
+5 -- Barry Bonds, 1992 (32 IW, 27 years old)
+4 -- Miguel Cabrera, 2006 (27 IW, 23 years old)
+4 -- Adolfo Phillips, 1967: 29 IW (25 years old)
+2 -- Barry Bonds, 1997 (34 IW, 32 years old)
+3 -- Will Clark, 1988 (27 IW, 24 years old)
+2 -- Ken Griffey Jr., 1993 (25 IW, 23 years old)
+2 -- Albert Pujols, 2006 (28 IW, 26 years old)
+2 -- Albert Pujols, 2005 (27 IW, 25 years old)
+2 -- Frank Thomas, 1995 (29 IW, 27 years old)

I don’t know why, but I just like that list. I didn’t realize people intentionally walked Skinny Bonds as much as they did.

This, by the way, is not to downplay Greg Luzinski. He had a terrific year in 1977 – his best year, in fact. He hit .309, walked 80 times, banged 39 homers, drove in 130 runs. The Bull was up in the big leagues at 19, and he really was a good player, but his career ended at 33.

Centerfield: Carlos Beltran vs. George Foster
My pick: Don’t make do this, Part II.

Yes, George Foster played centerfield in that All-Star Game. Everybody knows how much I love Carlos – I watched the kid grow up. He’s the greatest percentage base stealer ever. He hits with power. He plays a huge center field. He struggles a bit this year, but last year he walked and got on base. And he’s doing it all in a lousy hitters’ park.

On the other hand, Foster’s 1977 season was absurd, better than anything Beltran has thrown out there yet, and Foster was almost as good in 1978. Foster’s career was hurt by two things. He did not break through with the Reds until he was 26 years old. And his career tailed off badly after he traded to the Mets. But in his prime, he was a premier player.

I suppose if I’m a manager, I take Beltran. He can play Gold Glove centerfield. Foster was a left-fielder, and a not very good one.

Right field: Ken Griffey Jr. vs. Dave Parker
My pick: Griffey Jr.

Thoughts: Would you say that Griffey is the one great player from the Steroid Era who is utterly and entirely beyond reproach on the subject? I mean, NOBODY thinks Griffey did anything with performance enhancing drugs. Heck, the guy barely worked out.

So if it’s true – if Griffey was clean while so many of the other great players of the age were not – then he really did have much of his legacy taken away from him, didn’t he? I mean, look: He’s going to reach 600 homers – something only Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Willie Mays had done before the Stera. He played a great centerfield – maybe not worthy of all 10 of those Gold Gloves, but awfully, awfully good. He hit for average, stole a few bases, drew some walks, and was the most popular player in baseball.

This should have been his time, right? His era. I mean, Skinny Barry was around too, but he was so surly (though not to me) and he didn’t play center, and he didn’t have that beautiful Griffey swing. He could be Ted Williams to Griffey’s DiMaggio. Or Mays to Griffey’s Mantle. At the end of the day, even with all his injuries, Griffey will probably finish his career with a .290 average, close to 3,000 hits, 650 homers, 500-plus doubles, 1800-plus RBIs – I mean, these are absurd numbers. And yet they have been overshadowed. He has been overshadowed.

Dave Parker might be in the Hall of Fame had he done anything at all from 1981-84. Those were the drug years, and he simply collapsed as a player. The average plummeted, the power plummeted, he stopped walking (he actually was beginning to walk more in the late 1970s), his defense fell apart. If you just take Dave Parker in 1977, he was fabulous, a .338 hitter, 44 doubles, 8 triples, 21 homers, 17 steals (though 19 caught stealing – yikes), 215 hits. Wow.

Catcher: Russell Martin vs. Johnny Bench
Edge: Bench.

Thoughts: What is the greatest single season for a catcher?

Ah, for that tune in tomorrow, same bat time, same bat channel. And oh by the way, please buy a book.

Final tally:
1977 NL All-Stars: 3 (Bench, Garvey, Morgan),
2006 NL All-Stars 5 (Beltran, Bonds, Griffey, Reyes, Wright).