Category: MLB

What he did: A reader sent me an MLB.com article about Derek Jeter over the weekend that contained an interesting bit about the value of good shortstops. The passage read:

Teams don’t regularly appear in postseason series if their middle infield is suspect; the Dodgers of 1974, ’77, ’78 and ’81, notwithstanding. Those who question the Hall of Fame credentials of Pee Wee Reese and Phil Rizzuto ought to note which teams played into October year after year in the late ’40s into the mid ’50s and identify the shortstops. Ted Williams identified Rizzuto as the difference between the first-place Yankees and the runner-up Red Sox.

The line struck me because Dodger shortstop and Hall of Famer Reese actually got his start in the Red Sox system. He was on the Louisville Colonels in 1938 when Sox owner Tom Yawkey bought the team for $195,000, with Roger Kahn noting in The Boys of Summer that “five thousand was for the franchise. The rest went for the kid at short.” Reese led the American Association in triples and stolen bases in 1939, but Red Sox player-manager Joe Cronin reputedly ordered Reese’s sale so he could play five more years. The Dodgers snagged Reese for $35,000 and four forgotten players, and the Red Sox went through seven shortstops during Reese’s time in Brooklyn, one for each World Series he helped those Bums to. Meanwhile, Boston made the postseason just once in this stretch, 1946.

Thus, this week’s column is about if things had been different and Reese had stuck around Beantown. In fact, we’ll go a step further with the idea.

Era he might have thrived in: After 1918 and before 2004, baseball life was one long series of crushing blows for Boston and its fans, purgatory punctuated periodically by close calls. This week’s column looks at if Reese could have made a difference in some of the closest of calls: 1946, 1967, 1975, and 1986. Try and name an elite shortstop from those teams. With a guy like Reese around to provide an upgrade, it seems unlikely the Red Sox would have gone 86 years without a world championship.

Why: Johnny Pesky, Rico Petrocelli, Rick Burleson, and some combination of Rey Quinones, Spike Owen, and Ed Romero. These are the men Reese would have unseated taking over short any of the years mentioned above. Of these players, Petrocelli might have been the only one not worth having Reese stand in for, seeing as Petrocelli was good enough in 1969 to hit 40 home runs and lead all shortstops in fielding percentage. Everyone else here is replaceable.

Burleson somehow finished 13th in MVP voting in 1975 hitting .252. Meanwhile, Quinones, Owen, and Romero hit about .220 collectively and suggest Bill Buckner may have gotten too much blame losing Boston a championship. As for Pesky, although he hit .335 in 1946, he was moved to third base a couple years later when the Sox traded for Vern Stephens. With Reese in town in ’46, the shift could have happened sooner and relieved Boston’s starting third baseman that year, Rip Russell who hit a motley .208 in limited duty. The stat converter on Baseball-Reference.com has Reese’s ’46 season with Brooklyn converting to a .294 batting average with 10 triples for the Red Sox. That may have helped Boston overcome St. Louis in the World Series.

Would Reese have the same legacy as a man who helped welcome Jackie Robinson to Brooklyn, refusing to join his fellow Southern teammates in signing a petition protesting Robinson’s presence? Maybe not. But perhaps Reese could have brought this same spirit of tolerance to Boston and helped an organization that would ultimately wait until 1959 to field a black player, the last big league team to integrate.

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

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies,Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson,Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe,Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, 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, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson,Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson,Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Will Clark, Willie Mays

It was 1931, the Great Depression was well underway, and in Philadelphia, the Athletics and the Cardinals were playing Game 3 of the World Series. Future Hall of Famers Lefty Grove and Burleigh Grimes had been dueling for some time when a security detail arrived in front of the A’s dugout. Herbert Hoover had reached Shibe Park.

Joe Williams, covering the game for the New York World Telegram, captured the scene:

The crowd back of the dugout recognizes the President and there is a pattering of palms and Mr. Hoover waves a gray, soft hat at mechanical intervals, and smiles his greetings. An official box has been set aside for the visitors from Washington. Grove and Grimes, who have paused in deference to the President’s entrance, go back to their mysteriously silent labors.

And then something happens. Some one boos. Or it may be a whole section which surrenders to this spontaneous, angry impulse. In any event, the boos rise from the stands and break with unmistakable vehemence around your ears. They grow in volume and pretty soon it seems almost everybody in the park is booing. Booing what? It doesn’t take long to get the answer. They are booing the President of the United States.

