Author: howard

What he did: Twitter lit up Thursday evening with news Josh Hamilton slipped again in his sobriety. Hamilton, who overcame monumental drug issues in the minors and relapsed before in 2009, at least has time to regroup before the season starts. Josh Gibson never got that opportunity, the end of his life a storm of drug and alcohol abuse after perhaps the greatest career in Negro League history. Gibson was good enough that some called him the black Babe Ruth, while others referred to Ruth as the white Josh Gibson. The history of black baseball admittedly has its share of hyperbole, though one can only wonder what Gibson might have done with an opportunity.

Era he might have thrived in: Bill James ranks Gibson as the greatest catcher of all-time, suggesting he may have fared well in any era the majors would have him. If Gibson hadn’t died of a sudden stroke at 35 in January 1947, mere months before Jackie Robinson broke the modern color barrier, I suspect he might have been picked up by the same Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck who signed 42-year-old Satchel Paige in 1948. As such, we’ll go in a different direction here. We’re taking Gibson to the late 1980s and early ’90s where he could fill in for one of the few players who rates a comparison to him.

Why: In his interview for the Ken Burns Baseball miniseries that aired on PBS in 1994, Buck O’Neil spoke of hearing Ruth hit the ball, a “sound of the bat that I had never heard before in my life.” O’Neil heard the sound again with Gibson and, decades later, he heard it again with Kansas City Royals slugger Bo Jackson.

Gibson had power for sure, with Negro League expert Scott Simkus telling me he hit 10 balls clear out of Griffith Stadium in 1942 alone. Gibson hit for average, too, a reported .359, which trumps Jackson’s .250 lifetime clip. Simkus said Gibson most closely parallels Jimmie Foxx, another sweet-hitting slugger capable of playing catcher, though the possibilities with Jackson intrigue me more. In Jackson’s place, Gibson might have been the superstar Kansas City lacked in the late ’80s while George Brett was aging and the Royals declining. Gibson might not have been Bo’s equal as a marketing icon, no “Josh Knows Josh” campaign for Nike, but he could have forged a Hall of Fame career in the majors. I see Gibson good for at least 40 home runs and a .300 batting average with Triple Crown potential.

What else might Gibson have gotten playing in recent years? Besides a seven-figure contract and the basic amenities that black baseball lacked, Gibson would have had better options for combating substance abuse. There’s also the question of his mental health, which went largely untreated in his lifetime. Stories of his issues abound, with Gibson battling depression, having conversations with an imaginary Joe DiMaggio late in life, and once breaking free of a straitjacket he’d been placed in by police. Treatment for mental health was somewhat draconian up through the 1960s, and while today is no renaissance, with plenty of stigma still attached, Gibson might stand a better chance of having his issues properly diagnosed and treated.

Certainly, Gibson’s personal demons wouldn’t be easy to face in any era, as Josh Hamilton could attest. Here’s wishing Hamilton the best.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Similar to Josh Gibson: Satchel Paige, Monte Irvin, Jackie Robinson, 

Others in this series: Al Simmons, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Cesar Cedeno, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Don Drysdale, Doug Glanville, Eddie Lopat, Elmer Flick, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, Gene Tenace, George W. Bush (as commissioner), George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jack Morris, Jim Abbott, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Posnanski, Johnny Antonelli, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty Grove, Lefty O’Doul, Major League (1989 film), Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Nate Colbert, Ollie Carnegie, Paul Derringer, Pedro Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Wes Ferrell, Will Clark, Willie Mays

Before there was Plaxico Burress, there was Monty Franklin Pierce Stratton (man, people knew how to name their kids back in the day! See: Tenace, Fury Gene).

Once upon a time, Stratton was, seemingly, a young promising pitcher for the Chicago White Sox. An All-star, Stratton compiled a 36-23 record by the time he was 26. He completed 62 of the 70 games he started and had a 3.71 ERA and 1.31 WHIP.

