Rivalries Part 2: Pedro vs. Sheffield

A quick story to start (warning -- Olympics and golf to follow. You are more than welcome to skip to the stars and our baseball rivalry of the day): We were at the Olympics in 1996, and it was the afternoon before the Opening Ceremonies, and all of us columnists were trying to predict who would be the athlete to light the torch. We weren’t predicting for fun – our professional lives were at stake. Whoever lit the torch (naturally) would be from somebody’s hometown. And that hometown columnist (naturally) would have to, in a matter of a minutes, weave together a moving column about the hometown hero lighting the Olympic torch.

“It’s going to be Edwin Moses,” Pat Forde was saying. Pat is now a terrific writer for ESPN, but back that he was columnist in Louisville. And he was taunting the wonderful Dayton columnist Tom Archdeacon. See, the great hurdler Edwin Moses is from Dayton. Pat had decided that Arch was going to draw the columnist short straw.

“Oh yeah, it’s got to be Edwin Moses,” Pat said. “Who else could it be? I mean we are talking about one of the all-time Olympic greats. You better start writing now Tom.” We were all joining in – it was all good fun -- and Arch’s face was turning a bit white. I was laughing calmoly because at the time I was columnist in Cincinnati and there was virtually no chance that Pete Rose or Marge Schott was going to light the Olympic torch.

“You really think it’s going to be Edwin?” Arch asked.

“Who else could it be?” Pat said. As I recall, he said it with gusto.

That night, as you probably remember, featured one of the most touching Olympic moments ever. A shaking Muhammad Ali – his body wrecked by Parkinson’s Disease but his aura shining bright – lit the torch. That would be Louisville’s Muhammad Ali. That would be Pat Forde’s town.

The next day, we ran into a bleary-eyed Pat Forde, who of course had stayed up half the night trying to write his Muhammad Ali torch story, and of course did not have time to make it right. He was not really in a joking mood anymore.

I bring this up because … well, because it’s funny. But also because every columnist has some version of this story. For more than 10 years now, I’ve been writing about golfer Tom Watson. He’s from Kansas City, he still lives in Kansas City (well, on a farm nearby), and I would say that around the world, he is the most famous Kansas Citian.

That means every reasonably major tournament that Tom Watson plays in, I’m on call to write a column of some kind. This has mostly been a good thing. I’ve developed a reasonably close relationship with Tom. I’ve followed him on some of the most beautiful golf courses in the World (Augusta, Pebble Beach, Shinnecock, Muirfield for starters). I’ve argued politics with him. He’s given me kid advice. I’ve talked Royals’ baseball with him lots of times.

The one thing I have not seen him do, though, is actually win a golf tournament. I mean, never. I once flew to Chicago when he was leading the U.S. Open, and the first hole I saw him play he double bogeyed. I followed him around at a Senior Tour playoff in Kansas City, and watched him lose. I traveled to St. Louis to see him in a match-play competition, which he promptly lost. So it goes. I’ve sometimes thought that, after all the columns I’ve written about the guy, it would be nice to see him win just once.

Sunday, I was at home, with my oldest daughter sleeping in my lap, and I watched Tom Watson build up a three-shot lead with eight holes left at the U.S. Senior Open – the one Champions Tour event that really has the cache to be called a Major Championship. And I was really excited for him. Sure, Watson has already had plenty of great golf moments – five British Open Championships, two Masters, Six PGA Tour Player of the Year Awards and the most famous chip in golf history. Right there you have enough glory for three lifetimes.

Still … something weird happened to Tom Watson. He stopped winning in the mid-80s when he was in his prime. He was the best golfer on earth. He was about the same age that Tiger Woods is now. He was not injured. He was still hitting the ball with the same force and precision. The problem – this is oversimplifying things, but not much – was that his putts stopped falling. Watson had been the boldest putter on tour – he never left a putt short. He would putt the ball three or four feet past the hole all the time, but his touch was so feathery that he always made the comeback putt. Well, suddenly, he started missing those comeback putts. Pars became bogeys. And, like that, the run was over.

I’ve always thought that had to be hard a hard thing to deal with, to have it all end abruptly like that. Watson was one of the finest ball-strikers in golf for two decades after he won his last British Open. But from 1985 through 1995, he won just one golf tournament. He won a couple more as an older golfer, and he’s won some stuff on the Senior Tour, but it never was the same. I don’t think he ever got closure.

Sunday, it looked like he would have his final crescendo. He led the U.S. Senior Open by three shots. He was playing a lot like his younger self – swashbuckling his way through, making long putts, getting out of trouble, overwhelming everybody. All he needed to do was make a few pars coming in, and the tournament was his … and there would be a huge roar for him at 18. I was happy for the man I have probably written more columns about than any other.

And then … it fell apart. I mean, it really fell apart. Every ghost, every demon, every hiccup, every flaw that has haunted Tom Watson for the last 25 years showed up for one giant reunion. He missed short putts. He hit into trouble and couldn’t get out. Balls buried in the sand. Balls got snarled in the rough. It was awful to watch. Watson shot eight over par on his final eight holes, and the truth is that it could have been even worse. He ended up fourth at the tournament that was his and his alone. And he looked so old.

It’s a strange thing being a sportswriter in the same town for a long time. On the one hand you are supposed to remain professional (Bill James HATES that word) and somewhat distant from the people you write about. On the other hand, you are supposed to know them well enough to give some insight into their triumphs, failures, motivations and fears. It’s an impossible dance, really. Sunday I was heartbroken for Tom Watson.

* * *

Matchup No. 2: Pedro Martinez vs. Gary Sheffield

How they’ve done: Sheffield is hitting .278 against Pedro in 36 at-bats. He has three homers and has walked six times (giving him a .370 on-base percentage). Martinez has struck out Sheffield six times. I love this match-up for one other reason – these are two of the most intimidating players out there.

