Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

When Derek Jeter retires at the end of the 2014 season, he will do so as the most respected player in the last twenty years, not to mention the model of baseball professionalism and a proven winner. Pending the Yankees' outcome in 2014, Jeter has played in the post-season every year of his major league career but two.  Perhaps more to the point, few doubt that his legacy is as the indispensable Yankee (with due respect to Mariano Rivera) who "led" his team into the post-season year after year through commitment without excuses, an unrivaled work ethic, and unflagging consistency.  He is what Joe DiMaggio was to the Yankees from 1936 to 1951, and like DiMaggio is retiring on his terms--before the inevitable decline of age overshadows the grace and athleticism and all-around excellence on the diamond that defined the entirety of his career.

Derek Jeter in Shortstop Perspective

A first-ballot Hall of Famer for sure, Derek Jeter will go down in history as one of baseball's greatest players.  Ironically, greatness is an attribute not necessarily dependent on also being one of the very best players in terms of measurable on-the-field performance alone.  Derek Jeter was not that, even dismissing as irrelevant the fact that he never won an MVP award.  In seventeen full seasons with the Yankees, not including 1995, when he appeared in 15 games as a replacement shortstop during his final year of full-time minor league preparation, and last season when persistent injuries kept him sidelined for all but 17 games, Jeter's player value based on the WAR metric exceeded the 5 wins above replacement that denotes an All-Star level quality of performance only five times in his career, three of them in his first six seasons.

Jeter's best consecutive years were in fact from 1997 to 2001 when he was 23 to 27 years old.  His 7.5 WAR in 1998 and 8.0 WAR the year after were the highest player values of his career.  It was during those five years that Jeter made his reputation as a team leader, a clutch player, and a winning player by being at the center of the action as the Yankees went to four straight World Series (1998 to 2001), winning three. But Jeter was not even one of baseball's two best shortstops in terms of player value based on WAR during those years, because he was a direct contemporary of both Seattle's Alex Rodriguez and Boston's Nomar Garciaparra.

By the year 2000, even though he had been a full-time regular for only as long as Jeter (since 1996), there were already advocates for A-Rod staking a claim to being perhaps the best player ever once the final chapter of his career was written.  Little did anyone know then that so many chapters in A-Rod's epic saga would be sordid and career-diminishing.  And Nomar was the model of consistency at better than an All-Star level of performance from 1997 to 2003, averaging between 6.1 and 7.4 wins above replacement every year, not including an injury-ravaged 2001 season that limited him to 21 games.  Thereafter, of course, Garciaparra's Hall of Fame trajectory nose-dived with injury after injury, making him a virtually forgotten afterthought in the once-vivid debate over who was the best shortstop in the game--A-Rod, Nomar, or Derek?  Both Rodriguez and Garciaparra were not only better all-around shortstops based on performance, but their presence on an otherwise average major league team for an entire season would have made more difference to that team's winning percentage than Jeter (see the 162W/L% column under "Player Value" on their player pages in Baseball-reference.com).  Maybe so, but Jeter is the one with all the championship rings . . . five of them.  A-Rod has one.  Nomar has none.

Going back to more recent Hall of Fame shortstops, the Brewers' Robin Yount (from 1980-84), the Cardinals' Ozzie Smith (1985-89), the Orioles' Cal Ripken, Jr., and the Reds' Barry Larkin (both from 1988-92) all had better five-best consecutive years than Jeter based on the WAR metric for player value. All four also had more seasons in their career than Jeter where their player value exceeded an All-Star level of performance on the field--Smith 10 times, including eight times in nine years between 1984 and 1992; Ripken eight times in nine years between 1983 and 1991, with MVP awards at both bookends; Larkin eight times; and Yount seven times, although two of his were after he switched to the outfield.  All four were much better defensive shortstops than Jeter.  And three of the four were elected into the Hall of Fame their first time on the ballot; Larkin had to wait until his third year of eligibility to break the 75 % vote barrier.

None of the four, however, has more than one World Series ring, and only Ozzie (with three appearances) played in more than one World Series.  Jeter, meanwhile, has five World Series rings in seven trips to the Fall Classic--and is working towards six in eight in this, his final season--and the "Captain" hit .353 or better in four of those five Yankee triumphs.  His batting average in 38 World Series games is .323, brought that low only because of the .148 he hit in the 2001 Series, which the Yankees lost on a pop fly single just beyond Jeter's reach over a drawn-in infield.

While it's hard to go against Honus Wagner as the greatest shortstop of all time, there will be significant temptation to proclaim Derek Jeter as the best shortstop in American League history.  Putting aside what to make of A-Rod's self-sabotaged career--including his admitting in 2009 to using steroids back when he played shortstop for the Texas Rangers--Cal Ripken, Jr., at least based on player performance, is the best-ever to play the position in the American League.  Ripken was sent to Cooperstown with 98.5 % of the vote in his first year of eligibility in 2007.  None of the players elected by the Baseball Writers Association of America since then have matched that total, including not Greg Maddux this year.  Like Ripken--an ambassador for the game, universally liked even by those who hate his team (of whom there are legions when it comes to the Yankees)--Derek Jeter stands an excellent chance of reaching the Ripken plateau in percentage of votes.

The final two players I would like to bring into this discussion are Pete Rose and Craig Biggio.  Derek Jeter for me is today's Pete Rose, who I idolized when I first became baseball-conscious because, while he was not the best player in the game, he played with abandon, he never short-changed effort, he probably played above his ability, and he was a leader, a winner--playing in six World Series--and a role model for the love of the game.  Love or hate the Big Red Machine, you had to admire and respect Pete Rose.  If not for his gambling addiction finding its way into his baseball profession, Rose would have been a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer.  Even had Jeter not busted his ankle, it would have been a long shot for him to break Rose's all-time hit record, but it's worth noting that over the course of his career, Jeter has averaged 206 hits per 162 games compared to 194 for Rose, which helps explain Jeter's .312 lifetime average to Rose's .303. Even acknowledging that Rose played in a tougher era for offense, this difference is not nothing.