He did the bulk of his work in 1937 (164.2 IPs) and 1938 (186.1 IPs). In ’37, Stratton posted a sparkling 2.40 ERA with a 3.77 K/9 rate and 2.02 BB/9 rate. His BABIP was .254 and his FIP was 3.39. It seems Stratton wasn’t great, just a tad lucky.

That said, in ’38, he posted a .265 BABIP, a 3.96 K/9 rate and a 2.70 BB/9 rate. His ERA was 4.01 and his FIP was 4.31. It would have been interesting to see if he was one of those guys who posted low BABIPs and beat his FIP routinely. For what it’s worth, Jimmy Dykes “foresaw unlimited possibilities” for the youngster according to Harold Sheldon’s Finishing the Stratton Story in 1949’s Baseball Digest.

Alas, everything changed for Stratton on November 27, 1938. Stratton had handled guns since he was 10 and owned five, including a .22 caliber pistol. “Monty stuck the .22 in his holster, and thought he had it on ‘safety,’ but it wasn’t, and when he pulled the gun out of the holster…it went off right away,” said his brother Hardin. There are some reports that Stratton tripped and fell and the pistol went off.

Stratton spent 30 minutes crawling toward his family home and was rushed to a hospital 10 miles away. However, they couldn’t get the bullet out, so they took him to a hospital in Dallas six hours after he was shot. Apparently, that didn’t really matter as Stratton, incredibly unluckily, completely severed the popliteal artery which is right behind the knee. The doctors had to amputate the leg.

Five months after the accident, Stratton signed a three-year coaching contract with the White Sox to throw batting practice and coach first base.

Four years after the accident, Stratton pitched in the minors. While managing the Lubbock Hubbers, Stratton sent himself to the mound in relief several times. He threw 9 innings and gave up 19 hits and 17 runs. He didn’t stay manager long.
However, four years after that, he threw 218 innings for the Sherman Twins. He posted a 4.17 ERA on a wooden leg. He pitched 103 innings the following year for the Waco Dons and would pitch intermittently until 1953 – 15 years after the accident.

All told, he threw 814 minor league innings, 388 of them were after his leg was amputated.

Forgive me if this is all old news to you because you saw the 1949 movie, which featured cameos by Dykes, Bill Dickey and Gene Bearden, but my dad was barely born then.

Stratton died on September 29, 1982, at the age of 70 – almost 6 months exactly after I was born.

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After Dick Stuart hit 66 home runs and drove in 171 runs for Lincoln Chiefs in the “A” Western League in 1956, he began to add the digits “66” to every autograph. But by the time Stuart was promoted to the Hollywood Stars in 1957, he always signed with a five-point star above his name. What no one could figure out, then or now, is whether the star reflected Stuart’s team or his image of himself.

As Stuart immodestly said after his record breaking season:

If the pitching was better, I would have hit 90 home runs. I had to chase a lot of bad balls to get those 66 homers.

By 1957, the Pirates minor league system was starting to produce high quality prospects. Stuart was considered among the brightest. In his typically brash manner, when he arrived in Hollywood awash in publicity Stuart immediately announced that he would lead the league in homers and RBIs.

At the season’s start, it looked like Stuart would make good on his promise. Playing—of all places—in right field, Stuart took the collar in the season opener of a day-night double header in San Diego. Then, in the night cap, Stuart blasted two homers, one estimated to travel 500 feet which led the Stars to a 14-1 victory. Over the next two games, Stuart smashed three more. But soon after Stuart’s bubble burst. He stopped hitting homers; in fact, he quit hitting singles,too. To complicate matters, Stuart’s fielding—“Dr. Strangeglove”—was atrocious.

By mid-May, Stuart was on his way back to Lincoln via the Atlanta Crackers. Paul Pettit, who after arm trouble had re-invented himself as an outfielder, took Stuart’s place in right and remained there for the season’s balance.

