terrific, thanks p!
― early-Woolf semantic prosody (Hadrian VIII), Thursday, 14 January 2021 19:43 (three years ago) link
79. Urbain Jacques (Urban Shocker) Shockcor62. John Wesley (Jack) Glasscock
normal baseball names, nothing to see here
― Karl Malone, Thursday, 14 January 2021 19:47 (three years ago) link
Shockcor was a shocker--never knew that.
― clemenza, Thursday, 14 January 2021 19:52 (three years ago) link
Schilling was on his Top 100 list, so he does allow overlap...with that in mind, I'm trying to guess the remaining eight.
Bonds and Clemens. (But not A-Rod--when he began, he put him in a separate list of best 10 players not yet eligible.) Probably a tie at #1.
Lou Whitaker, Scott Rolen, Buck O'Neill...and then I get stuck.
― clemenza, Thursday, 14 January 2021 22:10 (three years ago) link
8. Curt Flood
Of course--when I was trying to guess yesterday, I was scanning WAR charts on Baseball Reference, down to about 60 career WAR. I added O'Neil because Posnanski was his friend and has written numerous columns on him. Now that Joe has clearly factored character-counts into his advocacy, Flood is an obvious choice. (Posnanski sits about halfway on that question, I'd say--he's still going to have Bonds and Clemens on his list. He's an inch to the right of wherever Schilling exists on that spectrum.)
I sent this a Hey Bill" into James last summer:
This years Veteran's Committee ("The Golden Era"--ugh) covers Curt Flood's window, 1950-1969. I think Flood should be in the HOF already, but voting him in this year, would, I feel, make a strong statement about the moment we're in. Not sure if you agree--you may not--but if you do, the problem then becomes how do you categorize him? He was a good player who falls short based on his on-field career, with the mitigating circumstance that his career was cut short because of the very thing you'd be inducting him for. But can you call him a builder? That seems weird.
Answered: 8/29/2020Player and pioneer.
So he didn't say whether or not he agrees that Flood should be inducted.
― clemenza, Friday, 15 January 2021 13:19 (three years ago) link
(I said on some thread the other day that all my posts strategically leave out one word. Except when I strategically add one--get rid of that "this.")
― clemenza, Friday, 15 January 2021 13:23 (three years ago) link
i have been working on leaving out one additional word per post, every year that i'm on ilx. by the end, my posts will just be one or two words, tops, and probably just conjunctions by that point
didn't say so explicitly, but any true "pioneer" of the game (like Flood) is HOF-worthy, imo.
― Karl Malone, Friday, 15 January 2021 17:23 (three years ago) link
I'm a month late with this, but a category for "hybrid" HOF careers is sorely needed.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Sunday, 17 January 2021 22:40 (three years ago) link
7. Dick Allen
I must have assumed he'd already been listed.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 January 2021 14:37 (three years ago) link
That leaves Bonds, Clemens, O'Neil, and Whitaker for sure, I think; Rolen probably (doesn't make sense to me that he'd be this high, but it makes even less sense that he wouldn't be in the Top 100); plus one more.
― clemenza, Monday, 18 January 2021 14:39 (three years ago) link
O’Neill I wasn’t expecting.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 18 January 2021 20:54 (three years ago) link
Paul O'Neill at #3 will not make me happy.
(If you go back a few posts, I misspelled his name too!)
― clemenza, Monday, 18 January 2021 23:03 (three years ago) link
I don’t see it at all. He’s nowhere near those other guys.
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 19 January 2021 02:45 (three years ago) link
Buck O'Neil in; Paul O'Neill, no.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 January 2021 05:56 (three years ago) link
(Unless you mean Buck O'Neil shouldn't go in as a player. I don't know enough about his playing career, but I'm basing that on this move in the direction of character, combined with Posnanski's friendship with him.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 January 2021 05:58 (three years ago) link
6. Lou Whitaker
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 January 2021 13:12 (three years ago) link
5. Scott Rolen
― clemenza, Wednesday, 20 January 2021 13:12 (three years ago) link
4. Roger Clemens
I bet he puts Buck O'Neil at #1 and not Bonds. Still not sure who the third will be.
― clemenza, Thursday, 21 January 2021 14:03 (three years ago) link
3. Barry Bonds
― clemenza, Friday, 22 January 2021 13:57 (three years ago) link
I started skimming the Bonds comments, and the thing I've been puzzling over was made clear: Minnie Miñoso will be #2.
― clemenza, Friday, 22 January 2021 14:17 (three years ago) link
2. Buck O'Neil
Minoso at #1? I'm surprised. Posnanski is also obsessed with Duane Kuiper, maybe it'll be him.
