Category: MLB

I’m pleased to present a guest post from regular contributor Joe Guzzardi. Today, Joe looks at one of baseball’s all time memorable characters.

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During the summer of 1976, I traveled frequently to Minneapolis on assignment from my New York office.

On a late July trip, the buzz around town was that the Detroit Tigers’ Mark Fidrych would be taking the hill later that week against the hometown Twins.

Fidrych’s ascent into the baseball elite had been remarkable. Tiger manager Ralph Houk kept Fidrych in the bullpen the season’s first five weeks before giving him his first start on May 15th against the Cleveland Indians. Fidrych tossed a two-hitter to beat the Indians, 2-1.

Along his way to stardom the “Bird,” as Fidrych soon became known, pitched back-to-back 11-inning victories and also defeated the Twins on the Tigers’ first visit to Minneapolis in June.

By July 20, the date of his second start against the Twins, Fidrych had shot to national stardom thanks to a national television appearance on ABC’s Monday Night Baseball against the New York Yankees. In between talking to the ball and patting down the mound, Fidrych dominated the Yankees 5-1 in a mere 1:51 to send his record to 8-1. (YouTube video clip here.)

Fidrych figured prominently in another national showcase, the All Star Game, when manager Darrell Johnson gave him the starting nod, a rare honor for a rookie.

With Fidrych-mania at its peak, I couldn’t miss being among the fans at the old Metropolitan Stadium.

I asked my plugged-in banking friends who had behind-home-plate box seats, if they had an extra ticket. No way!

Local ticket brokers laughed. They offered to put me on their list but warned it was already 150 names deep.

By game night, I still lacked a ticket. I decided to head to the park, confident I would find a scalper there.

But only buyers milled around. I walked through the parking lot hoping that a tailgate group would have had a no-show. Again, I came up empty.

Resigned to listening to the game on the radio, I headed back to my car. At the last minute, I tried the only thing left. I walked to the ticket booth to ask if there was one seat available. Incredibly, there was.

I remember what the woman behind the window said: “This is your lucky night. I have exactly one.”

Because of an overflow crowd, a common phenomenon at Fidrych performances, the game started a half hour late. And it was further delayed by a pre-game stunt. To commemorate Fidrych’s 13th start, Twins’ owner Calvin Griffin ordered 13 homing pigeons released from their cages on top of the mound.

Fidrych’s opponent was the crafty Bill Singer. Once a 20-game winner with the Los Angeles Dodgers and again with the Los Angeles Angels, Singer was at the end of his 14-year career. But Singer still knew how to pitch.

The Twins, featuring a hard hitting line-up that included Rod Carew and Tony Oliva, roughed Fidrych up early. Led by Oliva and Steve Braun singles, the Twins scored twice in the bottom of the third.

In the fourth, singles by Lyman Bostock and Oliva added one more Twins tally to give Minnesota a 3-0 advantage.

The game turned around in the sixth when Detroit scored four runs on five hits including a Rusty Staub home run.

For all practical purposes, Staub’s homer ended the game. The Tigers added single runs in the seventh and eight while Fidrych (11-2) held the Twins at bay over the last five innings. Final score: Tigers 8-Twins 3.

Fidrych’s line: 9 IP; 10H; 3ER; 2 BB; 2 K

As the Twins’ fans filed out, they were much happier to have witnessed Fidrych history than they were sad that their team, in the midst of an uninspiring 85-77 third place finish, lost.

After the game, Fidrych showed why he was such a media favorite. A reporter asked Fidrych what he thought of Oliva who went 4-4 with a run scored and an RBI.

Replied Fidrych: “Who’s Oliva?”

In 1976, Fidrych led the American League in ERA (2.34), complete games (24) and won the Rookie of the Year Award. By most accounts, Fidrych should have also have won the Cy Young Award but it went instead to Jim Palmer.