Thoughts: A friend sent me an email the other day about Gary Sheffield. He wondered what people think about Sheffield. The guy has Hall of Fame numbers – but do people see him as a Hall of Famer? He’s been on playoff teams each of the last five years and probably is again, but do people see him as a winning ballplayer? He probably will be one of only three players to finish a career with 500 homers and 250 steals (along with Willie Mays and Barry Bonds – ARod will join the party soon after). But do people see him as an all-around talent?

It has led me to wonder if perhaps Sheffield is the most underrated player of his time. I think this because, quite honestly, until a couple of years ago I never gave him much thought. He was in the National League, and after 1996 I didn’t see many NL games. He was always in the papers for something vaguely controversial (in retrospect, it was usually because he wanted to get paid more), and I mindlessly classified him as a pain in the neck. He never seemed to lead the league in anything (he did have the one batting title – but no homer titles, no RBI titles, no Gold Gloves, no MVPs). And he was a part of that mercenary and hideous 1997 Marlins championship team.

That was about all I knew. Well, I also knew he was Dwight Gooden’s nephew, another association that did not necessarily make him more appealing.

So I remember being at Yankee Stadium for a Royals-Yankees series – always a joy – and Sheffield came up, and he was waving the bat wildly like he does, and I thought: Man, this guy is a strikeout waiting to happen. And so I looked up his numbers and found – whoa, the guy actually doesn’t strike out hardly at all. Among the great power hitters – guys with 400 plus homers – Sheffield has the fifth fewest strikeouts.

1. Stan Musial, 696 strikeouts.
2. Ted Williams, 709 strikeouts
3. Lou Gehrig, 790 strikeouts
4. Mel Ott, 896 strikeouts.
5. Gary Sheffield, 1004 strikeouts.

That’s good company, no? And so, I turned and closely watched Gary Sheffield play that series. And the guy was amazing. I don’t mean he was good. I mean he was amazing. I don’t remember precisely what he did, but I recall that he cracked hits all over the park. He made a dazzling catch. He stole a base. He made a rocket throw. But more than anything, he played with energy, with force, with will. I’d sort of assumed that Sheffield was just another mercenary player, coasting for a big salary, not running out ground balls and so on. But the player I saw that weekend wanted to win, and he wanted to win badly, and he wanted to win every single day.

There’s one great advantage of following the Kansas City Royals – you get to see which players on the other teams REALLY play hard every day. If you’re going to take a day off or check out mentally, the Kansas City Royals have been the team to do that against. Well, Sheffield played that series like it mattered, like there was something important at stake, and I left New York with a new admiration for him, an admiration that has never dimmed.

I don’t know what kind of guy Sheffield is – I realize he’s played for a good number of teams, and he has a little bit of the steroid stain. Also I’ve never even interviewed him one on one. And I don’t see him that often – it’s possible that I just happen to catch him on his good days. But based on what I’ve seen (and based also on his .399 on-base percentage, 146 OPS+, etc.). Sheffield is one of the true forces of the game.

Pedro, of course, is Pedro. I was in the Dominican with Tony Peña, and we went to see the house where he grew up (he still owns the house). He came upon a wall and pointed at a photograph and said, “That used to be a picture of Jesus.” The new photo was of Pedro Martinez.

As background, Sheffield was the sixth pick in the 1986 draft, which tells you that the sixth pick was a pretty good one to have in the mid-1980s – Bonds was the sixth pick in the 1985 draft. Other sixth picks in the 1980s were not so fortunate (Spike Owen, Erik Pappas, Paul Coleman, etc. – Kevin McReynolds is in there too). Sheffield was up in the big leagues when he was 19, and he was an everyday player for Milwaukee in 1990. He had an absolutely miserable season in 1991 – he was hurt, and he hit .194. The Brewers traded him to San Diego, and Sheffield (who always has thrived on disrespect) hit .330 with 100 RBIs.

Pedro, meanwhile, signed when he was like 11 years old or whatever. He started one game in the big leagues as a 20-year-old for the Dodgers, and he won 10 games while being used almost exclusively as a reliever in 1993. Los Angeles, as I recall, was convinced that Martinez was too slight to stand up to the wear and tear of being a starter and traded him to Montreal for Delino DeShields (I could be wrong on this analysis – Dodgers fans please feel free to correct me here). Pedro had three very good seasons as a starter, and then became superhuman in 1997 (he went 17-8 with a 1.90 ERA and 305 strikeouts). He was pretty much superhuman for the next six seasons.

The Sheffield-Martinez rivalry follows that pattern. From 1993 to 1996, Sheffield spanked Martinez pretty good. He went 6 for 16 (.375) with 4 of his 6 hits going for extra bases (two doubles, two homers). This makes good sense – Martinez was more or less a fastball pitcher in the mid 1990s, and Sheffield is one of the great fastball hitters ever.

In 1997, though, Martinez transformed into something otherworldly – and though Sheffield was in his prime he never really hit Pedro again. Since 1997, Sheffield is hitting .200 against Martinez (4 for 20) and he has only one extra base hit. Of course, that extra base hit is pretty famous in New York – he mashed a two-run homer off of Pedro in September 2004 as the Yankees beat the Red Sox and Martinez 11-2, which more or less clinched the division title for the Yankees that year.

Rivalries Part 1: Maddux v. Bonds

So I’m sitting here watching the Wimbledon final, Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal, and it’s mesmerizing stuff. Frank Deford calls tennis “bloodless boxing,” and I think that’s right. What makes Federer vs. Nadal so unique and fun is that they are such different personalities on the court – Federer is cool, imperturbable, moves around so easily, stealthily, cat burgler, a young Ali, Greg Maddux. Nadal is fiery, fierce, intimidating, imposes his will, a bar bouncer, Joe Frazier, Roger Clemens.