― clemenza, Monday, 25 January 2021 13:34 (three years ago) link
1. Du...Minnie Minoso
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 13:55 (three years ago) link
Also, there’s this: A SABR researcher named Scott Simkus added things up, and he found that when you add together Miñoso’s Major League hits, minor league hits, Cuban League hits, Mexican League hits and Negro Leagues hits, you come the staggering number of 4,073, seventh all-time. Here’s that list of players with more than 4,000 total professional hits:
1. Pete Rose, 4,7692. Ty Cobb, 4,3793. Ichiro Suzuki, 4,3674. Henry Aaron, 4,2455. Jigger Statz, 4,0936. Julio Franco, 4,0747. Minnie Miñoso, 4,0738. Derek Jeter, 4,0599. Stan Musial, 4,023
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 14:01 (three years ago) link
The fifth most hits ever is by a guy named Statz.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 14:53 (three years ago) link
i will admit to being ignorant of all things Buck O'Neil. what's the case for him?
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:43 (three years ago) link
former NL player of middling quality but P much invented the NL HOF in Kansas City, was an advocate on behalf of all the NL greats and forgotten greats, beloved Baseball spirit, first black coach in MLB for CHI C
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:48 (three years ago) link
should be in as a builder at the very least
like, if Yawkey is in the HOF buck o'neil should be above him for so many reasons
― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:50 (three years ago) link
a guy named Statz
5-foot-7, 150-pound pacific coast league legend
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 15:50 (three years ago) link
I think a lot of people got to know Buck O'Neil through the Ken Burns film; he's in it a lot, and he's great.
I looked up Statz this morning--four consecutive years of 240+ hits in L.A. of the PCL.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 16:21 (three years ago) link
it's amazing how many games the PCL scheduled in those days -- statz played 199 games in 1926!
guess you can do that when the games don't take three hours
― mookieproof, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 16:30 (three years ago) link
― clemenza, Tuesday, January 26, 2021 11:21 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
He's great in Jazz too, especially if you are familiar with Baseball. The way he talks about Henry Aaron and similar to the way he talks about Billie Holiday.
― Van Horn Street, Tuesday, 26 January 2021 23:41 (three years ago) link
Had no idea. I have Jazz and have been meaning to start it for years.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 27 January 2021 00:38 (three years ago) link
i can't look at buck o'neil without slowing zooming and panning
― Karl Malone, Wednesday, 27 January 2021 05:25 (three years ago) link
"We are living in a moment where Chris Sale — one of the most accomplished pitchers of our time — goes 2 2/3 innings, allows five hits and one run, and he’s getting congratulated in the dugout like he just flew the first trans-Atlantic flight."
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 October 2021 16:12 (two years ago) link
(I just noticed Karl's post directly above--perfect!)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 October 2021 16:49 (two years ago) link
In the interest of fairness, Posnanski's column is actually in praise of pitchers today, contrasting the lineup Rodriguez faced last night with a Twins lineup Koufax faced in 1965 when he pitched a two-hit WS shutout--substantially more daunting to be a starting pitcher today.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 19 October 2021 18:04 (two years ago) link
I had no idea his Top 100 book is 880 pages...I think the longest single volume I've ever read was Tom Jones in university (as opposed to, say, Stephen Ambrose's multi-volume Nixon biography). I will get this at some point when it's (much, hopefully) less than the $50 Amazon is charging right now.
― clemenza, Friday, 12 November 2021 20:53 (two years ago) link
Finally started in on the book; waited all year hoping for a price drop, never happened. (The paperback's slated for early next year.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 11 October 2022 02:07 (one year ago) link
Not sharable, but an excerpt about last night's game (which I had to miss):
And that’s true, as far as it goes, but what they don’t acknowledge is that it isn’t a fair fight. If you have two great boxers in the ring, say Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, you get the Thrilla in Manilla. But what if in the third round, a manager comes in, takes the gloves from Joe Frazier, and hands them to George Foreman. And in the fourth, the manager calls for Joe Louis. And in the seventh, he calls for Rocky Marciano. And in the eighth, he calls for Mike Tyson, who gets in some trouble, so the manager stops the fight in the middle of the round and immediately brings in Evander Holyfield.
I mean, what chance does even Muhammad Ali have in a scenario like that?
...
I worry that sometimes these sorts of essays come across as me screaming at clouds and wishing to turn back the clock...but that’s not how I mean them. I’m thoroughly aware that you CANNOT turn back the clock. And I love baseball as much today as I ever have.