By early 1977, Fidrych’s developed arm trouble and won only ten games over his next four seasons. He died in 2009 in a freak accident at his Massachusetts farm.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

With two months left in the regular season, there is a chance baseball history could be made this year. I count three players, as of this writing, with at least a shot at becoming the first Triple Crown winner in 43 years. While the odds are probably against any of these men prevailing, the fact they’re within range seems noteworthy in itself.

Miguel Cabrera, Josh Hamilton, and Joey Votto are each among the top six in their leagues for batting average, home runs and runs batted in, the three statistical categories that constitute the Triple Crown.

Here’s how the race looks currently:

Player	League	Batting Average	Home Runs	Runs Batted In
Miguel Cabrera	AL	.351, 2nd	26, 2nd	93, 1st
Josh Hamilton	AL	.362, 1st	23, 4th	75, 6th
Joey Votto	NL	.322, 1st	27, 1st	72, 5th

Of the three, Votto is statistically closest and might have the best shot. Hamilton appears too injury-prone to rack up sufficient home run and RBI totals, talented though he may be, and a reader pointed out that Jose Bautista has a fairly insurmountable home run lead, with 32 currently. The reader also said more American League hitters should emerge as batting crown contenders, such as Robinson Cano who does his best work in the second half.

Regardless, it interests me that this Triple Crown push is occurring in an oft-proclaimed year for pitchers. I wonder if there’s a correlation, or if it’s a fluke and if in any season, a few top players will be within range of the Triple Crown.

It doesn’t seem so outrageous that solid league-wide pitching could lower the offensive bar enough to make it easier for one or two outlying players to lead all three categories. This kind of thing has happened before. The last time baseball had a Triple Crown winner, when Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967, the American League had a 3.23 earned run average and a .236 batting average. The year before that, Frank Robinson won his Triple Crown in an American League that boasted a 3.44 ERA and .240 batting average.

Those seasons are nothing compared to 1968, when pitchers were so clearly favored that the height of the mound was subsequently lowered. In what may have been the greatest year for pitchers beyond the Deadball Era, the National League had a cumulative 2.99 ERA, a league-wide WHIP of 1.12 and almost another Triple Crown winner, with Willie McCovey nabbing the home run and RBI crowns but finishing a distant eighth in the batting race.

In fact, 2010 might not be enough of a pitcher’s year to favor a Triple Crown winner. Sure, a lot of pitchers were on pace to win 20 games as of the All Star break, and the NL batting average is a relatively puny .257, with the AL not faring much better at .263. But for some odd reason, the NL ERA is 4.38, while the AL ERA is 4.21. Of the 14 Triple Crown seasons in baseball history, just five came in years where the league ERA was above 4.00. Those seasons are:

• Rogers Hornsby 1922 and 1925
• Jimmie Foxx 1933
• Lou Gehrig 1934
• Mickey Mantle 1956

Granted, Triple Crowns have been won in years favoring hitters. Both seasons that Hornsby triumphed, the National League batted .292 overall. Also, it bears mention that the sample size of Triple Crown winners is so small, with 12 players in baseball history having accomplished the feat that it’s difficult to make determinations one way or another. (Side note: Wikipedia lists Hugh Duffy as having won the Triple Crown in 1894, while Baseball-Reference.com says he finished second in RBI that year. I’m deferring to the latter site. Someone should update Wikipedia, unless I’m missing something here.)

I don’t know if there’s any rhyme or reason regarding the Triple Crown. Still, I would love to see Cabrera, Hamilton or Votto prevail.

Regular contributor Joe Guzzardi recently began penning Double the fun, which looks at a famous doubleheader every Saturday. Today, Joe examines when a pitcher reached a career milestone during a sparsely-attended doubleheader.

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When the Cleveland Indians’ Early Wynn took the mound to pitch the second game of a doubleheader against the Kansas City Athletics on July 13, 1963 only 13,565 fans were there.