With the arrival of postseason baseball once again and times in America not as troubled as they were in 1931 but somewhere in the same vicinity these days, maybe this scene could repeat itself. For better or for worse, baseball has had a way of uniting the political divide over the years, particularly come playoff time.

Sometimes the moments are happier. When Woodrow Wilson arrived during the middle of the seventh inning in a 1918 World Series game, the crowd spontaneously began singing the Star Spangled Banner, patriotism perhaps abounding with World War I in its waning days. Wilson had been having Francis Scott Key’s effort played at military functions for two years, and while it wouldn’t become the national anthem until 1931, the instance has traditionally been credited as the first time the song was played at a baseball game.

More recently, the 10th anniversary passed for the attacks of September 11, 2001, bringing to mind a moment from the World Series that year. George W. Bush, his popularity at a higher point than it had ever been or would be again, threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. The former Texas Rangers owner tossed a strike, perhaps the result of genetics from his father who pitched for Yale or a bit of inspiration from Ronald Reagan, who once played Grover Cleveland Alexander in a film. The crowd gave a standing ovation, and an autographed 2011 Topps Allen and Ginter card of the event sold on eBay for $1,393.88.

It’s certainly the best reception a Republican throwing out a ceremonial pitch during wartime ever got in New York. Just ask Billy Graham, who was scratched from first pitch duties at Shea Stadium in the 1969 World Series because of controversy around the Vietnam War and Graham’s connection to Richard Nixon. A disinterested Casey Stengel had to stand in, and I just hope the boos were at a minimum for the Old Perfessor.

Robinson Cano, the second baseman for the New York Yankees, had a superb 2011 season and was the hitting star of the first game of the Division Series against the Detroit Tigers. However, let’s stop any talk that at season’s end Cano might have been voted the American League MVP. “Cano as MVP” was the subject of incessant chirping from Ron Darling and John Smoltz during Sunday’s television broadcast of the New York-Detroit series, but any such discussion is silly in my view. In the parlance of Moneyball, one simple reason that Cano is not the MVP is that he makes too many outs, the result of his being almost incapable of drawing a base on balls.

Cano walked only 38 times in 2011, which is less than any of the players who have received serious consideration for the AL MVP, including Jose Bautista (132), Miguel Cabrera (108), Dustin Pedroia (86), Curtis Granderson (85), David Ortiz (78), Paul Konerko (77), Adrian Gonzalez (74), Jacoby Ellsbury (52), and Josh Hamilton (39). I would rank most of these players ahead of Cano for MVP. This statement is not meant to imply that I consider walks to be the key stat on which the MVP should be decided, but walks are – or at least should be – one of the leading ways that a batter gets on base. And on-base percentage (either in isolation or as part of OPS) is a stat that I would weigh heavily for MVP-worthiness.

Cano had a .882 OPS this year, ranking 10th in the AL, and that’s about where I would place him for MVP. Cano ranks 26th in the league in OBP and 9th in SLG, indicating that Cano earns his OPS more through slugging than getting on base. His power hitting (46 doubles, 7 triples, 28 home runs) is central to his value as a player. If Cano could draw even a few more walks his value would increase, but too often he swings at ball 4, not to mention balls 1, 2 and 3.

Cano had a BB/PA of .055 in 2011. This walk rate is substantially below the league average, placing him in the lower third among everyday players. In contrast, Bautista, Cabrera, Pedroia, Granderson, Konerko and Gonzalez all walked at rates well above the league average. If you imagine that Cano had walked at the league average of .081 times per plate appearance, his 38 walks would become 56. By drawing 18 more walks, Cano could be expected to have made 12 fewer outs, which would increase his OBP from .349 to .365. Assuming that his being more selective at the plate would not also adversely affect his ability to drive the ball, this increase in OBP would boost Cano’s OPS to .898, which would move him up to eighth in the league, ahead of Alex Avila (.895), but still trailing Bautista (1.056) and six others. Even then, he’s probably not a leading candidate for MVP, although perhaps defense and intangibles could earn him a few votes. Cano would have to increase his walk total to about 75 or 80 (an OBP of perhaps .380) in order to be a serious contender for MVP.

