Baseball’s Mount Rushmore

[Spocky Ramone]

Berra was in the Normandy attack, perpetrated on a pitch black moonless night.  When Michael kay asked him if he was afraid of being shot he said no.   Kay pressed him and asked again, "you weren't afraid at all?".    "Oh I was afraid.  Of drowning".

Soldiers stepped out of transport ships into 4 to 20 feet of water with 80 lbs of gear strapped to their backs.  You didnt know how deep the water was till you stepped off the boats.  Horrible way to die.   Our heroes.

Berra is very close to making my Rushmore list.  358 home runs and less than 450 career strikeouts, .290 avg, and made himself a great defensive catcher working with bill dickey.

Yogi won 10 rings as a player, most all time (and throw in a few as a coach as well)

I attended the last game at Shea.  During the post game ceremony they counted down the all time Mets.  They got to #3 and the only guys left I could think of were Seaver and Piazza who we all knew were slated for the 2 top spots.  I was wracking my brains when Yogi appeared on DiamondVision and the lid blew off the stadium.  A great moment for NY sports fans' favorite son!

 

[bamafan]

If we are really going to say need to be a 5 skill player to be an all time great, that clearly disqualifies Cobb (never hit more than 12 home runs) and makes Babe (no one would accuse him of being a great fielder) questionable. Joe D was the first of the can do it all guys I am aware of. 




Not necessarily, you have to look at home run totals his contemporaries had and also realize there was not an emphasis on HRs at that time and maybe even no outfield walls. Power also should take into account doubles and triples especially during that era.

 

[Knight]

If we are really going to say need to be a 5 skill player to be an all time great, that clearly disqualifies Cobb (never hit more than 12 home runs) and makes Babe (no one would accuse him of being a great fielder) questionable. Joe D was the first of the can do it all guys I am aware of. 

Could he pitch?

 

[SJU61982]

Mickey Mantle was my first idol growing up as a kid so it pains me to a certain extent to relate this story about him but here goes...a woman with a young son approached the Mick and requested an autograph for her son saying to him would you please sign an autograph for my son he has a broken arm to which the Mick replied well when he breaks his other arm come back to me. Hopefully that was the alcohol talking which reminds me of another story about Ed Coleman sports talky for the Mets at the time. He was reading a name sent in to a contest the FAN was having and he fell for it. The name he read and took seriously was Al Coholic (Ed being a known imbiber).

Jane Levy's bigoraphy of Mantle, The Last Boy, is an excellent read for any Mantle fan.  She basically considered Mantle to be 3 different personalities.

1.  The sober Mantle, who was angry at himself about all the nasty things he had done, and turned to the bottle to forget that stuff.

2.  The tipsy Mantle, who was much more personable, and fun to be around.

3.  The inebriated Mantle, who had no control of himself, and was a sexaholic.

 

 

[Knight]

I also grew up a Mantle fan.

At the end of his life he became a true hero, admitted all his faults and counseling others not to choose the path he did.   Numer 7 still has a fond place in my heart.

 

[beast of the east]

If we are really going to say need to be a 5 skill player to be an all time great, that clearly disqualifies Cobb (never hit more than 12 home runs) and makes Babe (no one would accuse him of being a great fielder) questionable. Joe D was the first of the can do it all guys I am aware of. 

I'm pretty sure Cobb led the league in home runs at least once and likely was among the all time hr leaders until Ruth and to a lesser extent Gehrig revolutionized baseball in terms of power.    I've never read about Ruth's prowess as a fielder, but I would imagine he had a strong arm.    Agree that many HOF players were not 5 tool. But that also distinguishes super elite players from merely great.  Williams was undeniably a great hitter.
 

 

[beast of the east]

Mickey Mantle was my first idol growing up as a kid so it pains me to a certain extent to relate this story about him but here goes...a woman with a young son approached the Mick and requested an autograph for her son saying to him would you please sign an autograph for my son he has a broken arm to which the Mick replied well when he breaks his other arm come back to me. Hopefully that was the alcohol talking which reminds me of another story about Ed Coleman sports talky for the Mets at the time. He was reading a name sent in to a contest the FAN was having and he fell for it. The name he read and took seriously was Al Coholic (Ed being a known imbiber).