Even though the teams were well on their way to disappointing seasons (both would end the year under .500 with the Indians in fifth place and the Athletics in eighth), the sparse crowd should have been larger because Wynn was seeking his 300th win.

Normally, when a pitcher goes after his milestone 300th victory, it’s a hyped up event. With Athletics’ attendance in the tank, as usual, owner Charlie Finley hoped for a better turn out. Fans generally want to be part of baseball history.

One variable, however, was beyond Finley’s control. Wynn was making his eighth attempt to rack up number 300. On September 8, 1962 while pitching for the Chicago White Sox, Wynn registered his 299th but failed in his three next starts. When the season ended, the White Sox released Wynn.

No team signed Wynn until his former Indians inked him for his 23rd major league season on May 31st, 1963. Five more failed efforts immediately followed.

When manager Birdie Tebbetts tapped a determined Wynn for the nightcap, he was 43 and plagued by chronic gout.

Watching anxiously from the dugout, Wynn saw his Indians lose the opener 6-5. The Athletics, led by the usual assortment of New York Yankee cast offs including Jerry Lumpe and Norm Seiburn, scored four runs in the first and two more in the eighth to lock up the win.

Then Wynn’s turn came. By all accounts including Wynn’s, it was ugly. Pitching the minimum five innings required for a victory, Wynn struggled before leaving the game with a slim 5-4 lead. In the bottom of the fourth, the A’s tagged Wynn for three runs on four hits: three singles by Jose Tartabull, Gino Cimoli, Ken Harrelson and a Lumpe double.

Relief pitcher Jerry Walker saved Wynn’s day when he tossed four shut-out innings and gave up only three hits.

Wynn’s line: 5 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 SO

After the game, Wynn said he was glad to be pulled because “I might have fallen on my face. I was exhausted.”

Wynn’s career topped out with 300 wins. A week later, pitching in relief, Wynn was charged with his final defeat to close out his playing days with a 300-244 record and a 3.54 ERA.

In 1972, the Hall of Fame elected Wynn on his fourth ballot in large part because of his dominant days during his first Indian tour.

Originally signed by the Washington Senators when he was 17, Wynn went to the Indians in a 1948 trade along with first baseman Mickey Vernon. By 1954, Wynn was part of one of the most effective pitching staffs in history that recorded 111 regular season Indians’ wins: Bob Lemon, Mike Garcia, Bob Feller, Art Houtteman and in the bull pen, Don Mossi and Ray Narleski.

That year, Wynn led the league with 36 starts and 271 innings pitched and tied Lemon with 23 victories. In the World Series’ second game, Wynn pitched effectively and allowed the New York Giants only four hits over seven innings. Unfortunately, one of them was a two-run homer hit by pinch hitter Dusty Rhodes.

Traded to the Chicago White Sox at age of 39, Wynn led the 1959 “Go Go Sox” Sox with a league-leading 22 wins, 37 starts and 255 innings. His performance earned Wynn the Cy Young Award and third place Most Valuable Player finish behind teammates Nellie Fox and Luis Aparicio.

By the end of the 1950s, Wynn had more strike outs (1,544) than any other major league pitcher in the decade.

Because of his competitiveness and notorious willingness to throw his blazing fastball high and tight even to, as Wynn liked to say:“his mother,” Sox manager Al Lopez summed Wynn’s importance: “If there was one game I absolutely had to win, Early would be my pitcher.”

Wynn also was a skilled batsman. A dangerous switch hitter, Wynn hit better than .270 five times with 17 home runs and 173 RBIs. Mangers often summoned Wynn to pinch hit. Once, Wynn delivered a grand slam.

Post-career, Wynn coached the Minnesota Twins and broadcast for the Toronto Blue Jays and the White Sox.  In 1999 after suffering a stroke, Wynn died in Florida.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Roberto Clemente: Almost criminally underrated and had he not died heroically in a plane crash in 1972, he’d be even less remembered. Despite amassing 3,000 hits, doing his best work at the plate in the 1960s when pitchers reigned supreme, and also being an outstanding right fielder, Clemente was not included in recent books I reviewed about the 25 greatest baseball players of all-time and the 20 greatest hitters.