Craig Biggio, with 3,060 hits to call his own, was a Jeter-type player who did not make the Hall of Fame in either of his first two years of eligibility, perhaps because he happened to play in Houston and played in only one World Series where his team was unceremoniously swept.  Had Jeter been Jeter with his 3,316 hits (and counting) but played for anyone else but the Yankees, he certainly would wind up in the Hall of Fame--but like Biggio, he might be having to wait a year, two, or three to get in.

There will be no waiting for Derek Jeter . . . because he was the indisputable leader of a team that made it to the post-season in all but one season he was their shortstop (not counting 2013, when he missed virtually the entire year--and, who knows, the Yankees might have made it had he been healthy) . . . and because of those five rings he was so instrumental in winning not just for himself, and not just for his teammates, but for the New York Yankees.

Best-Ever Player: Mays v. Ruth--Do Championships Make the Difference?

Historical player legacies--especially in debates about the best--often come down to championships. In the days after the Broncos debacle at the hands of the Seahawks, for example, sports talk radio was crackling with debate about whether Peyton Manning, with still only one Super Bowl win, should be in the discussion about the best quarterback in NFL history.  This causes me to ask: might Willie Mays (instead of Babe Ruth) be considered the best player in MLB history if he had a few World Series rings--rather than just one--in his safety deposit box?

Best-Ever Player:  Mays v. Ruth--Do Championships Make the Difference?

     

A strong argument can be made that Willie Mays is major league baseball’s best player ever, ahead of even the Babe.  According to the wins above replacement (WAR) metric for measuring player value, Ruth tops Mays 163 to 156 over the course of their full careers--22 years on big league diamonds for both men, the last season for each an embarrassing imitation of when they were the real deal.  (Ruth's 163 WAR is as a hitter and outfielder; he earned another 20.8 as one of the best pitchers in baseball during his Red Sox years.)  If we were to bookend their best years by the baseline player value of 5 wins above replacement that denotes an All-Star quality season, and allow a season or two of relative mediocrity below 5 WAR within that stretch, Ruth's consecutive best years were from 1916 (when he starred on the mound) to his final season in a Yankee uniform in 1934, and Mays's from 1954 (after he returned from two years of military service) to his last full season in a Giants uniform in 1971.   

Over the course of their best years bracketed by a WAR of at least 5, Ruth had an average annual player value of 9.4, compared to 8.3 for Mays.  Mays, however, went 13 consecutive seasons in which his player value never dipped below All-Star level, and only twice was slightly below the 8 wins above replacement that is defined as an MVP-quality season.  After his 1951 rookie season (3.9 WAR), it was not until Mays was 36 years old in 1967 that his player value again slipped below 5 WAR, but he still played at an All-Star level of 5 wins above replacement in three of the four years after that. Ruth, on the other hand, had an uncharacteristically very poor season (at least by his standards) in the middle of his career with a 3.5 WAR in 1925.  At least there was a good reason for his anomalous poor season: the Babe played in only 98 games that year.  Well, actually, there were two bad reasons for that:  the Babe missed all of April and May with a mystery ailment said at the time to be a colossal bellyache from indulging in too many hot dogs, and also the first week of September when he was suspended by his manager for insubordination until he apologized.  The Ruth-less Yankees plunged to seventh in 1925, after which the storied franchise in the Bronx would not have another losing season for 40 years.

Both Mays, from 1960 to 1966, and Ruth, from 1926 to 1932, had a stretch of seven straight years in which their player value exceeded the 8 WAR standard for an MVP-level of performance, each averaging 10.1 for those years.  Mays had a 10+ WAR four years running from 1962 to 1965; Ruth in his career never went more that three years in a row with such a high player value, although he almost certainly would have were it not for his infamous bellyache.  Taking account the entirety of both their careers, but based on Mays's best consecutive years from 1960 to 1966, I believe that Willie Mays--not the Babe--was the best player the game has ever seen.  He excelled in every facet of the game.  Mays finished his career with 660 home runs, only 54 shy of Ruth’s mark, and most likely would have shattered that record had he not lost two years of his young prime to military service during the Korean War, and not been robbed of some indefinable but almost certainly significant number of home runs by the swirling, often gale-force incoming winds at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park--as close to a torture arena for right-handed power hitters as there could possibly be.

Undeniably (although some might argue for Mays's godson Barry Bonds in the first half of the 2000s), Babe Ruth in the 1920s was the most impressive offensive force in MLB history, particularly in the first half of that decade when the rest of baseball was just catching on to how he was revolutionizing the game.  Unlike the Babe, however, who played in a hitters’ era that he had no small role in establishing, Mays’s very best consecutive years in the 1960s came in a pitchers’ era, when he had to hit against the likes of Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale and Bob Gibson and Jim Maloney and Jim Bunning (but happily not against his teammate Juan Marichal).  And even if Mays does not approach Ruth for league-leading black ink in the record books, consider that he was part of what could arguably be called Major League Baseball’s Greatest Generation of Players with peers by the names of Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson and Eddie Mathews and Pete Rose and Ernie Banks and Ron Santo and Billy Williams and Roberto Clemente and Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda, not to mention the aforementioned pitchers.  And that's just in the National League. Finally, Willie Mays played a much more demanding and defensively important position, and by all accounts was one of the very best defensive center fielders in baseball history.  Ruth was a good-enough, but not great, defensive outfielder.  (Babe Ruth, of course, was also a great pitcher before he became the “greatest player there ever was”—but I’m not persuaded that makes him the best player ever; he was a pitcher for only four years, 1915 through 1918, before playing the outfield became his full-time vocation so that his prodigiously productive bat would be in the line-up every day.) 

Of course, what Ruth has that Mays does not are 10 World Series appearances with his team winning seven. That includes seven Fall Classics and four World Series triumphs with the Yankees.  Moreover, the Babe was a clutch performer in World Series play, first setting a record by throwing 29-2/3 consecutive shutout innings as the southpaw ace of the Red Sox in the 1916 and 1918 Series, and then setting a record with 15 World Series home runs in 36 games for the Yankees--both records since broken.   If the measure of any single player's greatness is the number of times his team was the only one to walk off as the proven best in the sport, then Ruth truly trumps Mays.  