When they play, it’s like watching Superman-Lex Luthor. Tennis used to be a lot of fun with Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Lendl, Nastase, Navratilova, King, Evert, Austin – you know, good guys and bad guys, only it was just as much fun (more fun?) rooting for the bad guy as the good guy. That’s the kind of emotion that Federer-Nadal inspires – at least for me. I don’t know who is the good guy or bad guy in Federer v. Nadal, but I suspect if you like one of them, you despise the other, and that emotion is at the heart of every great rivalry.

There really isn’t another great rivalry anywhere in sports right now, is there? Tiger pretty much stands alone in golf. Women’s tennis looked so promising a few years ago, but no new Chrissie-Martina rivalry has developed. Boxing, surprisingly, wasn’t saved by the Evander Holyfield-Lou Savarese fight. There doesn’t seem to be a Russell-Chamberlain, Bird-Magic type of thing in the NBA … maybe LeBron-Durant will evolve into that. I’m told there are terrific rivalries in Ultimate Fighting if you enjoy watching men beat the living hell out of each other in cages. I don’t know – it just doesn’t seem quite violent enough for me. Maybe they can give the fighters brass knuckles. Switchblades. Death stars. Something.

Anyway, I don’t think baseball makes enough of its individual rivalries. The core of baseball, after all, is that one-on-one match-up, that brilliant moment when the game is on the line and you have a great pitcher on the mound and a great hitter at the plate. Admittedly this doesn’t happen as often as it used to because of all the specialty relievers – you rarely get even the great starters going into the late innings. And it’s true that the tension doesn’t seem quite as high when it’s Jimmy Gobble facing Jim Thome in the eighth rather than, say, Tom Seaver against Willie McCovey.

Still, the thrill is there when the great ones clash. So each day this All-Star Week, we will highlight one (or several, depending on our time situation) match-up of great current pitchers and hitters.

Matchup No. 1: Greg Maddux vs. Barry Bonds

How they’ve done: Bonds is hitting only .268 against Maddux in 127 at-bats. He is slugging .496, which is more than 100 points less than his career slugging percentage. On the other hand, Bonds has hit eight homers off of Maddux (tied for the most he’s hit off any one pitcher) and the 23 walks allowed is by far the most issued by Maddux to any player.

Thoughts: I’m about to go on the road with the Barry Bonds home run circus, so he’s on my mind a lot. You know, I’ve always liked the guy. One of the real challenges of being a modern-day sportswriter is that we find ourselves writing about people we don’t really know – and can’t really know. We don’t get to ride the trains with these guys; we don’t go to dinner with them on the road, we don’t catch movies with them on off-days. Every so often we might connect with an athlete in a slightly larger way (I used to have weekly chess matches with Chiefs star running back Priest Holmes) but generally speaking the media is now too overbearing, the money is too divisive, the symbiotic relationship between writer and athlete (you give me a story, and I’ll make you look good for the fans) has been pretty well wiped out. None of this is necessarily bad – there used to be way too make jock sniffers in the media – but it isn’t necessarily good either.

In any case, we form our opinions about athletes now on much less information. Is Barry Bonds a jerk? Based on my three or four personal dealings with him, the unequivocal answer is: No. He was kind to me, generous with his time, funny in his sardonic way and thoughtful with his answers. Admittedly, I wasn’t exactly grilling him – all of my interviews were done well before any steroid talk. Still, he was great, and if I had never read or heard a single thing about Barry Bonds, and someone asked me: “What kind of guy is he?” I would say without hesitation: A terrific guy.

(Then again, I interviewed O.J. Simpson five months before the White Bronco chase and I called a friend to tell him that Simpson was one of the “warmest people I’d ever met.” So maybe the problem is I’m not a particularly good judge of character).

Obviously my experiences with Bonds are a lot different from most (the same is true of my experiences with Curt Schilling. I have friends in the business who believe him to be the single worst guy in baseball. He’s been great to me. The guy sent me a complimentary email less than 12 hours after he won Game 1 of the World Series. I’m supposed to dislike THAT guy?). Still, in the end, we’re all human. I can’t help but base my feelings on my own experiences. I like Barry Bonds. There. I’ve said it.

And, of course, I love Greg Maddux. Funny thing, my experiences with him have been significantly less enjoyable than my experiences with Bonds … not that Maddux has ever been mean or rude or dismissive in our interviews. The best way to describe him, I guess, would be: Sort of disinterested. I blame myself. I believe that interviewers have good days and bad ones – just like pitchers. Some days, the questions just flow, and you really engage the subject. You find yourself taking the interview into wild new places … suddenly you are talking about whether the athlete liked the Addams Family or the Munsters, and while this won’t necessarily help tomorrow’s story (“KANSAS CITY – Emil Brown has always liked Lost In Space …”), it can open up that door that, as already mentioned, is much harder to open these days.

I’ve probably interviewed Maddux six or seven times, and there are a couple of pretty good interviews in there, but I never have had one of those breakthrough interview days with him. He’s my favorite pitcher, but I don’t think that was the reason. I just don’t think Maddux is particularly interested in analyzing himself or his pitching motives, and he’s smart enough to avoid doing those things, and because of that he’s a tougher nut to crack.

Bonds and Maddux both played their first games in the National League in 1986. Bonds was part of that amazing 1985 draft. He was the sixth pick in that draft, which would normally mean that the five teams who didn’t pick him were idiots. But in this case, you would have to say they were only slightly idiotic. The Brewers took B.J. Surhoff, who has had a very fine Major League career – he has more than 2,300 hits. The Giants then took Will Clark, who played at a Hall of Fame level for quite a few years. In fact from 1986-1991 – so we’re talking the first six years of their careers – Clark created more runs than Bonds. With the third pick, Texas took Bobby Witt – a mistake, but he did win 140-plus games in the big leagues. With the fourth pick, Cincinnati took Barry Larkin, who I think will go into the Hall of Fame.

With the fifth pick the White Sox took Kurt Brown – so, yeah, that might qualify as an error in judgment. Otherwise, though, everyone got good player.