Honus Wagner: In five or ten years, Alex Rodriguez will retire and debate will begin anew if he was the greatest shortstop ever. Some will say his power can’t be ignored, others will say the best is Derek Jeter who caused Rodriguez to shift to third base, and a few self-righteous sportswriters will probably pen columns saying Cal Ripken Jr. was more consistent– which is funny because Wagner lasted longer than any of those men and his .328 lifetime average and 3,420 hits is better too.

Tim Raines: Raines is Rickey Henderson if he played his best years in Montreal, had a well-documented drug problem, or hadn’t set the stolen base record.

Bobby Grich, Lou Whitaker: A pair of great second basemen who were one-and-done Hall of Fame candidates, receiving less than five percent of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America their only time on the Cooperstown ballot, disqualifying them from future votes.

Ted Simmons: Bill James ranks Simmons, another one-and-done, as the 10th best catcher in baseball history. I have a hunch Simmons and Whitaker might be future Veterans Committee picks, but it’s no sure thing.

Kevin Brown: Fans may remember Brown’s $15 million annual contract from the Dodgers or his prickly personality or his being mentioned in the Mitchell Report after he retired. When Brown hits the Hall of Fame ballot later this year, he may become the best pitcher shunned by voters. If Albert Belle peaked with less than eight percent of the BBWAA vote, I don’t see Brown faring much better, no matter his 211 wins, string of dominance from the late 1990s, or his having one of the best Wins Above Replacement ratings of non-inducted pitchers.

Rick Reuschel: A 214-game winner who had at least 17 victories four years and made three All Star teams, Reuschel received exactly two Hall of Fame votes in 1997. This earns him the nod here over Bert Blyleven, another hurler long since underrated but one who should finally get a call from Cooperstown in January.

Jeff Reardon: I hear talk of Dan Quisenberry being a superb relief pitcher ignored by most Hall of Fame voters. Reardon has over 100 more saves, twice as many strikeouts, and played four more seasons than Quisenberry even as both men debuted in 1979. Like Quisenberry, Reardon was a one-and-done Hall of Fame candidate.

Sammy Sosa: Meet the most underrated player of the Steroid Era. Sosa was the Chicago Cubs in his prime, having a hand in more than 30 percent of their runs in 2001. The New York Times reported Sosa flunked a steroid test in 2003, making him one of many in his era who probably juiced. Then again, most did so with more protection in the batting order.

Related: A compilation of “Best Of” lists I’ve written here

What he did: Colbert hit 173 home runs in a 10-year career and was often the best player on historically bad teams. In perhaps his best season in 1972, Colbert had 38 home runs and 111 RBI for a San Diego Padres club that was a National League worst 58-95. Those Padres hit .227 as a team, had a .283 on-base percentage and scored 488 runs. I wrote here in a post last Friday that Colbert had a hand in 32.78 percent of San Diego’s runs in 1972.

Baseball was and is a team sport, and in order to thrive, players generally need help. Babe Ruth had Lou Gehrig and others, Willie Mays had Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda, and in recent years, Barry Bonds did a lot of his best work with Matt Williams or Jeff Kent batting near him. It’s one reason lone wolves like Colbert and Wally Berger intrigue me. If Colbert had the talent to put up good numbers with almost no help, just imagine what he might have accomplished with a solid supporting cast.

Era he might have thrived in: I played around with the stat converter for Colbert’s career numbers on Baseball-Reference.com and found his totals would have spiked on the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees powerhouses of the 1920s and ’30s. For our purposes, let’s suspend disbelief about how the color of Colbert’s skin as an African American would have kept him from the majors. On the 1929 A’s, Colbert might have soared to spectacular heights.