The Say Hey Kid played in only four World Series, three with the Giants and one with the Mets--and he cannot be said to have been a leader in the Mets' improbable drive to the 1973 World Series because by then he was 42 years old, way over the hill, and in fact in his last major league season.  Mays of course made the most iconic catch in World Series history which sparked the 1954 Giants--then in New York--to their sweep of the heavily-favored 111-win Cleveland Indians, but hit only .239 in 20 World Series games with only three of his 17 hits for extra-bases, none of them home runs.  Unlike the Babe, who (along with Gehrig beginning in 1926) was the driving force behind the Yankees' perennial success, Mays was unable to drive the San Francisco Giants to dynastic mode.  

This is a significant point because Willie's five best consecutive years--1962 to 1966, during which his average annual player value was 10.5 wins above replacement--coincided with the years the Giants had their best team in San Francisco.  The 1962-66 Giants, especially in retrospect but even at the time, seemed a more imposing team than their direct contemporary 1962-66 Dodgers.  The Giants' core regulars included five future Hall of Fame players--Mays, McCovey, Marichal, Cepeda, and Gaylord Perry--while the Dodgers had only two future Hall of Famers, Koufax and Drysdale, among their core regulars.  San Francisco was competitive every year (except for 1963), yet won only one pennant (in 1962) and lost three pennants by three games or less.  Los Angeles, meanwhile, went to three World Series in those five years.  (See the following link on my website, http://www.thebestbaseballteams.com/pdf/nl/1962-66_LA_Dodgers.pdf.)

 

Ruth, without doubt, is the most historically significant player in major league history.  He was the driver of revolutionary change—the home run.  He was the foundation piece of the New York Yankee dynasty.  By virtue of his outsized personality, prodigious production, revolutionizing how baseball was played, and historical timing on the heels of the Black Sox scandal, Babe Ruth had bestowed upon him a cult of personality that none, even in these much more irreverent and deconstructionist times, has ever dared challenge.  He is, simply, the greatest player ever.  

But that doesn’t necessarily make him the best ever.  I would argue that Willie Mays was the best.

'50s Face Off: Indians Trio vs. Yankees Troika

The Cleveland Indians in the first half of the 1950s had one of the best front-three of any starting rotation in baseball history, as noted in a  previous post, "Maddux. Glavine. And Smoltz" (http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/12/maddux-glavine-and-smoltz-incomparable.html).  From 1949, when they first pitched together off the same mound in Cleveland, through 1954 Hall of Fame pitchers Bob Lemon and Early Wynn together with Mike Garcia were three of the five best pitchers in the American League, based on their cumulative pitcher's wins above replacement. (Boston's Mel Parnell and Chicago's Billy Pierce were the two others.)  The Yankees, meanwhile, had their own starting troika of renown with Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat.  While not the measure of Lemon, Wynn and Garcia, Reynolds, Raschi and Lopat are better known as a Pitching Trio for the Ages because they were the heart on the mound for a New York Yankee team that won five straight World Series championships, whereas the Indians were near-perennial bridesmaids.  This Insight looks at the how the two staffs fared facing off against each other as they competed for the American League pennant.

'50s Face Off:  Indians Trio vs. Yankees Troika

Superior pitching was a hallmark of the rivalry between both teams going back to 1948, the first year Reynolds (acquired by the Yankees from the Indians in 1947), Raschi (called up to stay in 1947) and Lopat (acquired from the White Sox before the season) worked the mound at Yankee Stadium as teammates. Cleveland took the pennant in a one-game playoff against Boston in 1948, and New York finished a close third, but the Yankees were the only team to have a winning record (12-10) against the Indians.  Reynolds (4-1), Lopat (5-2) and Raschi (3-1) accounted for all twelve of the Yankees anti-Cleveland dia-Tribe.  In this year before Wynn (by trade) and Garcia (as a rookie) made it to Cleveland, the Indians' top two starters--Bob Feller (2-4), still the staff ace, and Lemon (1-3), in the first of his six 20-win seasons--managed only three victories between them against the Yankees, losing seven times, but not at the cost of a pennant.

New York again won the season series between the two teams in 1949 (12-10) and 1950 (14-8) on their way to the first two of five straight pennants.  The Yankees' troika won 20 of their 26 victories, while losing 9, with Lopat beating the Indians six times without a loss in 1950.  Lemon, Wynn and Garcia won 11 of the 18 games the Indians beat the Yankees and lost 13.  Feller, still a pillar of Cleveland's staff was 3-8 against the Yankees those two years.  Although the Indians led the league in both nominal ERA (that which appears in the record books) and adjusted ERA (which takes account of home park effects and the offensive level of the time) in 1949 and 1950, winning 89 and 92 games those seasons, they were not a significant threat to the Yankees going to the World Series either year.

From 1951 to 1956, it was the Yankees and the Indians finishing first and second every year in the American League, except for 1954 when it was the other way around.  The Indians faced off against the Yankees in three close pennant races not decided till the final week of the season and lost them all. Cleveland's inability to beat out New York more than once was reflected in their season series with the Yankees.  In 1951, the Tribe was a game ahead of the Yankees with only ten remaining when they went into New York in mid-September for a two-game series. Reynolds and Lopat each threw complete game victories over Feller and Lemon, the Indians scoring only two runs in the two games. Cleveland left New York a game down but clearly defeated for the seasons, winning only three of its remaining eight games, while the Yankees won nine of their last twelve, deciding the pennant by five games in favor of New York. The 1951 Yankees overwhelmed the Indians in their season series, winning 15 of 22 games. Their trio of big-game starters—Reynolds (5-1 against Cleveland), Raschi (3-2), and Lopat (5-2)—won 13 of those 15 games, while losing five. For Cleveland, Feller—who led the league in wins with 22 in his last outstanding season—won only two of six decisions against New York, while Lemon (3-3), Wynn (1-4) and Garcia (1-3) accounted for the remainder of the Indians' seven triumphs over the Yankees, but also for ten losses. The Indians’ formidable pitching—they led the league in ERA, lowest batting average and on-base percentage against, and fewest home runs surrendered—held the Yankees to their second lowest run total against any team in the league, but the Bronx Bombers still outscored the Tribe by an average of one run per game, 99 runs (4.5 per game) to 78 (3.5 per game). 

