Sports fans have long memories

[Tommy Williamsen]

This popped up in my phone; "Former major league first baseman and outfielder Bill Buckner, who won a batting title with the Chicago Cubs in 1980 but was best remembered for the error he committed in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series while playing for the Boston Red Sox, died Monday at 69."

How many remember Jean Van de Velde's two wins, or Scott Hoch's 11 TOUR wins more than his missed putt at the Masters, or even Doug Sanders' 20 TOUR wins more than his missed putt at the Open? How long does it take to think of 1996 Masters when Greg Norman's name comes up?
Funny though, I don't remember any of my collapses.

[Victor Donnay]

Hi Tom


From your previous posts, you might enjoy looking at the following link that I posted in the Strandhill thread.
Best wishes, Victor


My wife, although a non-golfer, enjoyed the trip as she would go for hikes while I played. She is also a very active Catholic and would visit various religious sites in the neighborhood of the golf courses. Just down the road from the Standhill golf course, at the end of the runway of the little local airport, are the ruins of an ancient church honoring St. Patrick and his lost tooth. She writes about the site in her blog Quantum Theology[/size] ([/color][/size]http://quantumtheology.blogspot.com/2016/03/st-patricks-tooth.html[/color][/size]). Looking for more adventure -  the beach in the town of Strandhill hosts one of the top surf schools in Ireland.[/color]

[Jeff Schley]

Bill Buckner was a good player for the Cubs and remember him positively despite his obvious error which he is most remembered unfortunately.  He didn't deserve the abuse he endured for decades until his death.

[Kyle Harris]

He played in that 1986 World Series where Boston relief pitching constantly gave up 2-3 run leads in the 7th, right? 

[V. Kmetz]

To be fair though, while Buckner, Van De Velde, Hoch etc are unfortunately pinned down to their worst moment, they rarely gave us exceptional memories to replace the worst ones...Buckner was certainly better than a journeyman, and it takes a lot to be a player of JVdV or Hoch's mien, but you can't fail on the biggest stage of your life and hope that your good deeds will be your bio's first line... unless you've had some big successes too.


To wit, Babe Ruth got thrown out stealing to end GAME 7 (3-2 Cardinal win) of the 1926 Word Series on the first pitch to .315 hitter Bob Meusel, with Lou Gehrig in the on-deck circle... if he was just plain ol' George Ruth, you'd know him for such an idiot chance.


cheers  vk

[Tim Martin]

To be fair though, while Buckner, Van De Velde, Hoch etc are unfortunately pinned down to their worst moment, they rarely gave us exceptional memories to replace the worst ones...Buckner was certainly better than a journeyman, and it takes a lot to be a player of JVdV or Hoch's mien, but you can't fail on the biggest stage of your life and hope that your good deeds will be your bio's first line... unless you've had some big successes too.


To wit, Babe Ruth got thrown out stealing to end GAME 7 (3-2 Cardinal win) of the 1926 Word Series on the first pitch to .315 hitter Bob Meusel, with Lou Gehrig in the on-deck circle... if he was just plain ol' George Ruth, you'd know him for such an idiot chance.


cheers  vk

Vin-I was at the Westchester Classic years ago and happened upon Scott Hoch’s group as we walked the course. He left his first putt woefully short and someone close by made a disparaging remark as he was no fan favorite. At that point a women in the crowd turns to the guy and lights him up. It was Hoch’s wife.

[David_Tepper]

Bill Buckner was a VERY good baseball player. He was a career .289 hitter (with over 2,700 career hits) who won the NL batting title in 1980 with a .324 batting average. He struck out just 18 times that season.

Over his 8 seasons with the Cubs, his batting average was .300. He is on the relatively short list of guys who played in the Majors in 4 decades (1969 to 1990).

[Bruce Katona]

Michael Jordan hit many a game winning shot; Tiger many winning putts or out-of-this world shots; Pele/Messi many a winning goal.  They had their own miscues as well but the most won't recall those.


Bill Buckner was a class act who embraced his best known miscue and went on to develop a great friendship with Mookie Wilson, who's best remembered for getting the Mets to Game 7. 

[A.G._Crockett]

Bill Buckner was a VERY good baseball player. He was a career .289 hitter (with over 2,700 career hits) who won the NL batting title in 1980 with a .324 batting average. He struck out just 18 times that season.

Over his 8 seasons with the Cubs, his batting average was .300. He is on the relatively short list of guys who played in the Majors in 4 decades (1969 to 1990).

Correct, and I'll add two other notes to this that REAL baseball fans will already know about Buckner. 


1. His best position was left field; he became a full-time first baseman only after a staph infection ruined his ankle.  He was never the same, really, and was the first big leaguer to wear high top cleats to try to take some of the stress away from his ankles.  Watching him run was painful for most of his career, but he could HIT!


2. The REAL error in Game 6 was by the Red Sox manager, John McNamara, who had been using Dave Stapleton as a late-inning defensive replacement for Buckner much of the season; inexplicably, he did not do that in the bottom of the 10th inning with the lead.  It was an epic fail by McNamara, one of several in that series, with most of the others revolving around odd pitching strategies. 


It's always bothered me that Buckner is remembered the way that he is, rather that for a long, productive career played mostly on one good leg.  He's currently 66th on the career base hit list, and some of the names below him are pretty stunning; Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Vlad Guerrero, Ernie Banks, Joe Morgan, Jim Rice, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and so on. There are TWO active players with more hits; Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, and Cabrera just passed Buckner this season.  The guys that are ahead of him on the career hit list are almost all in the Hall of Fame; of the 15 that are not in the Hall, 5 are not yet eligible, 3 are steroid guys, and one is named Pete Rose.  On top of THAT, there are only 35 men that have played more seasons of MLB than Buckner, and nearly half of those were pitchers.