I enjoy watching Cano play. He has a sweet swing and plays the game with an unusual combination of joy and intensity. He has surpassed all but Tony Lazzeri as the all-time best second baseman for the Yankees, and Lazzeri might well fall from that discussion in the next few years. Cano is a fine player, but I will be shocked if we learn in November that he has been voted the 2011 AL MVP.

Editor’s note: Alex Putterman will be contributing posts every other Monday going forward.

_______________

Jim Devlin is third all-time in ERA among pitchers with 1,000 career innings pitched, behind Hall of Famers Ed Walsh and Addie Joss. He’s also third all-time in ERA+, behind Mariano Rivera and Pedro Martinez and right ahead of Lefty Grove and Walter Johnson. But Devlin is not in the Hall of Fame, and by no measure deserves to be; in fact, the 1870’s star played only half the ten-season Hall requirement. Into those five wacky seasons, however, Devlin packed multiple careers-worth of notability. From a full season of complete games to a disappointing Shoeless Joe-like end, Jim Devlin’s résumé reads like a baseball-themed Dos Equis commercial.

Devlin began his career in 1873 in the National Association, playing mostly 1st base for the Philadelphia and Chicago White Stockings (two separate teams with the same name, another bizarre reality of 19th century baseball) and batting .281 during his time in the NA. But as Chicago learned in 1875, Devlin’s true value was on the mound, where he posted a 1.93 ERA in 28 opportunities that season.

When the NA folded in 1876, Devlin jumped to the National League to pitch for the newly-formed Louisville Grays. Here, he is said to have invented the “down shoot,” a pitch modern baseball fans know as the sinker. With the unhittable new pitch as his secret weapon, Devlin went 30-35 in ’76, throwing 66 complete games in 68 starts (the team played 69 games, the last of which Devlin lost to injury) with a 1.56 ERA. At a time when starting pitchers all accumulated inning totals absolutely obscene by modern standards, Devlin led the NL with 622 innings pitched (tied for 9th most ever in a single season).

Devlin followed up his terrific ’76 campaign with one of the most remarkable seasons in baseball history. The Grays played 61 games in 1877. Devlin started all of them… and finished all of them, the first and only pitcher in baseball history to pitch every inning of every one of his team’s games. Although for the second straight year the right-hander led the NL in losses, he also boasted the league’s highest totals in innings pitched, games started, complete games and ERA+ and won 35 games.

But a calamitous late-season road trip kept Devlin’s Grays from the National League pennant that year, and suspicion arose that gamblers had a hand in the collapse. It was eventually concluded that Devlin and three teammates had taken money to intentionally lose games (Devlin confessed, blaming his “cheapskate” owner). National League president William Hulbert promptly banished the quartet for life, and so, with 1,405 career innings pitched (1,181 in the National League), Jim Devlin’s career was abruptly over. So too was the two-year existence of the Louisville Grays, who went out of business after the scandal. In the franchise’s abbreviated history Jim Devlin had been starting pitcher in all but one game.

If not for his banishment, Devlin would have presumably maintained his prowess on the mound a few more seasons and could today be enshrined in Cooperstown. Instead he’s been relegated to relative anonymity, closer to infamy than fame, noted more for associating with gamblers than for starting 129 out of a possible 130 games over a two-year stretch. But it’s both the throwing of baseballs and the throwing of games that makes Devlin such a fascinating figure. Inventor of the sinker, greatest innings-eater of all-time, and culprit of a gambling scandal? Those sound like credentials of the most interesting player in baseball history.

Editor’s Note: Joe Guzzardi’s Friday series “Double the Fun” has ended. It will return next baseball season
____________________

I’m not impressed!

Sure, Prince Fielder hit three titanic home runs Tuesday night off soon-to-be former Pittsburgh Pirates starter Ross Ohlendorf. That still leaves Fielder five behind Jay Justin “Nig” Clarke who, on June 15, 1902, belted eight round trippers for the Corsicana Oil Citys as they hammered their Texas League rival Texarakana Casketmakers, 51-3. Since runs batted in were not an official statistic in the early 20^th Century, historians can only estimate that Clarke drove in between 16 and 20 runs.

To this day, the final score is in dispute. Telegraph operators, not believing their eyes, reported the score as 5-3 and changed Clarke’s “8” homers to 3. As recently as 1965, the Dallas Morning-News uncovered evidence that Corsicana manager and first baseman Mike O’Connor had inflated the totals.