Maddux, meanwhile, was a second-round pick out of high school in 1984 – he was taken one pick after Christ. Really. Mike Christ. The best pitcher taken before Maddux was probably Terry Mulholland. Bill Swift (taken with the second overall pick) did win 94 games in the big leagues.

Both struggled a little at first. Bonds was a strikeout machine his first full year, Maddux went 6-14 with a 5.61 ERA. They both improved rapidly – though Bonds became a star first. By 1988 he was a star, and by 1990, he was the best player in the league. Maddux was probably not a truly great pitcher until 1992.

And so Bonds ruled this rivalry in the early years – even after Maddux established himself. In 1993 – in that year, Maddux was on his way to his second straight Cy Young award – Bonds went 7 for 10 against Maddux with two homers. That gave Bonds a .342 lifetime average against Maddux, and he’d already his six homers off the man.

But if there’s one thing Greg Maddux knows how to do, it is adjust. I think in some ways Maddux’s remarkable ability to pitch and outthink people has become overrated through the years – the guy had some serious stuff too. His fastball may not have been clocked at 95 mph, but it would dive and hook and slice, and he could throw it anywhere he wanted. His control was so ridiculously good, he would Jedi Mind Trick umpires into calling strikes when the ball was clearly six inches outside.

Umpire: Ball.
Maddux: You don’t mean to call that a ball.
Umpire: I don’t mean to call that a ball.
Maddux: That ball was over the outside corner.
Umpire: That ball was over the outside corner.
Maddux: You can go about your business.
Umpire: Let’s play ball. Count is, oh, whatever. (Points to batter). You’re out.

But it is true that Maddux is a master at figuring things out. From 1994 on, Bonds never had any real success against Maddux. It seems, from the numbers anyway, that Maddux changed tactics. Up to that point, he tried to challenge Bonds. He gave up those hits and homers, but he also struck out Bonds quite often. After 1994, all that changed. He stopped trying for the strikeout. He started sinking the ball more – Bonds grounded out five of the eight times he faced Maddux in 1996, for instance.

Sure, Bonds still had his occasional moments. But after 1994, he has hit only .175 against Maddux. He has not hit a home run off of Maddux since early 1998.

All in all, you would have to say Skinny Barry was great against Young Maddux. But Big Barry has not done much of anything against Old Maddux. Somehow, I would not have guessed that.

The Sometimes Best Ever Sometimes

This is our second installment of a new feature called: “What in the hell is this manager talking about?” A couple of weeks ago, we featured Royals' manager Buddy Bell explaining, well, something about his team’s confusion and inability to hit Jon Garland.

Today, we have Yankees manager Joe Torre talking about Derek Jeter’s defense.

You would have to say Jeter is unique in baseball history in this way: There are people who think he’s an absolutely terrific defensive player and others who think he’s an absolutely awful defensive player. I’m not sure any one player’s defense has created such a wide gap of opinions. Omar Vizquel, maybe. Andruw Jones, maybe. Luis Aparicio, maybe.

I would say the Jeter gap is larger. Jeter has won three Gold Gloves. And there are respected baseball people – friends of mine – who have spent a lot of time studying him and believe he’s the worst defensive shortstop in the American League. Some think he's the worst ever.

My own personal feelings tend to lean toward the latter – in my view, he’s always been a below average defensive shortstop. He does that neat jump throw thing from the hole, which is fun to watch and sometimes compensates for his below-average shortstop arm. On the other hand, I’ve seen balls skip by him that couldn’t have been more than three or four feet to his left. He’s fairly steady – doesn’t make too many errors – but he’s brutal on the double play. He’s alert, and he has an excellent knack for making a big play. On the other hand, he just doesn’t get to many balls (though his range factor is up again this year). All in all, I’d rather have him at second base.

But he’s such a good hitter that the Jeter halo effect glows brighter than Times Square. Today, Newsday has one of those periodic stories that will appear in the New York papers, the one where Jeter's supporters fight back against those nasty “numbers” and “defensive statistics,” and explain that his brilliance often goes undetected. This is rich, by the way, the idea that anything good that Derek Jeter does could possibly go undetected. When Jeter kicks a rock, there are three stories in the New York papers about how he’s cleaning up the streets.

Still, it’s a perfectly legitimate and entertaining story with perfectly legitimate and entertaining opinions. Defense is a mysterious racket. There are very smart baseball people who think Jeter’s defense is good.

Then we get the quote from Torre.

He says Jeter is, “as good as I’ve ever seen going out there and sometimes making acrobatic plays.”

OK, seriously, what the hell does that mean? I’ve read in 20 times, and I still have no idea. Is he saying that Jeter is as good as he’s ever seen at making acrobatic plays? No he can’t be saying that right? He managed Ozzie Smith. But look again: He’s not saying that. There’s the precious placement of the word “sometimes.

See, Jeter is as good as he’s ever seen at SOMETIMES making acrobatic plays.

So let’s see how this works in other scenarios:
-- Angel Berroa is the best I’ve ever seen going out there at sometimes getting a hit.
-- George W. Bush is the best president ever at sometimes speaking eloquently
-- Phil Mickelson is the best golfer I’ve ever seen at sometimes winning a tournament.
-- Shaq is the best basketball player I’ve ever seen at sometimes making free throws.
-- Carrottop is the best comedian I’ve ever seen at sometimes making me laugh.

Actually, you can cross out the last one. Carrottop has never made me laugh. Hey, I realize that Joe Torre needs to stand up for his player. And Joe is a pretty straightforward and honest soul, so he has to know deep down that while Jeter can (and often does) rise to the moment, he’s fairly blah every day at shortstop. Torre said what he had to say. But it’s pretty funny anyway.

If you see a classic manager's quote, send it along to postmaster@soulofbaseball.com.

Best Catcher Seasons Ever

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There we go, how's that for a promotional blog? Now, here's your free 4,000 word essay on catchers.

