Top of the World

Triple Crown winner Chuck Klein with a bunch of bats

So far I’ve said little about Miguel Cabrera’s Triple Crown. I tend to worry more about old-time baseball than about the current season, but congratulations are certainly in order. With Detroit still alive in the playoffs he has a chance to do something that’s only been done twice.

Over the years a hitting Triple Crown has been accomplished 16 times. Only twice has the Triple Crown winners team also won the World Series. Here’s a quick review of each Triple Crown winner and where his team finished.

1878–Paul Hines won the Triple Crown for Providence. They finished third in the National League.

1887–Tip O’Neill won the Triple Crown for St. Louis of the American Association (a major league at the time). The team finished first and played a 15 game postseason series against Detroit of the National League (sort of a  primitive World Series). They lost 10 games to 5.

1901–Napoleon LaJoie won the Triple Crown for the Philadelphia Athletics. They finished fourth in the fledgling American League.

1909–Ty Cobb won the Triple Crown at Detroit. The Tigers dropped the World Series to Pittsburgh in seven games.

1922 and 1925–Rogers Hornsby won the Triple Crown while with St. Louis. The Cardinals finished third in 1922 and fourth in 1925. Hornsby became the only player to win a Triple Crown and hit .400 in the same season. He did it both times.

1933–both leagues had a Triple Crown winner (only time that’s happened). Chuck Klein won the NL Triple Crown for the seventh place Phillies, while Jimmie Foxx won the AL Triple Crown for the third place Athletics. As a bit of trivia, both Triple Crown winners played in Philadelphia.

1934–Lou Gehrig won the Triple Crown in one of the few years the Yankees didn’t finish first. They finished second.

1937–Joe Medwick won the last NL Triple Crown for the Cardinals. They rewarded him with a fourth place finish.

1942 and 1947–Ted Williams won the Triple Crown in both seasons. His Boston team finished second in ’42 and third in ’47.

1956–Mickey Mantle became the second Yankee Triple Crown winner and first Triple Crown winner to have his team (the Yankees) win the World Series.

1966–Frank Robinson became the second (with Baltimore). Robinson also became the first (and so far only) black player to win a Triple Crown. 

1967 –Carl Yastrzemski won the Triple Crown with Boston, but the Red Sox lost the World Series in seven games to the Cardinals.

Pitching Triple Crown winners are both more common and have won more frequently. Here’s a list of the pitchers who won both the pitching Triple Crown and the World Series (1800s version or modern version): Tommy Bond in 1877 (there was no postseason play that season but Bond’s Boston team took first place in the regular season), Charles Radbourne in 1884, Tim Keefe in 1888, Christy Mathewson in 1905, Walter Johnson in 1924, Lefty Grove in 1930, Lefty Gomez in 1937, Hal Newhouser in 1945, Sandy Koufax in both 1963 and 1965.

All that indicates that winning a Triple Crown (either variety) is no predictor of success in the postseason. Still, I think I’d rather win one than not.

Proliferation

Ted Williams hitting

I remember back when the 1960 baseball season began one of the great storylines was Ted Williams’ pursuit of 500 home runs. He had 492, one short of Lou Gehrig, needed eight for 500, and had only 20 to go to pass Mel Ott for third place on the all-time home run list (Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx were the others above him). As you know, he made it, finishing with 29 home runs and 521 total. The public and the papers were going crazy that there were now four, count ‘em, four, men with 500 home runs. It was unheard of, unthinkable, amazing. Today, just over 50 years later there are 25 men with 500 or more home runs. In April 1960 there were three men with 500 home runs, now there are three with 700.

An obvious question is, “What happened to lead to the proliferation of home run talent?” How did we go from four in 1960 to 25 in 2012? In 52 years MLB added 21 new members to the 500 home run club, about one every 2.5 years. There are a lot of reasons. Here are some that I think should be heavily considered as answers to the “what happened” question.

1. Population. There are simply a lot more people available today. Surely some of them can hit a baseball with authority. Additionally segregation of black ball players has finished and a larger pool of players is available. In 1960 black Americans had been playing Major League baseball exactly 14 years, hardly time for anyone to reach 500 homers. Add to that the recognition of foreign players as never before, especially Latin players and East Asian players, and the talent pool continues to grow. All this gives us more people with the talent to rise to the top in power hitting.