No, I write them more to point out what’s happening in the game because it can be super easy to miss. There are no announcements.
― clemenza, Sunday, 30 October 2022 23:55 (one year ago) link
Did that guy know that baseball and boxing are quite different sports cos I’m worried he doesn’t.
― barry sito (gyac), Monday, 31 October 2022 00:12 (one year ago) link
He probably doesn't know that, no.
― clemenza, Monday, 31 October 2022 00:13 (one year ago) link
Sorry for the sarcasm...mounting frustration.
― clemenza, Monday, 31 October 2022 00:15 (one year ago) link
what on earth is he talking about there?
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 31 October 2022 14:55 (one year ago) link
He's talking about how overmatched hitters are today in the middle-late innings, and making a fanciful analogy to boxing to get the point across. I'm pretty sure it's not meant to be taken literally--Posnanski's a great writer before he's anything else, I'd say. And he's observing, not complaining--I made sure to include those last two paragraphs, which appear later in the article, to head off any carping about him clinging to a game that doesn't exist anymore.
("There are no announcements": it helps to read the whole thing, obviously. It begins by contrasting football, where--according to Posnanski; I don't watch football, so I don't know--the league is very aware of what fans want, and tinker with the game to please fans, as opposed to baseball, where things just happen before fans are even aware that it's happening.)
― clemenza, Monday, 31 October 2022 15:07 (one year ago) link
i mean, watching the blue jays, "overmatched" isn't the word i would use for it. does give off the impression he feels like something is concerningly wrong here tho
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Monday, 31 October 2022 15:14 (one year ago) link
I'll quote the end, which reads like John Lennon's "Nobody Told Me":
Nobody told us, “From here on in, starters will pretty much never go seven innings in the World Series.”
Nobody told us, “From here on in, you will see 16 or 17 strikeouts per game rather than the 10 or 11 or 12 that you might have grown used to.”
Nobody told us, “From here on in, teams will carry 13 or 14 or 18 or 200 pitchers, and just about all of them will be unhittable in small bursts.”
No, this stuff just happened gradually and without a vote. The great pitchers of the past — the Mathewsons and Fellers and Gibsons and Koufaxes and Carltons and Fords of history — would probably not think all that much of Framber’s 6 1/3-inning, 4-hit, 3-walk, one-run start in a crucial World Series game.
But these days, that’s about the best a pitcher can do.
I guess that either resonates with you or it doesn't.
(I do think it's a mistake for him to assume that the way things are right now is the way things will be 10 or 15 years from now. Things always change--we could have an even more extreme version of today, or that trend could gradually reverse course. I doubt we'll be at the same place.)
― clemenza, Monday, 31 October 2022 15:35 (one year ago) link
That ignores when managers bring in washed-up Buster Douglas (aka Craig Kimbrel, or postseason Aroldis)
― omar little, Monday, 31 October 2022 15:54 (one year ago) link
Finished The Baseball 100 today. Might be the longest book I've ever read, not sure. Proust awaits.
I wouldn't say it's replaced Ball Four or The Historical Abstract (or maybe James's HOF book) at the top of my list, it's pretty great. Enough so that I think someone who doesn't know baseball that well could get a lot out of the stories and out of the writing.
I've got a friend who's always telling me he loves the aesthetics of baseball--Clemente's his favourite player, and he collects stuff from the '50s and '60s, from when he was a kid--and that he has no interest in stats. I argue that that's a false distinction: there is an aesthetic beauty to, say, looking at the first 10 years of Frank Thomas or Albert Pujols' career boxes, something I've gravitated to since I bought my first MacMillan Encyclopedia in the mid-'70s. (I like great catches and long home runs, too.) And that's what Posnanski does exceptionally well: balances the stories and the stats. You can tell he's fascinated by metronomic consistency too. Only occasionally do I think he overdoes the aesthetics (e.g., the beginning of the Mays entry--#1, so cut him some slack), which leads to the kind of Natural/Field of Dreams sentimentality I'm not big on.
He doesn't cut slack for any of the villains in the book--Rose, Schilling, Cobb, Speaker, PED guys--and they are in there. He's not an apologist, and sometimes he goes after their apologists. But, as I posted on the Jerry Lee Lewis thread, he tries to present the whole person; as he quotes Buck O'Neil (which he does often in the book), "People ain't one thing."
― clemenza, Monday, 31 October 2022 23:42 (one year ago) link
at the top of my list, but it's pretty great.
― clemenza, Monday, 31 October 2022 23:44 (one year ago) link