At the end of 2003, the Kansas City Royals spent way too much money to sign catcher Benito Santiago, who was, according to carbon dating, approximately 834 years old. Those were heady days in Kansas City. The Royals had somehow managed to stay in first place in the American League Central for most of the 2003 season. The reasons for this minor miracle (it was not quite as large a miracle as turning water into wine – more like the minor miracle of making one day’s worth of oil last for eight days) would become apparent over time. Heck, the reasons were probably apparent then:

-- Lousy division.
-- An unrepeatable and fluky .304 batting average with runners in scoring position.
-- The supreme talents of the soon-to-be-gone Carlos Beltran.
-- The steadiness of the soon-to-be-gone Raul Ibanez.
-- A month and a half where Jose Lima improbably pitched like Greg Maddux (He was, at one point, 7-0 with a 2.17 ERA).
-- The artificial emergence of Angel Berroa.

It took all these things and many more for the Royals to finish the season at 83-79 – a mediocre season for most other clubs but a godsend for Kansas City. After so many awful years, everybody wanted to believe (so much so that Tony Peña’s “Nosotros Creemos” T-shirts could be found all over town). And this was especially true of Royals management. They failed to re-sign Raul Ibanez, but they went free agent crazy in that moderate, self-defeating small-market way. The re-signed Brian Anderson, who was coming off his best season, and they re-signed Joe Randa. They re-signed Curtis Leskanic. They re-signed Jason Grimsley. They went outside the organization too – they signed Tony Graffanino. They signed Matt Stairs. For the big headline, they nabbed Juan Gonzalez. Nostros Creemos, indeed.

As you know (if you care) the Royals 2004 season was a disaster and just about every one of the players Kansas City signed turned in catastrophic seasons. But I didn’t bring up any of this to relive bad Royals’ memories. I brought it up because one of the many bad signings that year was Benito Santiago.

And here’s what I remember about Santiago. He would not give a target to the pitcher. He just wouldn’t. He crouched behind the plate, kept his glove down between his legs, and basically wore a look that said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah throw whatever you want, I’m too old to lift up my glove for some young punk like you. I’ve been catching baseballs since the Mesozoic Age, kiddo.”

There were a few complaints, from what I recall, mostly on talk radio. And then Tony Peña, who knows a little something about catching, said that giving a target was overrated anyway. A couple of pitchers agreed and gave quote that basically said: “Hey, this isn’t Little League – we don’t need catchers to give us targets.” And so on.

The Royals had so many other problems that year the no-target thing blew over, but I’ve thought a lot about it. If holding up a target doesn’t really matter then what the hell is a catcher out there for except to block balls in the dirt, catch pop-ups and try to throw out base stealers?

In other words: How important is catcher’s defense anyway?

People in baseball generally believe that catcher’s defense is pretty important – more important than, say, a good energy policy or homeland security. Royals’ manager Buddy Bell is pretty typical, I think – he won’t even talk about his catcher’s offense. He just won’t. When Kansas City catcher John Buck got off to a hot start with the bat (a start that, apparently, is over now), Buddy would more or less refuse to answer any questions about it. He believes catchers are out there for one thing, and one thing only. Defense. In Buddy’s world (and the world of most managers, I would say), catchers handle pitchers and block balls in the dirt and call the game. And this explains why Jason Larue’s .194 batting average is in the lineup every other day. Buddy thinks LaRue handles pitchers well.

On the other hand, there seems to be a strong counter-group that believes catcher’s defense belongs in Woody Allen’s Museum of the Overrated. Statistically, it is very difficult to find much evidence that pitchers throw better to certain catchers or even evidence that catchers’ defense is any more important than, say, a second baseman’s defense or a centerfielder or whatever.

All of this comes up because in today’s blog were are ranking the 10 best catcher seasons ever, and it’s hard to know just how much defense to throw in there. The best offensive seasons are easy – it begins with Mike Piazza’s 1997 season. But Piazza that year had 10 passed balls, 16 errors and threw out pretty much nobody on the bases. How do you compare that with, say, Johnny Bench in ’72 or Ivan Rodriguez in ’99 or Bill Dickey in 1936?

So I came up with another mathematically unsound system that tries to rate all those things a catcher does. The system fails miserably, as is apparent from the very first guy on the list. But the system took too long for me to come up with it … so you’re stuck with it too.

10. Chris Hoiles, 1993.
Catcher score: 140
Key statistics: .310, 29, 82, .416 on-bat percentage.

Thoughts: Yikes, the system is off to a very bad start. Hoiles in 1993? And he beat out Carlton Fisk in 1977 and Jorge Posada in 2003 by one point each. There’s something very, very wrong here. I feel like one of those ventriloquists who acts surprised when his dummy says something crude.

That said, Hoiles did pound the ball in 1993. He wasn’t embarrassingly bad against base stealers (he threw out 47 of 114). He only had a couple of passed balls. And the Orioles pitching staff that year did not appear to wildly underachieve – they just weren’t much good.

INTERLUDE: That was some pitching staff, by the way, the 1993 Orioles. Those Orioles had a young Ben McDonald and a young Mike Mussina. They had Jamie Moyer, who was 30 and just beginning to figure things out. They had an ancient Rick Sutcliffe. And, this is the one I don’t remember at all, they had Fernando Valenzuela.

With a time machine, how good could that staff have been? And what would be the best time machine staff in baseball history? Maybe we’ll do that one later.

Back to Hoiles. I think the system has this wrong. I think Fisk in 1977 (.315, 26, 102) had a better year than Hoiles, but so it goes.

9. Ivan Rodriguez, 1999
Catcher score: 145
Key statistics: .332, 35, 113. 25 stolen bases.

Thoughts: Pudge v.2.0 won the MVP award – this was that crazy Pedro Martinez year – and I don’t think he deserved it. BUT this might be the greatest defensive year a catcher has ever had. Bill James thinks so – Rodriguez earned 11.95 Fielding Win Shares this season, and that’s more than any other catcher, any other year.