In 1952, the Indians could get no closer than half-a-game out in the final three weeks, but never trailed by more than 2½ before being eliminated with only two games left to the season.  Cleveland was last in first place on August 22, when Garcia beat Reynolds to boost the Indians into a tie with the Yankees, but the next day a 1-0 shutout by Raschi over Wynn left New York atop the standings alone, and the Yankees never had to so much as share the lead again in a pennant they won by a mere two games. The Indians fared better head-to-head against the Yankees in 1952 but still lost the series, winning 10 and losing 12. As befitting the only other team in the American League to win 90 games, Cleveland held the Yankees to their worst record against AL teams and was the only team to batter New York pitchers, who led the league in ERA, for 100 runs. The Yankees, for their part, scored 105 runs against the Indians. This time the Yankees’ trio of starters had an 8-7 record against the Indians, while Lemon, Wynn and Garcia went 7-6, with Feller—at the beginning of the end of his great career (9-13 on the season)—winning one of four decisions against New York. 

The Yankees won their first run-away pennant under Stengel in 1953 and were never behind in the standings after only their seventh game of the season. Not that it did them any good, but this time the Indians split their season series, once again being the most difficult team for New York to beat. Reynolds pitched mostly in relief in 1953 and had no decisions against Cleveland; Raschi and Lopat won five and lost three.  All three of the Yankee starters, however, were in their mid-30s and none pitched 200 innings or started more than 26 games.  Lemon and Wynn, by now in their early 30s, and Garcia each started at least 34 games on the season and worked in excess of 250 innings.  Against the Yankees, they combined for an 11-9 record, accounting for all but two of the Indians’ decisions over New York. The two teams split their series again in 1954, this time with Cleveland winning the pennant decisively—by eight games—or as decisively as can be, considering the runner-up Yankees won 103 games of their own. Reynolds and Lopat won five and lost three against the Indians, and Raschi was denied any ability to contribute having been unceremoniously banished to the Cardinals in a pre-season trade. Lemon and Wynn went 8-5 against the Yankees, while Garcia failed to gain a victory in three decisions. This was the first time in the four years that the Indians outscored the Yankees in the season series, but just barely by 99 to 95. 

Finally, in 1955, the Indians beat the Yankees in their season series, taking 13 of 22 games, but lost the pennant by three games. This was the first time in the Stengel era that the Yankees lost a season series to any pennant race rival, of whom they faced off against eleven from 1949 to 1955. The Indians’ trio of aces had an 8-8 record against the Yankees, while New York’s vaunted trio was no longer there. But, of course, New York again came out on top of the AL standings.  And in 1956, the last year that the Indians were in any way competitive with the Yankees, Lemon, Wynn and Garcia went 6-10 against New York--who won the season series, 12 games to 10--and major league baseball's newest phenom, Herb Score, beat the Yankees three times in four decisions.

New York's trio had the edge over Cleveland's going head-to-head in the three years, 1951 to 1953, that both teams' top threesome were intact and the Yankees and Indians were the only teams directly competing for the American League pennant.   Allie Reynolds (7-5), Vic Raschi (10-4) and Ed Lopat (9-5) combined for 26 wins and 14 losses against the Indians--a .650 winning percentage, not far off their excellent collective .668  winning percentage (147-73) for those three seasons. Cleveland's top three starters combined for a 180-110 (.620) record from 1951 to 1953 and threw more than a third as many innings as New York's top three, but were only 23-25 against the Yankees, with Bob Lemon having a losing 8-9 record against the Bronx Bombers and Early Wynn a losing 6-9 record. Mike Garcia alone had a winning record against the pinstripers during those years at 9-7.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the Yankees won all three pennants.  

Distinction With a Difference in the Bonds, Clemens and Rose Hall of Fame Conundrum

With the Hall of Fame class of 2014 complete, their induction this summer will bring the number enshrined in Cooperstown to 306.  That number would be at least 310 had Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens not tarnished their great diamond accomplishments by their close association with steroids, and Pete Rose not violated the foremost Thou Shalt Not in major league baseball by betting on baseball games.  Rose alone among them, however, was barred from even being considered for Hall of Fame honors by Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) members eligible to cast ballots. This Insight suggests there is a meaningful distinction between the use of performance enhancing drugs--a betrayal of sportsmanship that undermines the integrity of both achievement and statistical records--and betting on baseball as Rose did (and as a manager, no less), which is a betrayal of our trust in the integrity of the game itself.

Distinction With a Difference in the Bonds, Clemens and Rose Hall of Fame Conundrum

Kostya Kennedy, whose book, Pete Rose: An American Dilemma, is due out in March, published an op ed article in the January 6 edition of The New York Times, "Give Rose a Shot at the Hall of Fame," http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/opinion/give-rose-a-shot-at-the-hall.html?ref=todayspaper, advocating that Rose "deserves his day of judgment" in BBWAA Hall of Fame voting.  Just as the balloting has concluded (so far, at least) that the performance enhancing drug (PED) allegations surrounding superstar players Clemens, Bonds and McGwire override their exceptional performances on the field of play, Kennedy argues it should be BBWAA electors--not major league baseball's permanently banished list--that determine whether Rose's betting on baseball games should preclude his residency in Cooperstown.  While sympathetic to this viewpoint, and even though Rose's prospects seem likely to be no greater than those who sold their soul to the PED devil for baseball immortality, I would argue there is a significant distinction that should not be lost between the sins of steroid users against the game and those of Pete Rose.

Much has been said about how the integrity of the game has been compromised by performance enhancing drugs like steroids and human growth hormone, particularly the credibility of sanctified baseball records broken by players presumed to have used such drugs.  The wonderful thing about baseball history, however, is that for those who care about it (and there are legions of us), there is an understanding of context in time and place which precludes the need to expunge their accomplishments as if they never happened or even the need to attach asterisks (although I would not be averse to this option).  The 1990s and the first half-decade of the twenty-first century will forever be known as the “steroids era” in baseball history, and the outsized accomplishments of that era (included sustained great performances by players well past their primes) will be evaluated in that historical context.