As Hollywood manager Clyde King said to Stuart on his way out the door: “You’re losing me more games with balls hit through your legs than your winning me with home runs.”

Stuart’s Hollywood line: AB 72; BA .236; HR 6; RBI 17

No matter where his managers placed him, and they tried the corner outfield slots as well as first and third base, Stuart couldn’t field. Writing for Sport Magazine in 1962, Larry Merchant summarized Stuart’s glove skills (or, better said, lack of glove skills):

In the outfield, his indifference bordered on contempt. At first base, he resembled a dinosaur egg. Stuart’s trouble—it is theorized—is that he hates all pitchers including his own.

During his brief 13 game stint with the New Orleans Pelicans in the Southern League, Stuart fielded .889.

By 1958, Stuart was in the big leagues to stay first with the Pittsburgh Pirates, then the Boston Red Sox followed by cameos with the Phillies, Mets, Dodgers and Angeles. His major league tenure was full of ups and downs.

Along his way Stuart alienated the Pirates’ brass at every stop—Branch Rickey, Bobby Bragan, coach Dick Sisler and King.

In my next blog, I’ll look at the most famous fielding play that Stuart was ever involved in—while he was sitting on the bench during the 1960 Pirates-New York Yankees seventh game.

Editor’s note: “Does he belong in the Hall of Fame?” will return next week. For now, please enjoy this piece from Doug Bird.

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Hack Wilson came from the Pennsylvania steel country and left school after the sixth grade.  He worked throughout his childhood and developed his enormous upper body strength swinging heavy hammers at a locomotive works. In this environment, Hack learned that hard work was usually followed by hard play and that the best way to win an argument was with his fists. In time, he would take this approach to the National League and become, for a brief time, one of its greatest power hitters.

Wilson was a 5’6”, 190 lb outfielder who played from 1923 until 1934.  In 1930, he had one of the greatest seasons in baseball history, setting a record that still stands with 191 runs batted in.  Hack is remembered more for his drinking and brawling, both on and off the field, than for his on-field career. And it definitely curtailed his career, with most of his lifetime 39.1 WAR being accumulated in a seven-year stretch between 1926 and 1932. In a sense, all of this and more makes Wilson underrated, one of baseball’s forgotten stars.

Wilson began his career in 1921 playing minor league baseball for Martinsville Blue Sox of the Blue Ridge League (Class D) Two years later he was promoted to the Virginia League (Class C.) Despite the fact that Wilson hit .356, .366 and .388 in the minors, most major league executives considered him too small to play in the big leagues. New York Giants manager John McGraw, only 5’7” himself, thought differently and signed Wilson to a contract in 1924. Hack hit a solid .295 that season but slumped to .239 the following season and was sent back to the minors and left unprotected. The Chicago Cubs quickly snapped him up for the sum of $5,000. Wilson had found a home.

Wilson won four home run titles from 1926 to 1930 and led the Cubs to the World Series in 1929.  He led the league in RBI in 1929 with 159.  His lowest batting average during those four seasons was .313. His lowest RBI total was 109 and the fewest home runs he hit were 21. Then came 1930.  Although Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg each had seasons of 170 RBI or more before and after 1930, Hack Wilson that year drove in a record 191 runs, a record which still stands  and established a then National League record for homeruns with 56.  He also batted .356 that season and was the league’s MVP.

But Wilson would never again reach those daunting heights. Four years later he was washed up, an alcoholic and out of baseball.  He had been the perfect fit for the roaring 20’s in Chicago an era in which excess of every kind was encouraged and admired, and Wilson hung out with the stars and the notorious elements of the city. It soon proved too good to last. At one point in the glory years, Wilson’s manager Rogers Hornsby stuck a worm in a drink, showing him what the alcohol did to it. He asked Wilson what he thought of it, and he replied, “If I drink, I won’t get worms.”