2. Expansion. There are now more teams available for players. Now I presume that someone able to hit 500 home runs is going to make the roster when there are only 16 teams (the number available in 1960) as easily as he can with 30 teams available. What I mean here is the increased number of pitchers available, some of whom are at best marginal major leaguers. Of course an increased population also means there are more excellent pitchers available, so I don’t think this is one of the more important factors in the proliferation of home runs. It, however, cannot be discounted. And none of that even mentions the idea of the closer which changes the dynamic of late inning pitching.

3. Better training methods. Players today train fulltime. There is film to study to determine what’s wrong with a swing or how to pick up a pitcher’s tendencies. You can break down a swing frame by frame if necessary, something difficult to do in 1960. There are weight training regimens and better nutritional plans available for players. All these lead to players who are better able to take advantage of their own skills and the weaknesses of pitchers. Whether they take advantage of these methods is another story.

4. Higher salaries. A lot of old-time players had to hold down offseason jobs just to make ends meet. With higher salaries, it’s possible to do the fulltime training mentioned above. It’s kind of tough to be training when you’re trying to sell someone insurance or a used car.

5. Better medical skills. A bad knee or a torn muscle could keep pre-1960 players out of the lineup of days or weeks. If you can’t play, you can’t hit home runs. Today’s medical advances make it possible for players to spend less time on the disabled list and more time on the field. This is particularly true in the American League where the designated hitter can also allow an injured player a chance to recover and play at the same time. Of course some of this is obviated by the tendency of some teams to put players on 15 day disabled lists for hang nails.

6. Steroids. Let’s admit it, steroids have been part of the reason there are more 500 home run hitters. It’s a shame, but it’s true and well have to live with that knowledge. This is not a comment on whether a steroid user should make the Hall of Fame, but merely an acknowledgement that steroids have aided players in the drive for 500.

Are these the only reasons? Of course not. I do think, however, they are among the most important.

The Greatest Cardinal of them All

a montage showing Musial’s batting stroke

If it were up to my grandfather, there would be no debate about the greatest player ever. He was absolutely certain that Stan Musial was the greatest ballplayer ever. He’d heard Ruth on the radio, seen Walter Johnson pitch in some exhibition game somewhere, had listened over and over to DiMaggio and could quote you some of Ted Williams’ stats. But it didn’t matter, the Cardinals were his team, Musial was his man, and there simply was no reason to even start an argument when you were faced with such absolute certainty.

So my grandfather was off a little on the greatest to ever play the game (although not by much), but he had a superior case for the greatest player to ever come through St. Louis and put on a Cardinals uniform. I once wondered if Albert Pujols was going to run past Stan “the Man” as the greatest Cardinals player ever but it didn’t happen.

Take a quick look at Musial’s first numbers. He played all of 12 games in 1941. He hit .426, had an OPS of 1.023 (OPS+ 179), and had 27 total bases in 47 at bats. Sure it was 12 games and you never decide a man’s career worth on 12 games (unless they occur in the World Series or something), but it was a great portent of things to come. For my grandfather, trying to eke though a living, who had to go visit a neighbor just to hear a ball game on the radio, it was the beginning of something he longed for. He remembered the awful Cardinals teams of the Deadball Era, had listened to the Hornsby Cardinals of the 1920s, loved the Gas House Gang, but he always said he knew from the beginning there was something special about Musial. Maybe it was the magical air of Donora, Pennsylvania, hometown of Musial and Ken Griffey Sr and Ken Griffey Jr (top that outfield in a reasonably small town). But from the beginning my grandfather swore Musial was special.

There was no rookie of the year award in 1942, Musial might have won it if there were. The Cardinals won the World Series, lost in 1943, won again in 1944 and for my grandfather it was the best of times (my wife’s grandfather was a Browns fan and I wonder how they would have dealt with 1944). Musial went to war in 1945, then was back in 1946. St. Louis won the World Series again. It was their last in Musial’s career, but he kept on having great seasons, winning the MVP in 1946 and in 1948 (and already had one from 1943) He finished second in MVP voting in 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1957. Each time my grandfather was sure Musial had been robbed. The only one he half way accepted was Aaron’s in 1957. He was particularly upset with Jim Konstanty’s 1950 win.

During the 1950s as Musial’s career wore down and the Cardinals began floundering, my grandfather was sure they only needed one, or at most two, more players to make it back to the Series, but of course they never got them. Bob Gibson came along in 1959, absolutely unimpressing him (and 1959 wasn’t much for Gibson), but he still had faith. Musial retired after the 1963 season and my grandfather actually wept. The next year St. Louis won the World Series, beating the hated Yankees (who’d never been forgiven for beating the Cardinals in 1943). My grandfather was at a loss. His team had won, but they’d done it without Stan “the Man”. There was obviously something seriously wrong with that scenario.  They won again in 1967, the lost in 1968. There was a part of my grandfather that was almost happy they’d lost. It proved to him just how much Musial meant to the team.