Why: That Philadelphia club won 104 games, beat the Chicago Cubs in five games in the World Series, and was chronicled in an August 1996 cover story in Sports Illustrated as “The Team That Time Forgot.” The story suggested that those A’s, not the 1927 Yankees were the greatest team of all-time. I’m not sure if I believe that, but I think Colbert may have done his greatest work in Philadelphia.

Other teams in history scored more runs than the 901 that the 1929 A’s had, such as the 1931 Yankees who scored 1,067, but Colbert would have been in the same batting lineup with the A’s as Hall of Famers Mickey Cochrane, Jimmie Foxx and Al Simmons. And unlike Boston and New York, which had unfriendly confines for a right-handed hitter like Colbert, the A’s home, Shibe Park, boasted a 312-foot left field short porch from 1926 until 1930.

The stat converter has Colbert from 1972 leading the 1929 A’s with 47 home runs and also racking up 160 RBI and a .296 batting average. My guess is that Colbert would have finished with better than 50 home runs and a .300 batting average if he’d learned to take advantage of that short porch. There’s no telling what his presence in the lineup could have done for Foxx and Simmons who each hit better than .350 with 30-plus home runs, surrounded by a couple of outfielders remembered today only by baseball history buffs.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides the one he played in.

I’m pleased to present a guest post from Joe Guzzardi, a regular Wednesday and Saturday contributor here. Joe recently began writing Double the fun, which looks at a famous doubleheader each Saturday, and today, he examines the only time the following has happened in baseball history: a combined no-hitter, in a doubleheader, that ended in defeat.

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The first time I read the headline, I couldn’t believe it. And now reading it again forty-three years later, it’s still hard to fathom even though I know the game is etched in baseball history lore: Two Oriole Pitchers Hold Tigers Hitless but Lose, 2-1, New York Times, May 1, 1967

How was it possible for the Baltimore Orioles to lose a no hitter? And how could the Detroit Tigers score 2 runs on zero hits?

The simple and amazing answer is that in his 8-2/3 innings left hander Steve Barber, the losing starting pitcher, yielded ten walks, hit two batters and threw a wild pitch.

As St. Louis Cardinal Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch famously said after he became the New York Giants’ play-by-play announcer: “Oh, those bases on balls.”

To add fuel to the fire, slick-fielding Mark Belanger, playing second base, made his only error of the year at that position which allowed the winning run to score in the top of the ninth.

When 26,884 fans turned out at Baltimore’s old Memorial Stadium for an early season doubleheader to watch Barber and Jim Palmer match up against the Tigers’ Earl Wilson and Joe Sparma, they had no idea the screwy game they were about to witness.

On his fateful day, Barber entered the top of the ninth clinging to a 1-0 lead before the wheels quickly feel off.

Barber issued back-to-back walks to Norm Cash and weak hitting Ray Oyler.

After Wilson sacrificed the runners to second and third, Barber got Willie Horton to foul out before throwing a wild pitch that allowed pinch runner Dick Tracewski to score the tying run.

Then Barber issued his tenth and final walk of the afternoon to Mickey Stanley, a .210 hitter that year. Imagine Frisch and Oriole manager Hank Bauer pulling their hair!

Enter Stu Miller to face Don Wert who promptly lined a grounder up the middle that shortstop Luis Aparicio fielded. But Belanger dropped Aparicio’s toss which allowed another Tiger pinch runner, Jake Wood, to score the winning run.

Barber’s line: 8 2/3 IP; 0 H; 2 R; 1 ER; 10 BB; 3 SO

Barber and Miller finished with one of just nine combined no-hitters in baseball history. Of this group, only one other ended in defeat, a 2-0 losing gem by Blue Moon Odom and Francisco Barrios for the Oakland A’s against the Chicago White Sox on July 28, 1976. And just one other combined no-no came as part of a doubleheader, Babe Ruth and Ernie Shore’s 9-0 blanking of the Washington Senators on May 29, 1917.