In 1931 Wilson was involved in several on and off field altercations, his fight with reporters just after boarding a train for Cincinnati on September 6 leading to his suspension for the remainder of the season. Wilson was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals the following season and then to the Brooklyn Dodgers where he had his last successful season. Mid-season 1934, Wilson was released by Brooklyn, briefly signed by Philadelphia before he was out of baseball for good. Wilson’s most memorable moment that final season came when he accidentally fielded a ball heaved at the Baker Bowl right field wall by a manager conferencing with his pitcher and fired a perfect throw to second base.

Wilson moved to Baltimore after several unsuccessful jobs as a bartender in Brooklyn and a goodwill ambassador for a Washington D.C. basketball team. Although he had made more than a quarter million dollars during his career– in 1931 alone, Wilson made $33,000 the highest-paid National League player– Wilson died on November 23, 1948, a penniless alcoholic. His funeral was paid for by bar patrons who passed the hat. His grey funeral suit was donated by his undertaker. His son did not attend the funeral. And though it would be another three decades before the Veterans Committee inducted Wilson into the Hall of Fame in 1979, he was already a forgotten man.

A few weeks ago around the Hall of Fame voting announcements, I took a Cyberspace visit to the Ted Williams Museum and its Hitters Hall of Fame.

Using what Williams described as his “secret formula” (actually the stat OPS), he identified his twenty greatest hitters of all time. BPP readers can and have debated over Barry Larkin and Bert Blyleven’s credentials. Looking at Williams’ stellar group, there are many fine hitters, and we’ve written of the museum before.

Included in Williams’ original 1995 inductees is Hank Aaron, possibly one of the most underrated of the Cooperstown Hall. The Williams’ Hall has other inductees which it updates annually. In 1999, the museum added Japanese-Taiwanese Yomiuri Giants’ slugger supreme Sadaharu Oh.

In 1974, Aaron and Oh went head-to-head in an unprecedented international home run hitting contest of epic proportions. CBS offered Aaron $50,000 and Oh, 6 million yen ($20,000) plus a silver trophy to the winner.

That year, the New York Mets were in Japan for a post-season good will tour. The Aaron-Oh showdown would be part of a November 2 of pre-game ceremony between the Mets and the Japanese All Stars.

Aaron, then with the Atlanta Braves, didn’t take the event seriously. In an interview, Aaron stated that the Japanese ball parks were so much smaller than the ones he played in stateside that any comparison between his home run prowess and Oh’s was “totally unfounded.” Aaron didn’t bother to bring any of his bats to Japan but instead borrowed Ed Kranepool’s longer, lighter Adirondack.

The contestants chose their own pitchers. Aaron gave the nod to Mets’ coach Joe Pignatano while Oh stuck with right handed Giants’ batting practice pitcher Kiniyasu Mine.

The format had been agreed upon in advance. Each player would be allowed 20 fair balls with their at bats taken in alternating sequences of five. At the end of the first round, Oh led 3-2.

At the beginning of round 2, Oh blasted three more homers to take a 6-2 lead. Later, Aaron laughingly said that he never thought he would hear the day when Mets’ wives would be chanting, “Let’s go, Henry.” By the bottom of the second round, Aaron tied the score 6-6 with four titanic blasts.

Aaron moved ahead in the third round, 9-7. Locals feared that Oh was out of gas. But Aaron, who hadn’t held a bat in six weeks, was running on empty, too. In the final round with the score tied at 9, Aaron had five more swings; he flied out, grounded to short and then lifted the winning shot over the left field fence. Final score: Aaron 10-Oh 9.

Ironically, only a few hours later, the Braves traded Aaron to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Aaron and Oh challenge began a lifelong friendship. Earlier this month the two, who had a total of 1,632 career homers, were in Los Angeles for the 20th Anniversary Children’s Baseball Fair Luncheon.  Aaron, 77, and Oh, 71 co-founded the organization in 1990. When Frank Robinson, ninth on the all time homer list, arrived a few minutes late, the three men represented 2,209 homers. [Aaron, Oh Are at Head of Power Luncheon, by Mike Di Giovanna, Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2012]

As always, Aaron was gracious. He politely but vaguely answered Barry Bonds questions.