  He died in the 1970s (and, no, we didn’t bury him in a Cardinals uniform) convinced he’d seen the greatest to ever play the game. He wasn’t off by much.

USPS Honors Ballplayers

 

New “forever” stamps from USPS

For the general interest of baseball fans, this morning the United States Postal Service issued four new “forever” stamps honoring baseball players. The honored players are (alphabetically): Joe DiMaggio, Larry Doby, Willie Stargell, and Ted Williams. There is one pane for each player (20 stamps to a pane) plus a fifth pane with all four stamps alternating on the same sheet (also 20 stamps, 5 of each player). They should be available for general release at your local post office tomorrow.

Down the Stretch

Secretariat winning the Belmont in 1973

We’re currently two-thirds of the way through horse racing’s Triple Crown with I’ll Have Another having a shot at winning it. Secretariat’s run in the Belmont is still the single greatest thing I ever saw in sport (sorry 1980 hockey team). There’s been a lot of lamenting about it being more than 30 years since a horse came “down the stretch” to win the Belmont and seal a Triple Crown. It’s been even longer than that since baseball had a hitting Triple Crown winner (1967). There hasn’t been one in the National League since 1937. Two men (Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams) have won two. In total it’s been done 16 times. Pitchers have been a little more successful, the last pitching Triple Crown winner occurring in 2011 in both leagues. The idea of winning the baseball Triple Crown is even rarer. This means a player led both leagues, not just his own, in all three Triple Crown categories. It’s happened five times among hitters with no repeats. In pitching it has occurred 12 times with Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, and Sandy Koufax doing it twice (Koufax did it three times).

Winning a Triple Crown goes back a long way. As early as 1877 a pitcher wins one and in 1878 the first hitter follows suit. In the next few posts I want to look at a handful of the men who have won a Triple Crown. Specifically I want to look at the men who accomplished the feat first, the 19th Century players. There are three hitters (Paul Hines, Tip O’Neil, Hugh Duffy) and six pitchers (Tommy Bond, Guy Hecker, Charles Radbourn, Tim Keefe, John Clarkson, Amos Rusie). I don’t promise to do all nine, but merely provide a sampling in order to give readers a look at the types of men who strode out onto baseball diamonds a century and a half ago.

The 50 Greatest Red Sox

The Birthday Boy

In honor of the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park, ESPN Boston just released its list of the 50 Greatest Red Sox. It’s an interesting list and frankly not a bad one, although I would disagree with some of the selections. Here’s a list of their top 10 in order: Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Tris Speaker, Pedro Martinez, Cy Young, Roger Clemens, Jimmie Foxx, Babe Ruth, Lefty Grove, and Bobby Doerr. Before you ask, Jim Rice is 11th.

Again, not a bad list but I wonder how much Clemens rancorous departure and the subsequent steroid controversy contributed to his rank below both Martinez and Young. I’m a little surprised Grove is a top 10 over Wade Boggs or Rice, but why not. You got to admit, that’s one heck of an outfield, isn’t it?

In case you’re interested it takes all the way to 30th to get a full team. According to this listing, the best Red Sox team is:

Infield: Foxx, Doerr, Joe Cronin (18th), and Wade Boggs (13th)

Outfield: Williams, Yastrzemski, Speaker

Catcher: Carlton Fisk (14th)

DH: Rice (11th and the first position player who would not have a regular spot in the field, hence he’s the DH)

Left Handed Starters: Ruth and Grove

Right Handed Starters: Martinez, Young, and Clemens

Closer: Dick Radatz (30th)

Agree? Disagree? Fine, but compliment or complain to ESPN: Boston, it’s their list.

Postal Players

Just a short note today. As a stamp collector I get a copy of “Linn’s Stamp News”. The newspaper reports that  the USPS will issue a set of four stamps commemorating Major League Baseball. No specific date is given, but my guess is that it will be in conjunction with the Hall of Fame ceremony in Cooperstown. According to Linn’s, the players commemorated will be  Joe DiMaggio, Larry Doby, Willie Stargell, and Ted Williams (alphabetically). No image available so I don’t know how they’ll look (probably not as good as Mrs. Posada, but that’s just a guess). Anyway, for your information. Don’t say you weren’t informed.