His defense really was amazing. That’s why he’s on this list – his offensive numbers, in context, are not as impressive as many others who missed the list (including Dick Dietz in 1970 – what a year. Dietz hit .300, walked 109 times, banged 22 homers, drove in 107 runs, wow. Dick Dietz!).

Rodriguez’s arm was so overwhelming that hardly anybody tried to steal bases against him – and those who did usually ended up dead. He threw out 41 of 75 runners. The Rangers pitching staff was pretty brutal, and there were rumors than Rodriguez was bad at handling pitchers. In retrospect, the Rangers’ pitching problems might have had something to do with the fact their rotation was Rick Helling, Aaron Sele, John Burkett, a 493-year-old Mike Morgan, Mark Clark and Ryan Glynn.

8. Yogi Berra, 1953
Catcher score: 150
Key statistics: .296, 27, 108.

Thoughts: Everybody loves Yogi. The guy’s lovable. His role as Yogi in the barber’s chair is the DeNiro in Godfather II performance of the AFLAC commercials. (The new AFLAC goat? I’m not getting it. Though that “Nyah nyah nyah” thing is pretty funny). And even though Yogi admits that he didn’t say half the things he said, his quotes remain a classic part of the game:

-- “It ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” (He probably said this).
-- “This is like déjà vu all over again.” (He didn’t say this – no way).
-- “I want to thank you all for making this day necessary” (Yogi Berra Day, 1947, yeah, he probably said this).
-- “How the hell you gonna think and hit at the same time.” (I think he said this).
-- “Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore. It’s too crowded.” (I doubt it’s his).
-- “If the fans don’t come to the ballpark, you can’t stop them.” (Supposedly said about Kansas City fans – it’s probably his).
-- “You should always go to other people’s funerals otherwise they won’t go to yours.” (I doubt it.)
-- “Why buy good luggage? You can only use it when you travel.” (That’s his).
-- “It gets late early out there.” (Talking about the Yankee Stadium outfield).
-- “You can observe a lot by just watching. (Sounds like Yogi).

The key thing here is that you can invent a Yogi Berra quote pretty much anytime you want. It’s easy. There are three ways to do it.

(1) Take a famous cliché of some kind and switch out a couple of the words so that it loses its meaning:

Cliche: “You’ve got to take it one day at a time.”
Yogified: “You’ve got to take it one time a day.”

Cliche: “Sometimes you’ve just got to tip your cap to the other guy.”
Yogified: “Sometimes you’ve just got to tip the other guy.”

Cliche: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
Yogified: “Like the man said, it was the best of the worst times or something.”

(2) Say two opposing things in the same sentence so that it sounds vaguely wise.

New Yogiism: “The best time to sleep is when you’re awake.”
New Yogiism: “I only vote for politicians who I wouldn’t vote for.”
New Yogiism: “You should only bunt when you shouldn’t bunt.”

(3) Say something that shows a childlike lack of understanding:

New Yogiism: “The sun rises every morning except when it’s cloudy.”
New Yogiism: “I only read stories that have words in them.”
New Yogiism: “It’s amazing how clouds are always the shape that you think they are.”

7. Gary Carter, 1984
Catcher score: 152
Key statistics: .294, 27, 106.

Thoughts: OK, so how many baseball players through the years have been called “Kid?”

Well, there was Kid Nichols, Kansas City’s own. Won 361 games. He was an instant sensation – won 27 game his first season with the Boston Beaneaters – and won 20 or more the next nine years. Beloved player. Don’t know why they called him Kid.

Then again, in those early days, every other player was called Kid. There was Kid Baldwin, Kid Carsey, Kid Camp, Kid Keenan, Kid Madden, Kid Mohler, Kid O’Hara, Kid Speer, Kid Summers, Kid Wilson, Kid Durbin, Kid Withrow and two Kid Butlers, one Butler hit .169 in 71 games in 1884, the other Butler hit .220 in 1907.

Of course, there was Kid Gleason, the lovable ol’ Black Sox manager who played by lovable ol’ John Mahoney in “Eight Men Out.” Kid Gleason led the league in sacrifice hits as a player. Twice.

They called Billy DeMars “Kid,” even though most of us only remember him as the seemingly ancient coach with the Phillies and Reds. They called Mal Eason “Kid,” and then they hit him like a kid – his career record was 36-72.

Ted Williams was, of course, “The Kid,” along with being “The Splendid Splinter,” “The Thumper” and “Teddy Ballgame.” You will notice that three of Williams’ nicknames begin with the honorific “The.” He wasn’t “Kid Williams.” He was “The Kid.”

George Stutz managed only nine at-bats in the big leagues, but he had two nicknames – Kid and Satan. It’s hard to see how Stutz managed to create such a huge impression in such a short time – though he was only 5-foot-5, and really short and really large people are usually the first to get nicknames.

Ron Moeller was “The Kid” for obvious reasons – he came up to the big leagues in 1956 when he was only 17 years old. Amazingly, he was not even the youngest player in the league that year. The youngest player was 16-year-old Jim Derrington. They called him “Blackie.”

Eddie Foster, who has six homers in more than 5,000 at-bats – that’s a record – was called Kid. So was Willie McGill, who came up when he was 16 and pitched to the rip old age of 22.

There were other kinds of kids too – Ernie Smith was the Kansas City Kid, even though he was born in Totowa, New Jersey. Johnnie Seale was the Durango Kid. Norman Elberfeld played 14 years, and everybody called him Kid, but that was short for The Tabasco Kid. George Susce lived a full baseball life as a player and coach – his son played as well. They called George “Good Kid.”

And, of course, they called Gary Carter “Kid.” He was a good Kid, but they didn’t call him that.