Robinson, however, bluntly said:

In my mind, Hank is the home run king, no question.

Aaron and Oh were generous in their praise of each other.

Oh, said Aaron, “could have held his own in the major leagues.”

About Aaron, Oh said:

A lot of people were concerned about winning the derby. I was just grateful for his presence in Japan, for Hank to be in uniform, to show the Japanese fans and kids how great a person and player he is.

Editor’s note: Please welcome another “Any player/Any era” from Albert Lang.

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What He Did: You mean aside from being born Fury Gene Tenace?

Well, he finished his 15-year career with a .241/.388/.429 line with 201 HRs, playing primarily catcher and first base. He appeared in 846 games at catcher (.245/.396/.437) and 582 at first (.242/.382/.428).

His .388 career OBP is tied for the 33rd best by a right handed batter (min. 5,000 PA) in MLB history. He walked 984 times, the 41st most by a righty. He had six seasons of 100+ walks, the 20th most seasons of 100+ walks in baseball history. (The above from the SABR Baseball List & Record Book, 2007).

All of that and Tenace didn’t become a regular until he was 26 in 1973 (shades of Jorge Posada?). From 1969-1972 Tenace served primarily as Dave Duncan’s back-up (a no-hit, lead-the-staff kind of guy). However, with Duncan batting .163/.200/.302 in August of ‘72, Tenace was given the starting job down the stretch and throughout the play-offs.

While Tenace batted miserably in the ALCS, his one hit drove in the winning run in the deciding game. Then he hit .348/.400/.913 in the World Series, including homers in his first two World Series at bats (the first player to do so). He earned the MVP (and first of four World Series rings). Duncan was embroiled in a contract dispute during the following off-season and subsequently traded.

And that’s how you take over a starting catching job: brute force! Tenace did split time at catcher and first over the next few years, which would serve as his peak. From 1973-1980 (including four seasons in San Diego’s cavernous ballpark), Tenace averaged 147 games with a .241/.391/.434 line and 21 HRs per year. During that time, Tenace accumulated 39.9 WAR (Fangraphs), tied with Bobby Bonds for the 16th most among hitters during that stretch.

When it was all said and done, Tenace’s career looks somewhat similar to Adam Dunn. Dunn has 365 HRs (certainly more than Tenace) but a .243/.374/.503 line (surprisingly a worse OBP than Tenace). If you translate Dunn’s line to the 1975 Oakland Athletics, he would have 347 HRs and a .234/.362/.484 line. Tenace…just about Adam Dunn as a catcher.

In addition, Tenace’s 47.4 career WAR (Fangraphs) is 17th all time for a catcher (and that includes the likes of Brian Downing, Buck Ewing and others (who might not qualify at catcher) ahead of him). Certainly, his contemporaries, Ted Simmons and Johnny Bench, had better careers, but that shouldn’t take away from Tenace, much the same that Alan Trammell shouldn’t have been hurt by playing during the same era as Cal Ripken and Barry Larkin.

Era he might have thrived in: If ever there were a player from an older era that would have thrived in the “modern” game, it’s Tenace. For that reason, I’m putting him in the early part of the 2000s. If you place his numbers on the 2001 Oakland Athletics, his career line would be .270/.424/.475. His 1975 season, translated, would be a masterpiece: .269/.412/.486 with 31 HRs. Indeed, during his prime, he would have posted OBPs over .400 ever year but his translated 1974 season (his OBP on the 2001 A’s would have been a measly .398).

Why: The Oakland Athletics were perennial contenders from 2000-2006. However, they didn’t have a serviceable catcher until Ramon Hernandez blossomed in 2004. Tenace would have made Hernandez expendable (and trade-able) in a meaningful way.