Strictly a Wartime Pitcher

Hal Newhouser

I began this somewhat long look at left-handed pitchers because I wanted to study the players who made an impact during World War II. That led, not unreasonably, to Hal Newhouser. He’s one of those players who had a lot of his best years during the Second World War and thus became known as “strictly a wartime pitcher”. The wartime pitcher idea goes something like this. A player is either new or has  been up a few years and never done a thing. Then the war comes along and the guy becomes a star. The war ends, the real players come back, and the guy goes back to being a  bum. OK, that’s fine, I guess. The problem is that it’s wrong about Newhouser.

Newhouser arrives in Detroit in 1939. He was 18, a year older than Bob Feller and a year younger than Sandy Koufax (two pitchers he’s very much like) when they first pitched in the Majors. He wasn’t all that good, struggling through 1943 with a record of 34-52 with a high ERA, a lot of strikeouts, and a ton of walks (leading the league in walks in 1943). Then in 1944 he goes 29-9 with a 2.22 ERA,  a strikeout title, and the American League MVP award. In 1945 he’s 25-9, leads the AL in ERA, strikeouts, shutouts (and wild pitches), and picks up his second consecutive MVP Award (the only pitcher to win two in a row). Detroit goes to the World Series and wins in seven games (by this point the Series is most famous as the last Series the Cubs played). Newhouser went 2-1, winning game seven.

And then the war was over and “strictly a wartime pitcher” is supposed to have gone back into obscurity. The problem is that Newhouser had four or five (depending how you look at 1950) more good years. He wins 20 or more games twice,  wins another ERA title, and as late as 1949 has 18 wins. He also leads in hits once and wild pitches twice (Like Feller, he never did get the wildness totally under control). In 1946 he came in second in the MVP vote (to Ted Williams), missing winning three MVPs in a row by 27 points). He hurt his shoulder in 1949, pitched through the pain in 1950, then the wheels came off as the shoulder just didn’t improve. He hung on into 1955, getting into the 1954 World Series as a Cleveland reliever (he was 7-2 with 7 saves, but awful in the Series), then retired. He made the Hall of Fame in 1992.

What people tend to concentrate on his 1944-45 years, the “war pitcher years”. The argument goes that the real players left and Newhouser feasted on fake hitting. And I suppose it’s fair to say that the number of true Major League quality players in 1944 was down considerably from a normal season. But take a look at 1945. By the end of ’45, many of the “real” players were back. Hank Greenberg, a teammate, was back in time to hit the home run that sent Detroit to the World Series and Feller pitched nine games. Newhouser didn’t lose all nine games late nor did he win all 25 early. But the real problem with evaluating Newhouser as a “wartime pitcher” is 1946 through 1949. In 1946 he won 26 games, had his ERA go up all the way to 1.94 from 1.81 and his ERA+ drop from 195 to 190, and for the only time in his career led the AL in WHIP. Not a bad year for a “wartime pitcher”, right? It was his peak and 47-49 were not as good, although not bad either. He’s 55-40 over the three years (at 17-17, 1947 is the worst year record-wise) and his ERA starts sliding back up, but it’s not like he’s awful.

So why the jump in stats in 1944? Well, a couple of reasons. First, there’s no denying the quality of play in down in 1944. But Newhouser is also now aged 23 with five years experience in the Majors. It’s time for him to begin reaching a something of a peak. And that peak lasts until he is 28 or 29 (depending on your view of 1950). Then the sore shoulder hits. He’s not much from 30 on (remember Koufax was 30 when he retired). Actually, it’s a fairly normal career progression tempered by both the war and the shoulder.

I’m not advocating Newhouser as one of the greatest of the great, I’m simply saying that in evaluating him, the war is important, but it can’t be looked at as the only factor in his becoming an ace. My son will tell you that for a long time I thought Newhouser was the best pitcher not in the Hall of Fame and eligible. I was glad to see him elected because I understood he wasn’t “strictly a wartime pitcher.”

The Significance of 500 and 3000

Ted Williams

It’s time to join the growing list of people congratulating Derek Jeter on his impending 3000th hit. It’s a milestone. But I remember when Ted Williams hit his 500th home run and I think that helps put Jeter’s accomplishment in perspective.

Williams hit his 500th home run in 1960, over 50 years ago. When that happened, the baseball world went a little crazy. Four men (Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Mel Ott, and Williams) now had 500 home runs. Think of that, four. Now there are 25, or 21 new members in 50 years (about one every other year). There are now as many men with 650 home runs (Ruth, Hank Aaron, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays) as there were men with 500 home runs 50 years ago.