Because we can never know definitively who was taking what when, there are undoubtedly some players on whom suspicion will undeservedly be cast.  But the suspicions cast on McGwire, Bonds, Clemens and Alex Rodriguez, for that matter, seem deserved.  Their feats after they allegedly began using PEDs are legitimately open to question, to the point where their reputations are in tatters. But the irony is that Bonds and Clemens did so in search of greater immortality than they had already legitimately earned, forgetting there is no such thing as "greater" immortality. Immortality is immortality, and they were both there--the Hall of Fame waiting for them at the end of their careers.  For McGwire (if his Juiced teammate Jose Canseco's account is to be believed) and A-Rod, on the other hand, their entire careers are under a cloud.

Unfortunately, in the intensely competitive world of professional sports (baseball certainly included), sportsmanship--loosely identified with the trite saying, "it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game that counts"--is often cast aside by players, managers, and teams writ large seeking an edge, any advantage they can get away with. Whether we’re talking about tricks played by the 1890s Baltimore Orioles of John McGraw, Hughie Jennings, and Wilbert Robinson (like hiding baseballs in the outfield grass or holding up base runners by grabbing their belt buckles), scuffing baseballs and throwing illegal pitches, using corked bats, stealing another team’s signals (especially from outside the confines of the playing field), or any number of other nefarious schemes, the ethic of sportsmanship has always been compromised on the diamond.

Using steroids and taking human growth hormone (or whatever the next designed performance-enhancer will be) does indeed do more than those other things to undermine the credibility and integrity of accomplishments, but does not necessarily undermine the integrity of the game itself.  It is players seeking an unfair and illegal advantage, to be sure, but the games played on the field still unfold according to rules, the strategies employed, and players’ execution.  A betrayal of sportsmanship does not compromise the basic integrity of the games as played.

A betrayal of trust--which is what betting on baseball certainly is--on the other hand, does compromise the integrity of the game, because the manager or players involved can deliberately effect the outcome based on the decisions and actions they take or fail to make.  We trust that the games are not fixed.  That is why Pete Rose’s sin of betting on baseball is irredeemable and why his lifetime ban is absolutely correct, even though there is no reason to believe he ever bet on baseball during his indisputably Hall of Fame-caliber playing career.  It does not matter that he never bet against his own team.  The edict against betting on baseball has been fiercely uncompromising since the 1919 Black Sox scandal.  It has to be, because the integrity of the game depends on it.

While in no way intending to diminish the gravity of what they did, all of the others who were banished for life from organized baseball prior to Rose--including Shoeless Joe Jackson, who has had many advocate on his behalf for Hall of Fame consideration--were players who conspired to fix games on behalf of gamblers.  Not managers.  Pete Rose was the first manager to be banned.  Whether player or manager, the damage to the integrity of the game is irreparable—betting on baseball is a betrayal of our trust in the game—but what Rose did was particularly insidious precisely because he was the manager.

Players' performances certainly determine the outcome of games, but a manager controls the game.  He is the "decider," to borrow a phrase once used by an even more important decision-maker than a baseball manager. Every decision a manager makes, and there are countless decisions in every game, can affect the outcome.  Never mind that Rose said that he never bet against his own team, implicitly reassuring us that he was managing every game to win.  Why should we not believe him?  Rose was such a competitor that it is impossible to fathom that he would ever manage to lose.  But how could we ever be sure that his betting on baseball did not affect his judgment as a manager, once a man—and manager—to whom is entrusted the integrity of the game betrays that trust?  Obviously Rose’s gambling was an addiction (he bet on all sports), and obviously his gambling debts were a grave concern to him; he needed them to go away, to reconcile with his bookies.  That’s a lot at stake, and a lot to have on his mind.  Once Pete Rose decided to go down the path of betting on baseball, and especially betting on his own team, his integrity as a manager was hopelessly compromised and one can never be sure what impact that had on the games he managed.

Radio Games

The bitter cold in the dead of winter in most parts of major league baseball's North American empire brings to mind how nice it would be to cozy in and listen to a game on the radio.  Cold winter nights are a time to gather around and embrace stories, after all, and every baseball game has its own story, which is particularly well suited to radio narrative. 

Radio Games

Baseball on the radio is like an audio book for easy and absorbing listening on a long drive or just relaxing at home, but dating far back in time to before audio books were even conceived.  Because there are no visuals, radio play-by-players are storytellers, and storytelling is an art form.  Their words and descriptions (copyrighted, of course) provide a vivid picture in the listener's mind's eye of all that is happening, covering the full breadth of the ball field whenever the action so demands.  They engage us listeners as familiar voices, almost on a personal level, sometimes into the latest hours of the night or the wee hours of the morning (whichever you prefer) for those of us on the East Coast listening to our teams play on the West Coast.  

As has certainly been poetically romanticized before, they are like family, which is why the baseball radio voices we grew up with are so beloved and never forgotten.  It is why the best in the business become emblematic of the very teams whose games they call, sometimes even more iconic than the great players whose feats they narrate and extol--because, while players come and go, even the great ones, radio voices seem eternal.  For sure, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider, Maury Wills, Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax, the Garvey-Lopes-Russell-Cey infield that held together for nearly a decade, Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser all were heroes in Dodger blue, but their time in that blue was short-lived, not necessarily even relevant to the following generations of Dodger fans, compared to the instantly-recognizable voice of Dodgers baseball now going on 65 years, Vin Scully.  And it is why, for 162 games every year, we are loyal to, and feel most at home with, the baseball radio personalities whose voices reach our cars and homes in the city or region we live, even if we are not necessarily fans of the teams whose games they call (because so many Americans are transplanted far from where we grew up and where our rooting interests may be still--just ask the plentiful Yankee or Red Sox or Cardinals or Cubs fans all across this great land).  

For me, living in the Washington, DC, area--sixty miles south of Baltimore--my radio guys are Charlie Slowes and Dave Jaggler, who call the Washington Nationals' games, and Joe Angel and Fred Manfra, on the Baltimore Orioles' radio network.  Call me doubly blessed. When a game's on the radio, I don't even mind the traffic congestion and will usually wait out an inning in my car after pulling up the driveway.  For me, the most vivid call in recent memory, because it turned out to be so poignant, was Charlie Slowes screaming over the crowd, "Can it get any better than this?  Yes it can!" when Nationals Park was rocking with excitement and expectation (visions of a World Series dancing in heads) as the 2012 Nationals, up 7-5 in the ninth inning of Game 5, were one strike away from advancing to the NLCS--only to never get that last strike as the Cardinals ruined the dream by scoring four times before finally giving Washington that 27th out.   