According to the original newspaper account: “The official scorer lost his head, but the foxy manager of the Oil City boys has discovered a tabulated record which goes as the official figures. He realizes the benefits in swelling batting averages …” Nevertheless, in an interview late in his life, Clarke recalled his 8 epic home runs “as if they were yesterday.”

Naturally, the left- handed hitting Clarke benefited from the 210 foot right field fence. Still, assuming each of Clarke’s homers went at least 250 feet, by the end of that June afternoon his balls had travelled 2,000 feet. I estimate the aggregate distance of Fielder’s 3 blasts at 1,100 feet. I should add that if the roof at Miller Park had been open, one of them would still be in orbit.

During the 2 hour and 10 minute game, the Oil Citys collected 59 base hits that included 20 homers. But before you totally dismiss Clarke’s historic day, keep in mind that the Casketmakers didn’t hit a single round-tripper.

Unfortunately for Clarke, his major league career was less spectacular. In a fifteen year career with the Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Naps, St. Louis Browns, Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates, Clarke only hit 9 homers. Clarke did however hit .358 in 1906.

Clarke’s big league years included one wonderful game. On October 2, 1908 Clarke caught Addie Joss’ perfect game, at that time only the fourth in baseball history. Clarke had a well-deserved reputation as an outstanding defensive catcher from baseball’s harshest critic, Ty Cobb.

After Clarke caught his last game for the Pirates, he returned to the minor leagues where he hit .266 and played until he turned 42.

What he did: This was originally going to be a column about Branch Rickey. With the premier of Moneyball in theaters last week, I figured it might be interesting to see how Rickey would do in Beane’s place as general manager for the Oakland Athletics. If ever there was an executive who succeeded with limited resources, it was Rickey, who invented the farm system in St. Louis and later made perennial contenders out of also-rans in Brooklyn. He didn’t fare as well at the last stop of his career in Pittsburgh, though his shrewd move plucking Roberto Clemente from the Dodger minors kept the Pirates relevant long after Rickey left town. Rickey might make a good subject here at some point, though for our purposes this week, it dawned on me that the Mahatma and Beane might help each other.

There’s a scene early in the book version of Moneyball where a young Beane sprints against a couple other top prospects in the 1980 draft, his speed and other suite of skills tantalizing enough for the New York Mets to make him a first-round pick. Beane didn’t amount to much as a player, though, and the scene mainly serves to show his disdain for valuing young prospects specifically for raw talent. But Beane might have been a good project for Rickey, who valued speed perhaps as much as any other skill and who resolved early on that if he lacked the money to sign established players, he’d simply develop his own. His systems produced Stan Musial, Johnny Mize, and Joe Medwick, among others, and I only wonder what fellow outfielder Beane might have done for him.

Era he might have thrived in: We’ll place Beane on the Gashouse Gang St. Louis Cardinals of the 1930s which Medwick was an integral member of, Mize joined at the tail end, and Musial just missed. With his speed and brash personality, Beane would have fit right in and been in a better situation than he was with the Mets.

Why: Certainly, the Mets of the 1980s produced a huge number of talented young players: Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry, Lenny Dykstra, Kevin Mitchell, Rick Aguilera, Kevin Tapani, and Gregg Jefferies all come to mind, and perhaps New York of those years was what St. Louis was half a century earlier. But for all the successes, Beane was a noted failure in his development, being pushed too early, ultimately hitting just .219 lifetime, and playing his last game in the majors at 27. With the Cardinals, Beane might not even be in the show at that age, and if he was, it’d only be because he was absolutely ready to go and be an asset to St. Louis. Rickey liked to keep a good veteran or two around on his bush league teams to help the young players. It’s why guys like Harry Walker took so long to make the big leagues.

So Beane would have a better chance at properly developing into a good all-around player for the Cardinals. And if he stuck with the route he’s gone in real life, becoming a scout shortly after quitting playing and eventually matriculating to the front office, Beane would be learning from the organization of arguably the greatest executive baseball has ever known. I can only wonder about what Rickey might have been able to teach Beane and what the meeting of the minds could have been like for two men devoted to innovation and exploiting baseball’s inefficiencies. True, Beane might not be played in any movie these days by Brad Pitt, a bizarre, wonderful fluke for the sabermetric community if there ever was one. But Beane could wind up with just as worthy of a legacy, if not better.