6. Mickey Cochrane, 1933.
Catcher score: 155
Key statistics: .322, 15, 60, 106 walks, 157 OPS+

Thoughts: Between 1921 and 1952, there were 35 seasons where a batter had 500 or more at bats and 10 or fewer strikeouts. Mickey Cochrane had one of those seasons in 1929 – he had 514 at-bats and struck out just eight times.

Nobody has had that sort of non-strikeout season since 1952, and I wonder what this says. The theory I’ve heard most often is that men were men in those days, and they were embarrassed by strikeouts and they simply refused to whiff.

I think a more likely explanation is that pitchers in those days generally did not have the same assortment of strikeout pitches. I asked a scout friend of mine to rank the pitches that players strike out on most these days. I’m not sure he’s right, but he ranked them like so:

1. High fastball (swing and a miss).
2. Split-fingered fastball in the dirt (swing and a miss).
3. Slider breaking in on the hands (or away from the right-handed hitter).
4. Fastball painting the outside corner (looking).
5. Curveball that breaks into the zone (looking).
6. Change-up (swing and a miss).

Generally speaking, pitchers of that era did not have either pitch No. 2 or pitch No. 3. Of course, you could strike out a lot of guys with just a high fastball and huge curveball – that’s all Sandy Koufax and Bob Feller threw. But there haven’t been many who threw a fastball or a curveball like Koufax or Feller.

5. Mike Piazza, 1997
Catcher score: 156
Key statistics: .362, 40, 124, 1.070 OPS.

Thoughts: This is, bar none, the greatest offensive season a catcher has ever had. And it isn’t particularly close. Here are the Top 5 offensive catcher seasons since Deadball as ranked by runs created:

1. Mike Piazza, 1997: 149
2. Bill Dickey, 1937: 132.
3. Gabby Hartnett, 1930: 128
4. Roy Campanella, 1953: 127
5. Yogi Berra, 1950: 123

So the tough question to answer is this: How much did Mike Piazza’s defense hurt the Dodgers in 1997. On one level, it did not seem to hurt the Dodgers at all. Los Angeles had the second best ERA in the National League even though they had a pitching staff made up of Ismael Valdez, Hideo Nomo, Chan Ho Park, Pedro Astacio and Ramon Martinez.

On another level, though, Mike Piazza is quite possibly the worst throwing everyday catcher in baseball history. In fact, someone went back and ranked all the catchers going back to 1957 – the first year Retrosheet has stolen base statistics for catchers – and calculated that Mike Piazza IS the worst throwing everyday catcher at least in 50 years.

In 1997, base runners stole 112 bases on Piazza’s watch, and he was only able to throw out 43. That was actually significantly better than 1996, when Piazza only threw out 34 of 189 base runners – that’s one of the worst years ever.

So compare him to, say, Ivan Rodriguez in 1999. Only 34 base runners swiped bases against Pudge v.2.0 – that’s 78 fewer bases allowed. That equals quite a few runs. And Rodriguez threw out 41, so he created almost as many outs as Piazza in many fewer chances. Add in that Piazza led all catchers in errors (most of them throwing errors, so that’s even more bases) and he had those 10 passed balls (after leading the league two straight years), well, it’s hard to imagine that Piazza’s ability to handle pitchers made up much of that ground.

But we really don’t know. That’s the crazy thing about catcher’s defense – even after all the studies, we really don’t know much. We don’t how important it is, how much it affects pitching, how many bases are stolen off the pitcher rather than the catcher and so on. Everybody has an opinion about it, though. There are people in baseball I know who would not have put Piazza in the Top 50 list no matter how good an offensive season he had because of his defensive liabilities. And there are others I know who will believe that Piazza belongs at No. 1 – he had the best offensive season and no amount of brilliant catcher defense can make up the difference.

I probably fall in the middle somewhere. And so he’s here.

4. Gabby Hartnett, 1930
Catcher score: 158
Key statistics: .339, 37, 122, 1.034 OPS.

Thoughts: Gabby Hartnett has one of those great old time baseball stories, the kind that never seems to happen anymore.

Leo Hartnett broke his arm when he was young and so, to help it heal, his mother had him carry around a bucket of rocks. A strong arm was a big thing to the enormous Hartnett family – Fred Hartnett, the Dad, was a semi-pro catcher apparently famous for his powerful arm. And Leo’s brother Chickie supposedly had the greatest arm scouts had ever seen (he went to play ball, got homesick, and came home). I love that one of Gabby’s 13 siblings was named Chickie. I wish I knew the other Hartnett clan’s names. It’s like they had their own Snow White/dwarves thing going on.

Leo was apparently not much of a player in high school – nobody even noticed him. He kept working, though, and when he was 21 – against all odds, apparently – he was invited to a tryout with the Chicago Cubs. His mother – and remember, this was the woman who had him carrying around that bucket of stones – told him to keep his mouth shut. Leo always listened to his mother so the legend is he did not say a single word to anybody. That’s why they called him Gabby.

Two years later, he was the Cubs regular catcher. And then he was a star. And then he hit the Homer in the Gloaming. And then he was in the Hall of Fame.

He was, by accounts, the greatest defensive catcher of his time, a whiz at blocking the plate and, of course, he had that incredible arm. Bill James rated him an A+ defender using Win Shares.

This was, by far, Gabby’s biggest numbers year offensively, though 1930 was a crazy offensive year in the National League. This was the year Bill Terry hit .401, the year Hack Wilson drove in 191 runs, the year the top nine guys in the league had OPS higher than 1.000. So, in context, the numbers are not as good as they look. But with his defensive abilities mixed in, he still ranks No. 4 overall.

3. Roy Campanella, 1953.
Catcher score: 160
Key statistics: .312, 41, 142, 1.006 OPS.

Thoughts: I sometimes wonder what baseball integration would have been like had Jackie Robinson not been the first. Just about everybody believes that Robinson was the right man because of his indomitable spirit – he simply would not fail. In 1947, that was exactly what was needed. The worst possible thing would have been for the first black Major Leaguer to come up, hit .148, make errors and fold under the enormous pressure. That could have happened too. It did happen to some talented players after Robinson.