Hours after Barber and Miller’s effort, the Orioles played their night cap and lost that game as well, 6-4. Palmer had nothing. The Tigers led by a Cash home run roughed up the future first ballot Hall of Fame inductee for six runs in the top of the fifth to send Palmer to an early shower.

Palmer’s line: 5 IP, 6 H, 6 R; 6 ER; 4 BB; 3 SO

Despite an aggregate 21 bases on balls during the two games, the playing times were a tidy 2:38 and 2:30.

Besides seeing one of baseball’s most unusual games, fans had an opportunity to watch five future Hall of Fame players. Along with Aparicio and Palmer, others included Al Kaline as well as Frank and Brooks Robinson.

By 1967, the year of his dubious contribution to baseball history, Barber’s career was on the wane. Signed by Baltimore in 1957 when he was 18, Barber eventually became a productive part of the 1966 World Series Champion Orioles when he started 22 games and went 10-5 with a 2.30 ERA.

Although my recollection of Barber is that of a journeyman who also pitched for the Yankees, Cubs, Braves, Angels and Giants, at his best he won 18 and 20 games in 1961 and 1963. Barber, who was also chosen for the 1963 and 1966 All Star Game, was the first modern day Oriole to win 20.

In all, Barber racked up 121 lifetime victories and finished in the top ten in ERA and wins during three separate seasons. Today, assuming he had a shrewd agent, those stats might earn Barber somewhere in the range of $8-$10 million annually.

Barber, an Oriole Hall of Fame member, died in 2007.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Here’s a trivia question question that may stump even the most ardent of baseball fans and historians: What’s an offensive feat measured over the course of a season that Wally Berger, Nate Colbert, and Sammy Sosa have accomplished and Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, and other immortals have not?

Answer: Colbert, Berger, and Sosa are among a small group of players who had a hand in at least 30 percent of their team’s runs in a season.

I call this stat Runs Accounted For (RAF) and it’s fairly easy to calculate. Just add a player’s RBI and run totals for a season, subtract home runs since those count double, and divide by the total number of runs his team scores. From there, multiply by 100 to get the percentage of runs a player accounts for.

To be clear, RAF proposes that a player has a hand in any run he bats in or scores himself. While this admittedly leads to some double counting among teammates, since one player can score on another man’s RBI, I think it’s a good way to make relative comparisons between players of different eras and compensate for those who played on worse teams than others.

RAF rates players, past and present, who were most-indispensable to helping their teams score runs. The stat also rewards good base running, an underrated offensive skill and correlates strongly to OPS, a combination of on-base and slugging percentage. In fact, I used the lists of OPS leaders to seek out possible candidates for here.

It quickly became apparent in calculating RAF that while many players have accounted for at least 25 percent of their team’s runs in a season, few have cracked 30 percent. I’m uncertain why this is. I know of 18 players who have done it a total of 29 times. They are as follows, in order of highest RAF:

	Player	Year	RAF	Runs	RBI	HR	Team	W/L	Team Runs
1	Ted Williams	1942	36.53%	141	137	36	Red Sox	93-59	761
2	Honus Wagner	1908	34.02%	100	109	10	Pirates	98-56	585
3	Babe Ruth	1919	33.33%	103	114	29	Red Sox	66-71	564
4	Nate Colbert	1972	32.78%	87	111	38	Padres	58-95	488
5	Wally Berger	1935	32.52%	91	130	34	Braves	38-115	575
6	Ty Cobb	1909	32.13%	116	107	9	Tigers	98-54	666
7	Ty Cobb	1911	32.01%	147	127	8	Tigers	89-65	831
8	Nap Lajoie	1901	31.8%	145	125	14	Athletics	74-62	805
9	Chuck Klein	1933	31.795%	101	120	28	Phillies	60-92	607
10	Ty Cobb	1917	31.77%	107	102	6	Tigers	78-75	639
11	Tris Speaker	1914	31.75%	101	90	4	Red Sox	91-62	589
12	George Sisler	1919	31.71%	96	83	10	Browns	67-72	533
13	Sammy Sosa	2001	31.15%	146	160	64	Cubs	88-74	777
14	Ty Cobb	1915	30.98%	144	99	3	Tigers	100-54	778
15	Chuck Klein	1931	30.85%	121	121	31	Phillies	66-88	684
16	Joe Jackson	1912	30.72%	121	90	3	Naps	75-78	677
17	Bill Nicholson	1943	30.696%	95	128	29	Cubs	74-79	632
18	Stan Musial	1948	30.59%	135	131	39	Cardinals	85-69	742
19	Hank Aaron	1963	30.57%	121	130	44	Braves	84-78	677
20	Chuck Klein	1930	30.51%	158	170	40	Phillies	52-102	944
21	Babe Ruth	1921	30.49%	177	171	59	Yankees	98-55	948
22	Ty Cobb	1907	30.45%	97	119	5	Tigers	92-58	693
23	Dale Murphy	1985	30.38%	118	111	37	Braves	66-96	632
24	Home Run Baker	1912	30.295%	116	130	10	Athletics	90-62	779
25	Nap Lajoie	1910	30.292%	94	76	4	Naps	71-81	548
26	Ty Cobb	1918	30.25%	83	64	3	Tigers	55-71	476
27	Honus Wagner	1905	30.2%	114	101	6	Pirates	96-57	692
28	George Sisler	1920	30.11%	137	122	19	Browns	76-77	797
29	Jeff Bagwell	1994	30.07%	104	116	39	Astros	66-49	602

Several greats never cracked 30 percent, including: Barry Bonds, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Hank Greenberg, Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, and Al Simmons, whose careers I examined year-by-year on Baseball-Reference. If anyone has a player they think qualifies, let me know, and if necessary, I’d be happy to add him here.

In general, RAF appears to favor three types of players:

1. Lone guns on bad teams
2. Speedy contact hitters with sizable RBI and run totals, but few home runs
3. Those greats who would have shined no matter the era

The stat is less rewarding to a DiMaggio or a Gehrig, who had the misfortune — at least for our purposes here — to play on star-packed clubs. Gehrig may have the most runs ever accounted for in one season, with 301 in 1931, though that was just over 28 percent of the 1,067 his Yankees amassed. Most years, Ruth and Gehrig drove each others percentages down. Same thing for Foxx and Simmons, as well as Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer. Enos Slaughter and Musial each just missed accounting for 30 percent of the Cardinals’ runs in 1946.

Interestingly, Bonds accounted for more runs before he (probably) started using steroids in 1999. Bonds had a hand in more than 200 runs three times in his career: 1993, 1996 and 1998, one more reason he might have been better clean. The younger Bonds also won Gold Gloves which probably saved some runs, too.

Of the players who accounted for 30 percent or more of their teams’ runs at least once, I don’t know what’s more impressive: That Cobb accomplished the feat six times in a twelve-season stretch or that Ruth and Lajoie did it for multiple teams. More astonishing? Ted Williams’ 1942 season, where he accounted for 36.53 percent of Boston’s runs and won the Triple Crown, wasn’t enough for American League Most Valuable Player honors. The award went to Joe Gordon, who accounted for just 21.6 percent of the American League champion Yankees’ runs and didn’t even lead his team in the stat, finishing behind Joe DiMaggio and Charlie Keller.

Related: A compilation of quirky stats and big crazy ideas I’ve introduced here

I’m pleased to present a guest column from Joe Guzzardi, a Wednesday and Saturday contributor here. Today, he looks at the famous struggles of his hometown team.

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Here’s the problem for the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team I’ve supported for more than half a century.