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

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies,Barry Bonds, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson,Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe,Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, 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, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson,Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson,Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Will Clark, Willie Mays

These are dark days for San Francisco Giants fans. Since August, they have had a growing sense of dread that 2011 just wasn’t going to be another miracle year. Missing from their late season roster are not only the high profile Buster Posey, Freddie Sanchez and Brian Wilson but also others who played important roles last year like Nate Schierholtz and Jeremy Affeldt.

As I watched Tim Lincecum Sunday in his final outing, I was reminded of Jack Sanford another bulldog Giants’ pitcher. Although Sanford was the Giants’ losing pitcher in the 1962 seventh game against the New York Yankees, he was one of the best of his era.

Sanford, a right-hander, also pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies, the California Angels and the Kansas City Athletics in his 12-year major career during which he posted a 137-101 record with a 3.69 earned run average.

In his 1957 Rookie of the Year season with the Phillies, Sanford notched a 19-8 record with a league leading 188 strike outs. But Sanford suffered a sophomore jinx and went 10-13 in 1958. Then a post-season trade sent Sanford to San Francisco for pitcher Ruben Gomez and catcher Valmy Thomas in what turned out to be a great deal for the Giants and Sanford.

Sanford pitched seven solid years for the Giants and had his best year in 1962 when he went 24-8, winning 16 straight games and leading the Giants to their first pennant in San Francisco. The Giants beat the Dodgers in a best-of-three playoff series.

During the World Series, Sanford pitched three games against the Yankees whose roster included Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. Sanford went 1-2 with a 1.93 ERA. He pitched a three-hit 2-0 shutout in Game 2 and struck out 10 in a 5-3 loss in Game 5.

Game 7 was one of the greatest pitching duels in World Series history. While Ralph Terry carried a perfect game into the sixth inning and a two-hit shutout into the ninth, Sanford was almost as effective. He gave up seven hits in seven innings, the only run coming on a 6-4-3 double play in the fifth inning when Tony Kubek grounded to Jose Pagan to Chuck Hiller to Willie McCovey. For Terry, who won 23 games, his masterpiece redeemed him personally for the 1960 gopher ball he served up to the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bill Mazeroski.

In a play that longtime Giants have indelibly etched in their memories, McCovey lined out to second baseman Bobby Richardson to end the game with runners stranded on second and third.

Sanford, who pitched more than 200 innings in each of his first five seasons with San Francisco and topped the National League with 42 starts in 1963, suffered a shoulder injury in 1964 that limited him to 18 games. In 1965, the Giants traded Sanford to the California Angels. Moved to the bullpen, Sanford recorded a league-high 12 wins in relief in 1966.

An excellent hitting pitcher, Sanford went all out on the base paths. “It seemed like he hit a triple in about five games one year, and every time, (reliever) Stu Miller got ready to come in,” retired San Francisco Chronicle baseball writer Bob Stevens once said. “He knew Sanford would be exhausted.”

When Sanford, a notoriously tough competitor, lost a game beat reporters never approached him.

Stevens came up with the classic line that compared Sanford to an automobile.

Here’s the whole quote:

Sanford didn’t get a lot of credit because he wasn’t a classic-looking pitcher. He was a bulky guy who would be a small-size right tackle on the football team. He wasn’t delicate. He was out there to throw the baseball and he did it well. He wasn’t afraid to brush back a hitter. He was an old-school pitcher. He wasn’t a Cadillac but he was a damn good Buick.

I’ve been friends with this fellow since I was five. Here’s one more reason: Apparently his employer managed to snag a San Francisco Giants’ World Series ring.

Sadly the 2011 baseball season is winding down but hey, the playoffs are set to begin very shortly and so it is time for the annual playoff prediction notwithstanding the fact that two spots are still up for grabs. I’ll go out on a limb and predict the final two spots and then who the ultimate winner will be. Of course I’m not putting any money on it which I’ve always held to be a wise thing to do considering the anything can happen today normality which is major league baseball.

The Boston Red Sox are fading fast and having to use Tim Wakefield to start games sure isn’t helping any. I’m pulling for Tampa Bay to get the wild card spot but logic tells me that Boston will survive. Despite their pitching problems, they are simply too talented not to get in. Tampa Bay are running out of games and have to face the New York Yankees in their final three. Even thought the Yankees have clinched the division, they have memories of Tampa Bay beating them and would like a little revenge. They can worry about the RedSox later, if and when.