It’s the same with 3000 hits. When Williams hit his 500th home run there were eight men with 3000 hits (Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Cap Anson, Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins, Nap LaJoie, Paul Waner, and Stan Musial, who was still active). Now there are 27 with Jeter poised to become 28. That’s 20 in 50 years. Again, that’s about one every other year. There are a lot of reasons for this. The advent of black and Latin ball players, the new training methods, more games played per season, better nutrition, better medicine are a handful of them.

Do you know who has more hits than anyone whose entire career began since the advent of the playoff system in 1969, 42 years ago? I’ll save you the suspense, it’s Paul Molitor (3319). Jeter might catch him. And if he does, just how significant is it? I think it’s much more significant than 3000 hits.

This is not a Jeter bash. There’s been too much of that recently, just as there’s been too much adulation of him. What I wonder is with 25 men over 500 home runs and 28 men over 3000 hits just how big a deal is it to get those numbers? Obviously anyone who gets 500 home runs is a heck of a player (without reference to the steroid issue). Obviously anyone who gets 3000 hits is a heck of a player (again without reference to steroids). But if you have 25 (or more) guys with the number isn’t just a little less special than when there were only four or eight? I think so. I understand how easy it is to rally around nice round numbers like 500 and 3000, but have those two numbers lost a lot of their luster? Again, I think so.

So here’s what I propose. We honor Jeter, but we hold off the celebration until he gets 3500 hits. He’ll be only the sixth man to 3500 (Pete Rose, Cobb, Aaron, Musial, Speaker are the others) and that’s really something to celebrate. And I think we honor Jim Thome when he gets to 600 home runs, but let’s hold off on a celebration until someone becomes the fourth member of the 700 home run club. Now those are two numbers to really celebrate.

OK, so the picture isn’t as good as Tug McGraw’s, but you can’t expect me to score twice like that.

One-Trick Pony

In keeping with the animal theme that seems to be have started around here, I want to write about one-trick ponies. A one-trick pony is a circus horse that can only do one thing. He can do it really well, but doesn’t do anything else well. He still gets to be in the show doing that one trick. Baseball and its Hall of Fame are full of this kind of player.

In one sense all pitchers are essentially one-trick ponies. Their job is to pitch (and do that job only every second, third, fourth, or fifth day depending on the era). A closer is even more so, because his job is to pitch to one (and sometimes two) innings worth of hitters. Some of them, like Babe Ruth or Walter Johnson can hit some. No body cares. They are there to pitch and if they hit some, well, that’s great icing on the cake. Some of them, like Jim Kaat or Greg Maddux, field well. No body cares. They are there to pitch and if they field some, well, that’s great icing on the cake. Some, like Lefty Gomez, don’t do either well. No body cares. If they don’t field or hit well no body pulls them from the starting lineup because they can’t field a bunt or hit a curve. Can you imagine the following conversation? “Sorry, Lefty, you won’t start today because you can’t field a bunt.” Neither can I.  And almost by definition American League pitchers of the last 40 years can’t hit because of the designated hitter rule.

There are also guys who have great gloves and no sticks. Bill Mazeroski (who was an OK hitter, but nothing special), Rabbit Maranville, Nellie Fox (who had the one great year with a bat), and Bobby Wallace come instantly to mind. It seems that baseball always finds a way to get them into the lineup. I exclude catchers who don’t hit well, because most of them do a number of things well (like throw, block the plate, move to fouls, control the tempo of the game, etc.).

And then there are the sluggers who seem to always find a batting order spot. I mean guys like Harmon Killebrew, Ralph Kiner, Ted Williams, and Orlando Cepeda. All of them hit, and all of them were less than sterling in the field (and I’m being generous here).  Despite the greatness of Williams and the others, they are simply another bunch of one-dimensional players.

All of which brings me to Edgar Martinez, an excellent example of a one-trick pony. What he did was hit and hit well. His knees gave out and he couldn’t field, but he could still hit.

You know what Killebrew, Kiner, Williams,  Cepeda, Mazeroski, Maranville, Fox, Wallace, and Gomez have in common besides being one-trick ponies? They’re also Hall of Famers (and Maddux will be). This is not a plea to put Martinez in the Hall, although I would vote for him, but to acknowledge that the reason many people say he shouldn’t be in (“All he could do was hit.”) is an invalid reason for excluding a man from the Hall. There are already a lot of guys in the Hall who could only do one thing, so excluding Martinez because he could only do one thing is silly. Maybe he should be excluded. Maybe his numbers aren’t good enough. Maybe he doesn’t have the proper leadership skills or the proper moral character and thus should be excluded. Fine by me, exclude him. Just make sure you do it for the right reasons.