Replacing Hernandez in 2001 (when Hernandez batted just .254/.316/.408) with Tenace would have improved an already lethal line-up. Could you imagine a team sending out: Johnny Damon/Gene Tenace/Jason Giambi/Eric Chavez/Miguel Tejada/Jermaine Dye/Jeremy Giambi/Terrence Long/Frank Menechino? That line-up would have no holes and include two players with .400+ OBPs.

Really, if you think about it, Tenace could have been the face of Moneyball.

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1.) George Uhle: Uhle might have played an everyday position had he not pitched so well, inventing the slider, once walking a batter to strike out Babe Ruth, and winning 200 games lifetime. One of a handful of pitchers with more than 10 offensive WAR for his career, Uhle hit .289 in his career with a .339 on-base percentage and 21 triples. His speed and contact hitting earns him the lead-off spot.

2.) Red Ruffing: Hall of Fame pitcher Ruffing hit at least .300 eight of his 22 seasons and topped out at .364 in 1930. Projecting his numbers that year to a 500 at-bat season, Ruffing would have had 182 hits with 18 homers, 100 RBI and a .984 OPS. Better, Ruffing went 15-8 on the hill in 1930 after consecutive 20-loss seasons.

3.) Wes Ferrell: I’ve said this before here, though it bears repeating. When people knock Rick Ferrell’s 1987 Hall of Fame induction, they sometimes note he wasn’t the best player in his own family. Rick doesn’t even have the best OPS+ despite playing catcher while Wes served primarily as a rotation-anchoring pitcher, winning 20 games six times. Wes bests Rick for OPS+ (100 to 95), home runs (38 to 28) and slugging percentage (.446 to .378) among other offensive categories. Fittingly, he fronts a 1979 SABR book, Great Hitting Pitchers.

4.) Earl Wilson: Wilson’s 35 home runs aren’t tops for pitchers, but his one homer every 21.14 at-bats might be. It trumps Ferrell, who went yard once every 30.9 at-bats (and hit a record 37 homers as a pitcher and one more as a pinch hitter.) Wilson played just 11 seasons, being stuck much of the 1950s in the minors with the Boston Red Sox, who waited until 1959 to integrate. He also mostly played in the 1960s, one of the worst offensive periods in baseball history. Imagine Wilson’s hitting stats for a longer career in a better offensive era.

5.) Don Drysdale: Like a few of the men here, Drysdale’s career hitting stats are non-imposing:  .186 lifetime batting average with an OPS+ of 45 and a 162-game average of 110 strikeouts. He rates a mention for his one sensational offensive year, 1965, when he was the Dodgers’ only .300 hitter and had seven homers, 19 RBI, and an OPS+ of 140. He also went 23-12 on the mound, helping Los Angeles to a World Series crown.

6.) Carlos Zambrano: For his epic 2011 meltdown in Chicago, Big Z hit .318 with a career-high 130 OPS+ in 44 at-bats. He hit better still in 2008, .337 with four home runs, 14 RBI, and a 122 OPS+ in 83 at-bats. It’ll be interesting to see how he fares in Miami, given that Zambrano had a lower batting average but better slugging numbers in Wrigley than elsewhere.

7.) C.C. Sabathia: Sabathia might be the hitting king of American League pitchers, batting .269 in interleague play lifetime. His .250 career batting average overall pales in comparison to many other pitchers, even active ones, though like Wilson, I wonder what Sabathia could do with more at-bats.

8.) Bob Gibson: Gibson, like Drysdale, is considered one of the best-hitting pitchers of the 1960s and had better peak offensive value than longevity, batting .303 in 1970 and .206 lifetime. Gibson and Drysdale share another thing in common: Each owned the other man at the plate, with Gibson going 2-20 and Drysdale 1-23, though surprisingly, neither hit the other with a pitch despite their reputations as brushback artists.