It's really sad to hear stories like that about Mantle or any other athlete.   I met Seaver at another card show in Hofstra.    The person infront of me asked him to sign a ball with the inscription HOF 306 wins.   He did as asked and when the guy walked away, a young woman, presumably his daughter, said, "You had 311 wins.  Why did you sign 306".  Seaver smugly answered, "Because that's what he asked me to sign."    When Seaver came up I wasn't even a teenager, but he was the first Mets player who was a star on the rise (if you discount Swoboda's 1965 19 home runs).    Being next in line, I greeted him and said, "When I was a kid, I really idolized you."   Now the difference in our ages was far less important some 20 years ago, than for a young Mets fan looking to grasp onto hope and living and dying by boxscore and Nelson/Murphy/Kiner accounts of games.   Seaver just stared at me in a condescending way and said nothing.   

I've heard a bunch of personal Seaver interactions over the years, and none of them were positive.  A coworker grew up in a middle class town near Greenwich CT and worked in a supermarket in HS and college.   Tom and Nancy shopped there, and this guy said they were both really nasty people.   I know it must be hard growing up in a fishbowl of fame, but I would also say without the fans that buy tickets and subscrribe to cable networks and buy products that Met advertisers sell, these guys would have earned a pittance playing baseball.   

I have a pretty horrible Willis Reed story I'll save for another day. 

 

[beast of the east]

If we are really going to say need to be a 5 skill player to be an all time great, that clearly disqualifies Cobb (never hit more than 12 home runs) and makes Babe (no one would accuse him of being a great fielder) questionable. Joe D was the first of the can do it all guys I am aware of. 

Could he pitch?

I know you are speaking about Babe Ruth, but Ty Cobb pitched 2 games in his career, in 1918 and 1925, presumably both in relief.   In 1925 he pitched an innning and was credited with a save.

Insofar as Ruth, this is from a fan site, so unverified, but an interestng read:


You must have missed the part when I said that the numbers for corner OFers are off, because they're being compared to all OFers (including CFers). With those grades, corner OF deserved to be brought up one grade, among corner OFs Ruth's career grade (which is based only on his WS per inning, and has nothing to do with peak), would be about a B-. It's that low because after 1928, like BP's analysis, WS does not see Ruth being a very good fielder. But prior to that they see him being an A level RFer. In case you're interested, these are Ruth's DWS by year, and his DWS per 162 games, along with the grade that would correspond to that (adjusted because he was a corner OF):

1918: 2.48.....5.58/162 A+
1919: 1.98.....2.77/162 C+
1920: 3.27.....3.70/162 B
1921: 4.98.....5.24/162 A+
1922: 3.58.....5.22/162 A+
1923: 6.23.....6.64/162 A+
1924: 2.94.....3.13/162 B-
1925: 1.47.....2.43/162 C
1926: 2.63.....2.82/162 C+
1927: 4.06.....4.36/162 A
1928: 2.16.....2.27/162 C-
1929: 1.75.....2.13/162 C-
1930: 1.23.....1.38/162 D
1931: 1.55.....1.77/162 D+
1932: 1.64.....2.08/162 C-
1933: 0.83.....1.02/162 D-
1934: 1.82.....2.66/162 C
1935: 0.13.....0.81/162 F

Ruth certainly did lose his legs late in his career, and became a not very good OFer, but it is true according to DWS that early in his career he was a very good to great fielding corner OFer. Overall over his career this makes him a bit above average, and an elite defensive corner OF when he first became a reguar. His career rate was brought down significantly because halfway through his career he lost much of his defensive prowess. BP's metrics have came to the same conclusion.

 

[Eric]

Good read this thread.  Sad too hearing the stories about these guys.  Ive heard through others how bad martin and mantle were during games with the booze.  

 

[beast of the east]

I'm sure it has been communicated before in other places, but a while back I was considering engaging an older professional writer who had read one of my articles and commented.

It turns out he was a huge baseball fan who had grown up in a small midwestern town.   With great color he told me that when he was young, in a general store in his small town, on cold winter days, older men who stopped by would huddle around a wood or coal fired pot belly stove, trying to defeat the bitter cold, and have the classic baseball debates such as the ones we are having here.   That occurrence was commonplace across America, hence the term "Hot Stove League" was born, where baseball was kept alive during the dark and bitter cold months with timeless debates about players, teams, trades, etc.    It's easy to imagine those stores, with barewood floors, where you could buy just about anything, and with simpler people in simpler times whose minds took flight adoring our national pastime.

The stoves are gone but we haven't lost the art.,