On radio, the baseball as narrative format lends itself to short form or long.  If you followed the New York Mets last season, five games were the length of an epic novel going at least 15 innings and lasting more than five hours, with compelling turns and plot twists.  And Mets announcers Howie Rose and Josh Lewin narrated them all.  For baseball in the long-story form in particular, the oral (aural) traditional of storytelling can be just as absorbing as the visual of watching on TV or being at the ballpark with the advantage that the listener in their home, in their car on the road, or even in the office can do other things or just sit back and enjoy and be fully apprised of the situation, the possibilities, and the action.  The visual requires a more demanding commitment, making it more likely the person watching or just being there will tire of what may seem like a never-ending spectacle and go forth and do other things.  

From my perspective, the elements of the best radio baseball broadcasts include the play-by-play team setting up at the beginning a story line to frame expectations (is there something specific besides the outcome of the game that is at stake?  is there a particularly compelling match-up? who's hot? is a particular player struggling); identifying a narrative arc as the game develops (is a pitcher in command of his stuff or not?  is there an on-field incident that increases tensions? how are umps calling the game?); and providing telling details in their play-by-play (insightful analysis that proves prescient, relevant observations about players' positioning and posture on the field, dissecting defensive alignments in key situations, providing atmospherics about the ballpark and the fan experience) . The best commentary and analysis are absorbing and informative and have the merit of satisfying the well-versed baseball listener with all that he or she might want to know while at the same time keeping listeners who are much less knowledgeable about the game fully informed on what is happening.  The best announcers do so without sounding superficially simplistic to the knowledgeable fan or too technical or esoteric to the less-versed. If a non-baseball fan happened onto their play-by-play on the radio on any given night (just to listen to something easy and relaxing), he or she will be drawn into an absorbing story complete with plot lines and character development that can carry them to another world. 


Particularly with really cold weather and possible snow on the way within days here in the DC area, I can hardly wait for Charlie and Dave, Joe and Fred back at the mike.
 

Parallelism: Torre and Stengel in Pinstripes

The managerial career of Joe Torre, one of three iconic managers who will be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame next summer whose careers crossed the millennial divide, has eerily remarkable parallels to that of Casey Stengel, Hall of Fame class of 1966.  As with Stengel in 1949, there were more than a few skeptics wondering, what are the Yankee owners thinking, when Torre was named manager of the storied New York Yankees for the 1996 season.  It certainly wasn’t a question in either case of, “who he?”  It was more a question of, “why him?” or perhaps more appropriately in both cases, what did he ever do as a manager to deserve the chance to restore the Yankees to their rightful place as the best team in the baseball universe?

Parallelism:  Torre and Stengel in Pinstripes

Like Stengel when he first surfaced as manager in pinstripes, Joe Torre had had an undistinguished career managing several teams in the National League. Okay, perhaps not quite as undistinguished a managerial career as Stengel's, whose pedigree was eight losing seasons in nine years, never finishing better than fifth.  Of course, he was managing the Brooklyn Dodgers and Boston Braves when both were bad teams, but his banter and irreverence made Stengel often appear like the clownish manager of teams not to be taken seriously, so why should he be taken seriously?  Torre, for his part, had only five winning seasons in fourteen years managing three different National League teams.  After five years managing that hapless '70s show otherwise known as the New York Mets, Torre did win a division title in his first year as manager of the Atlanta Braves in 1982, replacing Bobby Cox no less.  A division title notwithstanding, Torre was fired three years later and would not return to the managerial ranks until 1990 in St. Louis, where he lasted till 47 games into the 1995 season.  Therefore, like Stengel, who came to the Yankees with a career managerial winning percentage of only .439 (581-742), Torre—with a career record of 894-1,003 (.471) as manager—was hardly an obvious choice to take over the New York Yankees.   Both were controversial choices because they lacked a winning managerial resume, and if Casey had a personality that begged for being taken seriously by the serious-to-a-fault Yankees, Torre’s perceived lack of personality seemed hardly inspiring.

Just as Stengel took the reins when the Joe DiMaggio era at Yankee Stadium was coming to an end (although Joltin' Joe would play three seasons for Casey), the Yankees were at the end of the Don Mattingly era when Torre became manager, Donny Baseball having retired after the 1995 season.  In contrast to the DiMaggio era, however, which saw the Yankees win eight pennants and seven World Series from 1936 until Stengel became manager in 1949, including a world championship just two years before, the Mattingly era had been notably unsuccessful.  Mattingly’s time coincided with the longest drought of pennants and championships in Yankee history since they began winning regularly way back in 1921.  Unlike in the DiMaggio era, when Joe McCarthy was master of the Yankees’ universe until 1946, Mattingly lived through ten managerial changes in his thirteen years as their star first baseman, including Billy Martin three separate times.  (Martin was also on the Veteran's Committee ballot this year, but had virtually no chance with Torre, Bobby Cox, and Tony LaRussa being undeniable locks to be elected.)  The Yankees had not won a World Series since 1978 and had not been to the post-season since 1981, the year of their last pennant.

As when Stengel became manager, the Yankees faced an uncertain future when Joe Torre was given command of the ship.  The Yankees were reloading both times and future success was not guaranteed, particularly because the 1949 and 1996 Yankees each faced the prospect of competing against teams potentially better positioned for success in the immediate future:  the Boston Red Sox and Cleveland Indians in Stengel’s time; the Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles in the AL East and the Indians in the AL Central in Torre’s time.  Both managers inherited a veteran at the peak of his career playing a critical position:  shortstop Phil Rizzuto for Stengel, center fielder Bernie Williams for Torre.  And both managers had a veteran even better known for being a resilient gamer than for his considerable skills on the field of play:  “Old Reliable” right fielder-first baseman Tommy Henrich on the Stengel Yankees, the perfectionist “Warrior” right fielder Paul O’Neill on the Torre Yankees.  Both managers also had a compelling but still unproven talent playing at a critical position at the start of his career:  Yogi Berra at catcher for Stengel, Derek Jeter at shortstop for Torre.    