9.) Walter Johnson: The Big Train had incredible durability, placing third in baseball history with 5,914 innings pitched, though when his skills went, they went fast. Johnson had his last great year at 37 in 1925 when he went 20-7 for the AL champion Washington Senators and hit .433 with two homers, 20 RBI, and a 162 OPS+ in 97 at-bats. He even smacked a triple, his 41st and final. As a man of surprises, he makes a perfect ninth hitter.

When my colleague and fellow baseball historian Adam Darowski wrote that Richie Ashburn was a better player than he had thought, I was pleased. Like the BBWAA writers, I have my biases and one is Ashburn. But using the standard that Adam developed for the “Small” Hall of Fame that I favor, Ashburn came up quite sort. Adam set 105 wWAR as the minimum for entry to the Small Hall; Ashburn had 84.8.

Ashburn, if nothing else, was one of the most dependable players of his era. During the ten year period from 1949 through 1958, he played in 98.6 percent of the Phillies’ games. Only seven players had higher percentages over a similar period: Lou Gehrig, Billy Williams, Nellie Fox, Cap Anson, Stan Musial, John Morrill and Ron Santo.

Ashburn must have been a manager’s dream. Phillies’ pilots Eddie Sawyer, Steve O’Neil, Mayo Smith and, for a season with the Mets, Casey Stengel knew they could pencil Ashburn into the lineup and he would deliver.

A superb outfielder who played in the shadows of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Duke Snider, Ashburn couldn’t hit for power and was considered to have a weak arm (although in the bottom of the ninth of the 1950 single game playoff for the National League pennant against the Brooklyn Dodgers and with the score tied 1-1, he threw out Cal Abrams at home plate.)

As a leadoff hitter, however, Ashburn completely bedeviled pitchers. Choking up on his bat, Ashburn used his shortened stroke to slap the ball through the infield. When he was not delivering a single, he would bunt his way on base or draw a walk, then steal second. Ashburn knew how to work a pitcher. Once he fouled off 14 deliveries from Cincinnati’s Corky Valentine before he finally walked.

Ashburn’s teammate, Johnny Blatnik told this story about his friend’s bat control:

One night in Philadelphia, there was a loud mouthed guy who was getting on one of our players, I can’t remember who it was. Rich told our man ‘Point him out to me.’ Rich went up to bat and hit the guy in the chest about five or six rows up in the stands with a line drive foul ball. That’s a true story.

Few outside of Philadelphia know that when the 1950 decade ended, Ashburn had more hits than Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Mays or Mantle.

After his playing career ended, Ashburn had the wisdom to turn down an offer to go into Nebraska politics as some urged him to do. Instead Ashburn accepted the Phillies invitation to join the broadcast team where he enamored the notoriously tough Philadelphia fans for decades.

When in 1995 the Hall finally inducted Ashburn, he said showing his famous sense of humor:

I’m flattered that so many baseball people think I’m a Hall of Famer. But what’s hard to believe is how one-hundred and fifty plus people have changed their minds about me since I became eligible because I haven’t had a base hit since then.

Ashburn’s Cooperstown plaque reads, in part:

DURABLE, HUSTLING LEAD-OFF HITTER AND CLUTCH PERFORMER WITH SUPERB  KNOWLEDGE OF STRIKE ZONE. BATTED .308 LIFETIME WITH NINE .300 SEASONS AND 2,574 HITS IN 2,189 GAMES, WINNING BATTING CHAMPIONSHIPS IN 1955 AND 1958. AS A CENTER FIELDER, ESTABLISHED MAJOR LEAGUE RECORDS FOR MOST YEARS LEADING LEAGUE IN CHANCES (9), MOST YEARS 500 OR MORE PUTOUTS (4) AND MOST SEASONS 400 OR MORE PUTOUTS (9).

At Ashburn’s 1997 funeral, players and fans showed up in droves and stood in line for hours to pay their final respects to the man whose skills on the field and voice behind the mike was legendary. Some grown men, crying, left their transistor radios beside Ashburn’s casket to pay the ultimate tribute to the man they admired and loved for years.