The Bucs, who once inspired, are closing in on their 18th consecutive losing season, and no one’s surprised anymore.

Preseason forecasts are always grim—last place. In April, its cold and kids are still in school. No one wants to freeze to death watching bad baseball.

The Pirates‘ dilemma is compounded since the successful NHL Penguins hit their stride in April on the way to its annual Stanley Cup run.

Why go to PNC Park to watch the Pirates get hammered in a meaningless game when you can stay home to watch the Penguins on your flat screen in the warmth of your living room?

As baseball begins, the Pirates drift toward the cellar fulfilling the gloomy predictions.

By May, the Pirates are the tenth story on the sport page after two or three about the Pens, a couple of items about the Steelers, the latest major golf tournament news, the Kentucky Derby and the most recent sport scandal (Tiger Woods, Lebron James, Ben Roethlisberger, or Rick Pittino—where did he go anyway?)

Early season Pirate newspaper stories heap scorn on the Bucs for their continued futility, thus further diminishing any possible fan interest.

By the All Star Game, the Pirates are 20 games under .500 and solidly in last place. All the dire spring training forecasts have come true. The Bucco season is over.

During what should be the baseball season’s height, local fans turn their attention to the Steelers and Pitt football and basketball, both projected as national Top Ten teams. Save for Pirate games that offer fireworks or concerts, no one goes.

Since .500 is at least two years away, my question is how to save the Pirates from total irrelevance while regenerating a modicum interest among the few remaining fans.

I have three suggestions:

1) Trade manager John Russell for one of the two Pirate announcers: beloved 1971 World Series hero Steve Blass or better-than-you-remember former major league pitcher Bob Walk (105-81)

Debate swirls around  Russell. Should he or shouldn’t he be fired? Some say Russell’s laid back personality isn’t right for the young Pirates while his defenders wonder what he could do with the team’s limited talent.

By trading Russell, the Pirates could see if the players respond better to other leadership. At the same time, the broadcasting booth would get Russell’s experience, i.e. “With Garrett Jones at the plate, I always…”

It’s been done before. In 1960, the perennial cellar-dwelling Chicago Cubs installed broadcaster Lou Boudreau as manager and put its then-pilot Charlie Grimm behind the microphone.

2) Take another page from the Cubs and rotate Pirate coaches monthly into the manager’s seat

After the 1960 “broadcaster for manager” move landed the Cubs in the second-division for the 14^th straight year, the North Siders employed the “college of coaches” during 1961 and 1962 that switched managers on a irregular schedule.

“Managers are expendable,” Cubs owner Phil Wrigley said. “I believe there should be relief managers just like relief pitchers.”

Here’s how it could work for the Pirates: In April, pitching coach Joe Kerrigan takes the helm; in May, third base coach Tony Beasley; in June, bench coach, Gary Varsho, and so on.

3) Make a late season acquisition

Normally only contenders add a crucial veteran to their roster. But the questions facing the lowly Pirates are whether it will edge out the Houston Astros for fifth place in the NL Central or if it will fall below the Baltimore Orioles as 2010’s statistically worst team.

I’m thinking Pedro Martinez would give Corsair fans a rare opportunity to see a future Hall of Famer in Bucco black and gold. I’d expect Martinez could do double duty, namely start and serve as pitching coach to the young Pirates.

My wrinkle is that Martinez should pitch only on Sunday. In 1942, Chicago White Sox Ted Lyons became “Sunday Ted” and pitched on that day alone. Once, Lyons reeled off seven complete games in a row to the delight of his fans who packed Comiskey Park to watch the crafty Hall of Fame veteran.

Full disclosure: Only the Lyons experiment worked.

During three years of manager experimentation, the Cubs finished close to the cellar every year. Boudreau was no better than Grimm and five Cub managers couldn’t produce more wins than one.

Still, I like the idea of buzz about the Pirates during August and September. Once again, fans would be talking about baseball.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.