Like Stengel, Joe Torre had little margin for error.  Just as Stengel might not have survived without quickly winning the Yankees another pennant, the same was almost certainly true for Torre—especially since Yankee Boss George Steinbrenner was famously volatile about losing, impatient about not winning, and quick to dispose of managers who did not have his team come out ahead, as he did with the well-respected Buck Showalter for failing to win the 1995 ALCS despite having returned the Yankees to competitiveness and their first post-season appearance in fourteen years, albeit by way of the wild card.  Moreover, public dismay in New York that the Yankees' most successful  manager since the 1970s was being replaced by Torre, who was widely perceived in the Big Apple as an ineffectual manager, notwithstanding his division title with Atlanta in 1982, caused Steinbrenner to try to reverse his decision.  Showalter was no fool and refused to come back as manager with his intended replacement already signed up and presumably in position to step in the next time Steinbrenner decided he had enough of Showalter.  So Torre became manager, knowing two things:  the New York fan base was not supportive of the decision to replace Showalter, and Steinbrenner would not hesitate to relieve him of his responsibilities quickly if the Yankees slipped from contention.

With his future as a major league manager on the line in 1949, all Casey Stengel did was win an unprecedented five pennants in a row, and an unprecedented five straight World Series.  And in so doing, Casey's clownish persona transformed into that of an eccentric creative genius; he became sort of an Einstein in the art of managing.  Stengel's achievement in winning five and five in five was all the more remarkable because his team was not nearly as dominant as McCarthy's great Yankee teams of the 1930s and early 1940s.  After leading the Yankees to 103 wins in 1954--the only season Casey cracked the 100-win barrier--and not winning the pennant (because the Cleveland Indians won 111 and set an AL record that still stands for highest winning percentage), the Yankees won five more pennants and two more Fall Classics for Stengel.  In twelve seasons managing the Yankees before he "made the mistake of turning seventy," Stengel won ten pennants and seven World Series.  

And with his career as a big league manager at stake in 1996, all Joe Torre did was take the Yankees to five World Series in his first six years at the helm, winning four world championships.  And in so doing, Torre's unflappable, steady persona transformed into that of one of the country's most respected leaders; he had a subtle touch for managing up, managing down, and keeping his team from being distracted by Steinbrenner's bluster and intemperate actions.  Torre's achievement of five pennants and four World Series championships between 1996 and 2001 is all the more remarkable given that, in the wild card era, he had to navigate his team through two rounds of post-season series just to get to the Fall Classic.  

Same as Stengel, Torre managed the Yankees for twelve years, and his teams finished first in the AL East ten times, just as Casey's team finished on top of the unitary American League ten times.  And, like Stengel, who was unceremoniously dumped in an awkward “was he fired, or did he retire” press conference, Torre's departure from the Yankees was less than elegant; it can be argued that the Yankee front office maneuvered Torre into firing himself by offering a new contract whose foundation principles were degrading to a manager who had accomplished so much.  Torre's Yankees made the post-season every year he was their manager, twice as a wild card entry, winning six pennants and four World Series, all while enduring one Mr. George Steinbrenner (who was also on the Veteran's Committee ballot this year, but failed to pass muster).

For the record, Joe Torre won 1,173 games in his twelve years in charge of the pinstripers, just barely ahead of Casey Stengel's 1,149 victories as Yankee manager.  The Yankees had a .623 winning percentage under Stengel, the equal of a 101-61 season in today's schedule--(Stengel's Yankees were in the era when the baseball season was 154 games long)--and a .605 winning percentage under Torre, the equivalent of a 98-64 record.  Joe McCarthy, Hall of Fame class of 1957, is the Yankee manager with the most longevity (sixteen years in pinstripes), most wins (1,460 in 154-game seasons)) and highest winning percentage (.627, the same as a 102-60 record today).   

Maddux. Glavine. And Smoltz: Incomparable Trio

Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, both on the Hall of Fame ballot  for the first time, were two-thirds of probably the best three-man starting front for a major league team in history, along with John Smoltz, whose first year of Cooperstown eligibility won't be till next year. This Baseball Historical Insight poses the question:  were there any other teams in history whose top three starters over a period of at least five years compare favorably with the Atlanta Braves' trio from 1993 to 1999? 

Maddux. Glavine. And Smoltz:  Incomparable Trio

Maddux.  Glavine.  And Smoltz.  From the time Greg Maddux came to Atlanta as a free agent in 1993 until John Smoltz was forced to sit out the 2000 season because of Tommy John surgery (after which the three were not in the same rotation again, Smoltz returning as a closer), the Braves had the most sustained run of pitching excellence in baseball history.  While finishing with the best record in the National League every year except 1994--which was terminated 48-games short in early August because of a catastrophic players' strike--the Braves led both leagues in fewest runs allowed every year from 1993 to 1999, and their adjusted earned run average over those seven years, taking into account their home park and the offensive level at the time, was a major league-best 26 percent better than the average pitching staff. Maddux went 128-51 (.715), won at least 19 games four times, led the league in ERA four times, allowed the fewest runners on base four times, and won the Cy Young Award in each of his first three seasons with Atlanta (giving him four in a row, to go with the one he won with the Cubs in 1992).  Glavine, a southpaw who had established himself among elite pitchers before Maddux's arrival with back-to-back 20-win seasons in 1991 (when he won Cy Young) and 1992, went 114-56 (.671) between 1993 and 1999, leading the league with 22 wins in 1993 and 20 in 1998, was honored with a second Cy Young Award in 1998, and his league-leading 21 victories in 2000 helped ease the Braves' pain of not having Smoltz on the mound.  Smoltz, before blowing out his elbow landed him in surgery, went 100-59 (.629), led the league in winning percentage and innings pitched twice, won 24 and his own Cy Young Award in 1996, and struck out more batters than innings pitched three times.  At 342-166 (.673), Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz won two-thirds of their decisions, had a combined winning percentage 49 percentage points better than Atlanta's overall .625 from 1993 to 1999, and captured five Cy Young Awards when they were in the same rotation.  

Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz are all three likely to be Hall of Fame inductees.  Only two other teams had three Hall of Fame pitchers together in their starting rotation for as many as five years, but neither with the impact at the time that the Braves had with their three.  Back when the American League was still a fledgling, Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics from 1903 to 1907 had the benefit of the services of southpaws Eddie Plank and Rube Waddell together with right-hander Chief Bender.  The three started two-thirds of Philadelphia's games during those years, combining for 299 (72 percent) of the A's 414 wins.  Despite their efforts, however, the Athletics won only one pennant (in 1905) and competed for only one other (in 1907), and only once did the Philadelphia pitching staff they led finish better than fourth in the league in earned run average. Nonetheless, Waddell (107-75, .588) and Plank (116-67, .634) were two of the most dominating pitchers in the league for the entirety of those years, with the eccentric (too often to a fault) Rube dominating the league in strikeouts each year, while Bender (76-54, .585)--whose rookie season was in 1903 at the age of 19--was still coming into his own and was not among his league's five best pitchers in any of those seasons. Mack counted on Waddell and Plank for 300 innings per season; Bender reached 270 innings in his rookie season, but did not throw as many as 250 again until 1909, averaging only 23 starts per year from 1904 to 1907.

With the arrival of Early Wynn in a trade from Washington in 1949 to join up with Bob Feller and Bob Lemon, the Cleveland Indians had a trio of future Hall of Famers in their core rotation for the next five years.  Lemon and Wynn were just entering the peak of their best seasons.  With 20 wins in 1948 to establish himself as one of baseball's best pitchers, Lemon was a 20-game winner in six of the next eight seasons and led the league with 18 wins in one of the two years he did not win 20, and Wynn won 20 for Cleveland four times. Bob Feller, however, was on the downside of his great career; although he was still only 30, Feller had already thrown nearly 2,500 innings in 10 seasons.  He had been a 20-game winner five consecutive seasons and led the league in strikeouts seven straight years (not including three full seasons lost to World War II and a late return to the diamond in 1945), but after 1948, Feller won 20 only once more and never again approached the strikeout totals from earlier in his career.  Bob Feller was actually the fourth-best pitcher in Cleveland from 1949 until the sands of time ran out on his career.

Mike Garcia was the third man joining with Lemon and Wynn from 1949 to 1956 to give Cleveland one of the best starting threesomes in baseball history.  Garcia won 104 games with a .650 winning percentage in his first six years with the Indians before descending toward mediocrity in 1955, had back-to-back 20-win seasons in 1951 and 1952, and led the league in ERA in '49 and '54.  From 1949 to 1954, Lemon (128-68, .653), Wynn (112-63, .640), and Garcia (104-57, .646) were three of the five best pitchers in the American League, based on the WAR metric for pitcher value, and Cleveland led the league in ERA four times.  With a temporarily-rejuvenated Feller, Garcia, and Wynn winning 20 in 1951 and Wynn, Garcia, and Lemon doing so in 1952, the Indians became the first major league team since the New York Giants in 1904 and 1905 to have three 20-game winners in back-to-back seasons.  While competitive virtually every year, Cleveland won only one pennant, in 1954, because the Yankees had an all-around better team during those seasons, including their own imposing trio of top starters in Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, and Ed Lopat.  The Yankees would not have been as successful without those guys, but Lemon, Wynn, Garcia, and a declining-but-still-effective Feller gave the Indians the better pitching staff.

The only team since the '51 and '52 Indians to boast three 20-game winners in back-to-back seasons was the Baltimore Orioles in 1970 and 1971 (when they had four).  The Orioles from 1969 to 1974 are the only team to potentially rival the Maddux-Glavine-Smoltz Braves for having the best-three front line starters.  Jim Palmer (106-54, .650) and lefties Mike Cuellar (125-62, .668) and Dave McNally (111-65, .631) had a combined .654 winning percentage, 44 percentage points better than their team's, during the six years the Orioles won five division titles and three American League pennants.  Palmer, who had four straight 20-win seasons from 1970 to 1973 (before being temporarily sidetracked by arms problems that condemned him to a 7-12 mark in 1974), is the only one of the three in the Hall of Fame.  Although neither Cuellar and McNally was able to sustain their level of excellence for a long enough time to have been serious Hall of Fame candidates, both (along with Palmer) were among the five best pitchers in the league between 1969 and 1972 based on their consistency compared to other pitchers during those years. McNally had his own stretch of four consecutive 20-win seasons beginning in 1968, and Cuellar won 20 four times, including three in a row from 1969 to 1971 when the Orioles dominated the American League by winning the first three pennants in the new division-era, and 18 twice. In their six years together, the trio won 342 games--the same number as Atlanta's threesome in seven seasons, except in an era when complete games were still prevalent.  Palmer, Cuellar, and McNally completed 44 percent of their starts, compared to Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz completing 14 percent of theirs in an age when relief specialization was coming into its own.  The Orioles were the stingiest team in all of major league baseball in the first five years that Palmer, Cuellar, and McNally pitched off the same rubber at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium, with a major league-best adjusted ERA 19 percent better than the league average.

When Cliff Lee came back to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2011 as a free agent, the baseball world was quick to anoint the Phillies' front-three starters--Lee, Roy Halladay, and Cole Hamels--as the next coming of Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz. Although both were in their early 30s, Halladay and Lee was each still a top-flight ace.  Hamels, also one of the game's best pitchers, had just entered his prime.  The three combined for a 50-23 (.685) record in 2011 for a team that won 102 games and contributed to the Phillies having by far the best pitching staff in major league baseball, with the lowest ERA and by far the highest collective pitcher value as measured by the WAR metric. Unfortunately, their greatness together was short-lived as Halladay, now in his mid-30s, endured shoulder problems that limited him to only 28 starts in 2012 and 2013 and substantially reduced his effectiveness.  Lee and Hamels remain at the top of their game, but two isn't three.

Finally, it remains to be seen whether some combination of Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, and now Doug Fister will give the Washington Nationals--my local team--a compelling threesome for the next four or five years that might someday be spoken of in the same vein as . . .

Maddux.  Glavine.  And Smoltz.


Note:  the following are links to two earlier blogs on Greg Maddux:  http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-greg-maddux-anomaly-part-i-not-k.html and http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-greg-maddux-anomaly-part-ii-maddux.html