St. Louis are chasing Atlanta and simply don’t have the pitching or the real Albert Pujols. Baseball is all about pitching and Atlanta have enough to capture the wild card. St. Louis are running out of games and need to hope Atlanta stumble again. Tony LaRussa has over managed the Cardinals lately and Fredi Gonzalez has just like his guys play. There have been too many off field distractions for St. Louis this season with Pujols and LaRussa rumored to be leaving, Gonzalez has replaced a legend and handled the pitching staff, (overused the relievers a bit), to get Atlanta here.

So I’m guessing Boston and Atlanta get in as the wildcard.

I’m also guessing that no one will be able to defeat Philadelphia. The starting four are simply too good and too experienced in big games. The trade for Hunter Pence rejuvenated this team and gave the offense the lift it needed. Jimmy Rollins is cocky in big games and how do you defeat Roy Halladay more than once, if at all? That is the simple math of it all. In order to defeat the Phillies, a team will have to win three games against Halladay, Lee, Coles and Oswalt and in the same series. The next series that number moves up to four games. The going gets tougher.

Who will play Philadelphia in the World Series? Does it really matter?

The New York Yankees are the only team which could defeat Philadelphia. On paper even that matchup doesn’t seem fair as the Yankee pitching is very suspect after C.C. Sabathia. But the Yankees have that mystic legendary quality about them even if they seem to be nothing but a bunch of hired guns supporting home grown talent such as Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano. But the Yankee ghosts of teams past seem to haunt even the new Yankee Stadium and distracting those ghosts can get in the way of getting those 27 outs. The Yankees are still the team which grinds it out, slow down every big game and doesn’t allow mistakes to go unpunished.

There is no other American League team which can stand up to the Philadelphia Phillies. Texas have the World Series experience and Boston certainly have proven to be ring worthy. Detroit have only Justin Verlander who can’t start every game and all of the games will be do or die against good teams. There are no breathers or easy series against weaker teams in the playoffs. The three and four starters simply can’t matchup against Philadelphia.

Philly can put up a number one starter each and every game and no other team can match that. This is a pitching staff built for the playoffs and built to win.

_____________________

This blog primarily focuses on baseball history, but every Monday, Doug Bird writes “Baseball Present” on the current state of the game.

Editor’s note: “Any player/Any era” will be up by this evening.
____________________

The 1961 Los Angeles Dodgers’ pennant hopes came to a crashing end on August 16 when they lost both ends of a rare Wednesday evening double dip to the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0 and 8-0.

The defeats were bitter for the Dodgers who had entered the season as favorites based on their roster that included Frank Howard, Maury Wills, Junior Gilliam, the Davis brothers Tommy and Will and Gil Hodges. The mound core included Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.

But in 1961, the future Hall of Famer hurlers weren’t as effective as one of the great (Brooklyn) Dodgers heroes of all time—Johnny Podres. Koufax and Drysdale had average seasons (for them) of 18-13, 3.52 ERA and 13-10, 3.69. Podres, although he absorbed the second game loss, racked up a 18-5, 3.74 ERA and led the league in winning percentage.

The problem, anticipated by some analysts in their preseason evaluations, was that except for Podres the Dodgers’ stars were past their prime. The Dodgers ended the season 4 games behind the Reds. Coincidentally, the Dodgers dropped both ends of two doubleheaders against Cincinnati—there are the four games.

Podres, who most casual fans associate with his dramatic seventh game 2-0 shutout of the New York Yankees in the 1955 World Series, in reality had a long and productive mound career. Only 23 when he bested the Yankees in the third and seventh games, Podres was the first winner of the Sport Magazine World Series MVP Award which was a red, two-seater Corvette. Sports Illustrated also named Podres its Sportsman of the Year.

During his 15-year career, Podres won 148 games, struck out 1,435, had an 3.64 ERA and threw 24 shutouts in 440 games. Podres saved his best for the World Series. After losing his first decision to the Yankees in 1953, Podres won four straight over the Yankees and Chicago White Sox during the next decade while allowing only 29 hits in 38-1/3 innings with a 2.11 ERA.

After retiring, Podres served as the pitching coach for 13 years for the Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies. Frank Viola and Curt Schilling credit Podres with their success.