baseball obituaries 2020

We are saddened to learn about the recent passing of former Cardinals outfielder and World Series Champion, David Green.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time. pic.twitter.com/ieFVLIorM4

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) February 1, 2022

I remember him, he was pretty good--don't know why he had such a short career. Looked up his Wikipedia entry, and he got his first MLB hit off Luis Tiant. His death was COVID-related.

“Gerald Williams passed away this morning after a battle with cancer. To my teammate and one of my best friends in the world, rest in peace, my brother. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Liliana, and their whole family.” —Derek Jeter pic.twitter.com/mVoaZ8BPrP

— The Players' Tribune (@PlayersTribune) February 8, 2022

Horrible news: Jeremy Giambi passed away today at his parents’ home in Southern California, according to his agent, Joel Wolfe. Jason and the family request that their privacy be respected during this difficult time.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) February 9, 2022

Woah. Dude was only 47!

I just stopped on Moneyball for a few minutes the other day, the scene where got lectured in the clubhouse and then traded right after.

i just read about Jeremy Giambi and way too young to die, RIP. he should have slid at home.

Thermo Thinwall new Spoon tomorrow, are you excited?

I wish I could say I was - but it’s been a rough couple years.
But if it’s good, I’ll be quite pleasantly surprised. If it sucks, just another thing for the pile.

it's pretty good

So why I brought it up, he did the images for the Spoon poll and I haven't seen him around ILM

Sorry about your situation and I'm also hoping that 2022 is a better year

Baseball coming back sure would be a great help

ILM turned into a pretty negative place for me. stopped posting there for a while.

which reminds me – i should start a certain thread!

Odalis Perez, 44. Fell from a ladder.

(Sheesh.)

Tommy Davis

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/33670296/tommy-davis-2-nl-batting-champion-los-angles-dodgers-dies-83

roger angell (101!)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/sports/roger-angell-dead.html

rip

i want to read his 1975 piece on steve blass (which i just read about, in an obituary). i didn't realize Blass got the yips, and i'd love to see what Angell had to say about that.

rip

steve blass disease!

Dwight Smith, very young:

https://www.tsn.ca/world-series-winning-outfielder-dwight-smith-dead-at-58-1.1828287

Still remember Jerome Walton and Smith 1-2 in ROY voting.

Look at Jerome Walton '94-98: limited playing time, but maybe another why-did-he-retire guy.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/waltoje01.shtml

We are deeply saddened by the passing of former Met John Stearns. https://t.co/Bxh4o8rY4V pic.twitter.com/L860TPMU6j

— New York Mets (@Mets) September 16, 2022

Former stolen base king and '62 MVP Maury Wills.

Pretty significant death. It doesn't make sense by modern metrics (39.6 career bWAR), but I know he still has passionate HOF advocates. He and Wes Parker were basically the focus of an excellent book I read last year on the great '60s Dodgers teams, The Last Innocents.

Bruce Sutter:

https://www.mlb.com/news/bruce-sutter-dies

One of the more tenuous HOF picks of recent times, but he definitely was dominant for two or three seasons.

Expecially '77: 6.5 bWAR for a closer.

Especially, even.

i'm less amazed by his hall induction than by his *five* top-10 MVP finishes

The pendulum on the value of closers has swung back and forth two or three times during my years as a fan; Sutter and the late '70s was a peak, the late '80s were a peak, then again whenever Gagne won his Cy Young.

rip bruce sutter. some of my first memories are of him pumping his fist and then catching and holding darrell porter as the catcher jumped into his arms. it was on a tape, a 1982 cardinals VHS, which was on constant rotation at my grandpa's when i was little, years afterward

i was just a kid, but when i first got into baseball he was *the* reliever, and basically (to my knowledge) created the split-fingered fastball

(turns out that with the plastic-coated balls they use through little league, i too could make that pitch dive! but then when we moved back to 60.5 and used leather balls, much less so)

would've been cooler if he'd been a member of hockey's sutter family tho

Closers used to get such a disproportionate amount of MVP consideration, when taking their actual value into account. Not that Sutter wasn’t a really good one, of course.

I will say that for me his most memorable moment was giving up two home runs to Ryne Sandberg in the game that basically made the latter a superstar.

I was just checking the 1984 AL MVP ballot: five pitchers finished, with closers Willie Hernandez winning and Quisenberry finishing third. Stieb (always a bridesmaid) finished tied for 22nd, with Boddicker at #25, and Doyle Alexander tied for 27th with Ripken, whose bWAR of 10.01(!) led MLB.

I would watch a 30 for 30 on that ballot

Willie appeared in 80 games and pitched 140.1 innings so he wasn’t exactly a Gagne.

The exclusively one inning closer wasn't a thing until the 90's. In Sutter's prime they would pitch more than 100 innings. In his CY-winning season he had 9.8K/9IP when the league average was probably around 5.

If anything I think Sutter's HOF case has looked stronger since he was elected, seeing how 300 saves has become even rarer and so many top relievers flame out after a few years.

Yeah true dat. Who was the last reliever to compile 100 IP in a season exclusively from relief outings?

When I was a kid it seemed like Sutter was a Cardinal forever and his Cubs years were just a blip. But he was only in St Louis four seasons, and compiled most of his HOF cred in Chicago.

Gaylord Perry

What an amazing character. Obviously underscores the disconnect when it comes to keeping PED guys out of the HOF. One of the very first things I ever got caught up in as a fan was his '72 season, which is probably still one of the top 15-20 seasons for a starting pitcher in the past 50 years (10.8 bWAR and the Cy Young for a 72-84 Cleveland team).

Wow--actually 6th best, behind Gooden in '85 (12.2), Carlton in '72 (12.1), Clemens in '97 (11.9), Wilbur Wood (!) in '71 (11.8), and Pedro in 2000 (11.7).

Mind blown: Perry tried to hide George Brett's bat in the pine tar game! He was stopped and later ejected.

Perry was one of the great old men of MLB, like Niekro or Hough. I mean they looked like old men when playing.

weirdly Jamie Moyer didn’t despite lasting longer — it trips me out to see that he’s 60 years old now

RIP Gaylord Perry, it's been a terrible two days for deaths.

https://www.mlb.com/video/gaylord-perry-dies-at-age-84?partnerId=web_video-playback-page_video-share

RIP Curt Simmons

Famous quote usually attributed to Simmons: "Trying to throw a baseball by Hank Aaron is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster." (Posnanski says he's also seen the quote attributed to other players talking about someone other than Aaron.)

tom browning, who threw the reds’ only perfect game, 62

https://i.imgur.com/s76ckOb.png

https://nowtakingthefield.substack.com/p/the-baseball-rip-roster-for-2022

frank thomas (not that one, but another famous one)

RIP Frank Thomas.
Born in 1929 in Pittsburgh, played for the Pirates from 1951-58 (three-time All-Star here), blasted 286 homers over 16 seasons in the majors. pic.twitter.com/OBXhES0Trj

— RobBiertempfel (@RobBiertempfel) January 16, 2023

also, journeyman ted savage, who just missed being part of the cardinals WS winning teams in '64 and '67

He just had a stroke aiui

four-time all-star 3B and brewers GM sal bando, 78