There is no sure way to know what effect a failure might have had on baseball. Maybe it would not have mattered at all – maybe someone like Bill Veeck would have signed Larry Doby anyway, and he would have succeeded, and integration would have gone on pretty much as it did. Or maybe it would have been stalled for 10 years.

Still, the first player did not have to be Jackie Robinson. Buck O’Neil firmly believed that Jackie Robinson was the right man, but he used to say that integration might have gone in a very differently direction had Satchel Paige been the first. Paige was already pretty famous throughout America. He had been written about in Time and the Saturday Evening Post. Joe DiMaggio had called him the best he ever faced. Players throughout baseball knew him and, in their own way, respected him.

So Buck believed that the players would not have taunted Paige the way they taunted Robinson. It would have been a very different experience. But, at the same time, most people back then saw Satchel Paige as belong to a whole different category – a friend of mine makes a great comparison: Many basketball fans do not respect or like women’s basketball, but almost everybody respects Pat Summitt. She’s obviously an amazing coach. It’s like she’s larger than the women’s game. If Pat Summitt went on to coach in the NBA, for instance, and she succeeded, people might not naturally take that to mean that OTHER women could coach men’s basketball. That’s how it was with Paige. Even if he had come in and been a star, that might not have opened the door as wide as Robinson did.

Roy Campanella might have been first too. That might have been interesting. Whenever you read about that time, you will read numerous quotes from people who could not stand Jackie Robinson but liked Campy. Robinson was a hard case, a proud man who fought hard and never gave in and rocked every boat he saw. He had the stuff of a pioneer. Campy was a gentler soul, funny, not as eager for a fight, proud in a different way. Jackie Robinson also said he had a little Uncle Tom in him.

Campy was undoubtedly a great player – perhaps even greater than Robinson. He won the back-to-back MVP awards. He was a great offensive and defensive catcher. He was beloved by most of his pitchers.

Martin Luther King said that change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability. We look back at integration in baseball now as something that had to happen, but that’s just not the way it was in 1947. I do believe that Jackie Robinson was the right man, right time, right place. But I wonder how baseball history would have been changed – if at all – if Campy had been first.

2. Bill Dickey, 1936
Catcher score: 161
Key statistics: .362, 22, 107, .428 OBP.

Thoughts: Seven things about Bill Dickey that may not have known:

(1) He was the only active player to play himself in “Pride of the Yankees.”
(2) He was the one who broke Carl Hubbell’s famous strikeout streak in the 1934 All-Star Game. He singled.
(3) He holds the record for most games caught in a World Series (38).
(4) He was fined $1,000 and suspended for 30 days for breaking Carl Reynolds jaw with one punch after the collided at home plate.
(5) He never played a single game at any position but catcher.
(6) His .313 career batting average ties him with Piazza for second on the all-time list among catchers (behind Cochrane).
(7) This year he struck out only 16 times in 472 plate appearances – there was something then about catchers making contact, I guess.

1. Johnny Bench, 1972
Catcher score: 162
Key statistics: .270, 40, 125, 100 walks.

Thoughts: One of my favorite all-time baseball stories – and I have absolutely no idea if it’s true – involves Johnny Bench when he was a rookie in 1968. Apparently he was catching Jim Maloney in spring training and Maloney was getting hit. Every time Bench called for the curve, Maloney would shake him off. So Bench went to the mound and said something like, “Uh, Jim, you’re fastball just isn’t popping. We should throw some curves.”

To which Maloney said something sensitive like: “(Bleep) you you (bleeping) (bleepity) (bleeper) rookie.”

Bench shrugged went behind home plate and promptly called for the curve again. Maloney shook him off. So Bench called for the fastball, Maloney threw, Bench dropped his glove and caught it barehanded.

See, now, that’s proving a point. Bench was amazing. His 1972 season is possibly the second-best offensive season for a catcher behind Piazza. But, get this: In 1972, Bench allowed 24 stolen bases. All year. And he caught the runners 31 times. He was a machine – people simply did not run on him. And that might be the best compliment of all – nobody even TRIED to run on him.

Assorted great throwing seasons for catchers:
Elston Howard, 1963: 37 attempts, 15 caught
Ivan Rodriguez, 2000: 39 attempts, 19 caught
Ivan Rodriguez, 2002: 41 attempts, 15 caught
Ivan Rodriguez, 2006: 51 attempts, 26 caught
Johhny Bench, 1972: 55 attempts, 31 caught.
Johnny Bench, 1973: 55 attempts, 27 caught.
Mike Matheny, 2001: 58 attempts, 28 caught.
Bengie Molina, 2005: 64 attempts, 20 caught

Assorted terrible throwing seasons for catchers
Mike Piazza, 1996: 189 attempts, 34 caught
Jason Varitek, 1999: 170 attempts, 46 caught
John Flaherty, 1997: 175 attempts, 50 caught
Ted Simmons, 1978: 190 attempts, 65 caught.
Pat Borders, 1992: 167 attempts, 51 caught
Mike Piazza, 2001: 147 attempts, 33 caught.
Mike Piazza, 2002: 152 attempts, 27 caught
Mike Piazza, 1999: 152 attempts, 37 caught
Darrin Fletcher, 1996: 136 attempt, 27 caught.
Jason Kendall, 2005: 123 attempts, 22 caught.
Mike Piazza 2006: 110 attempts, 13 caught

The other thing that I love about Bench is that, supposedly, he could hold six baseballs in one hand. That’s amazing. I remember once seeing the famous Sports Illustrated photograph of Andre the Giant’s hand, and he was holding a beer can in the palm of his hand. The can looked to be about the size of a quarter. That doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but, hey, I’m all blogged out.

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).