By any measure, Buckner's career was exceptional.  That he is remembered for that play is much more a commentary on the media and fans than anything else. 

[Peter Sayegh]

I had no skin in the Series-aside from an AL bias-but will forever remember Buckner as a tough out.
Kudos to the MN Twins and Dick Bremer last night who reported Buckner's passing with only condolences and his stats.

[Jeff Evagues]

Bill Buckner was a VERY good baseball player. He was a career .289 hitter (with over 2,700 career hits) who won the NL batting title in 1980 with a .324 batting average. He struck out just 18 times that season.

Over his 8 seasons with the Cubs, his batting average was .300. He is on the relatively short list of guys who played in the Majors in 4 decades (1969 to 1990).

Correct, and I'll add two other notes to this that REAL baseball fans will already know about Buckner. 


1. His best position was left field; he became a full-time first baseman only after a staph infection ruined his ankle.  He was never the same, really, and was the first big leaguer to wear high top cleats to try to take some of the stress away from his ankles.  Watching him run was painful for most of his career, but he could HIT!


2. The REAL error in Game 6 was by the Red Sox manager, John McNamara, who had been using Dave Stapleton as a late-inning defensive replacement for Buckner much of the season; inexplicably, he did not do that in the bottom of the 10th inning with the lead.  It was an epic fail by McNamara, one of several in that series, with most of the others revolving around odd pitching strategies. 


It's always bothered me that Buckner is remembered the way that he is, rather that for a long, productive career played mostly on one good leg.  He's currently 66th on the career base hit list, and some of the names below him are pretty stunning; Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Vlad Guerrero, Ernie Banks, Joe Morgan, Jim Rice, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and so on. There are TWO active players with more hits; Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, and Cabrera just passed Buckner this season.  The guys that are ahead of him on the career hit list are almost all in the Hall of Fame; of the 15 that are not in the Hall, 5 are not yet eligible, 3 are steroid guys, and one is named Pete Rose.  On top of THAT, there are only 35 men that have played more seasons of MLB than Buckner, and nearly half of those were pitchers.

By any measure, Buckner's career was exceptional.  That he is remembered for that play is much more a commentary on the media and fans than anything else.

Just as an aside , if Ted Williams didn't spend 5 years in 2 wars he would have close to 4,000 hits.

[Jeff Schley]

Bill Buckner was a VERY good baseball player. He was a career .289 hitter (with over 2,700 career hits) who won the NL batting title in 1980 with a .324 batting average. He struck out just 18 times that season.

Over his 8 seasons with the Cubs, his batting average was .300. He is on the relatively short list of guys who played in the Majors in 4 decades (1969 to 1990).

Correct, and I'll add two other notes to this that REAL baseball fans will already know about Buckner. 


1. His best position was left field; he became a full-time first baseman only after a staph infection ruined his ankle.  He was never the same, really, and was the first big leaguer to wear high top cleats to try to take some of the stress away from his ankles.  Watching him run was painful for most of his career, but he could HIT!


2. The REAL error in Game 6 was by the Red Sox manager, John McNamara, who had been using Dave Stapleton as a late-inning defensive replacement for Buckner much of the season; inexplicably, he did not do that in the bottom of the 10th inning with the lead.  It was an epic fail by McNamara, one of several in that series, with most of the others revolving around odd pitching strategies. 


It's always bothered me that Buckner is remembered the way that he is, rather that for a long, productive career played mostly on one good leg.  He's currently 66th on the career base hit list, and some of the names below him are pretty stunning; Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Vlad Guerrero, Ernie Banks, Joe Morgan, Jim Rice, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and so on. There are TWO active players with more hits; Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, and Cabrera just passed Buckner this season.  The guys that are ahead of him on the career hit list are almost all in the Hall of Fame; of the 15 that are not in the Hall, 5 are not yet eligible, 3 are steroid guys, and one is named Pete Rose.  On top of THAT, there are only 35 men that have played more seasons of MLB than Buckner, and nearly half of those were pitchers.

By any measure, Buckner's career was exceptional.  That he is remembered for that play is much more a commentary on the media and fans than anything else.

As a former baseball player myself, Bill Buckner was used as an example for hitting technique by one of my college coaches. Buckner rarely struck out. I think he may have had the lowest strikeout to at bat ratio of any player in the modern era. He was arguably the greatest hit and run batter of the modern era as well. For he was lefthanded, wouldn't strike out and he wasn't going to walk or hit home runs, but his hands were something special.  He wasn't' going to get into the HOF because he didn't hit for power and played LF/1B which you need power numbers, but again incredible set of hands that really put bat on ball with only Tony Gwynn or Wade Boggs type efficiency.  Actually Buckner has better hands than Boggs, but Gwynn is hard to beat.  Elite set of hands and maintained his low strikeout ratio until he retired basically which was when he was 40.

I don't think he is a HOF player for the record, but for his skill of putting the ball in play and avoiding strikeouts as he did was the best of the modern era (along with Gwynn).  RIP Billy Buck.

[David_Tepper]

Hijacking this thread for just a moment re: not striking out much, here is a remarkable stat about Yogi Berra (IMHO the greatest winner in the history of baseball):

 Five times, Berra had more home runs than strikeouts in a season, striking out just twelve times in 597 at-bats in 1950.

[Jeff Schley]

Hijacking this thread for just a moment re: not striking out much, here is a remarkable stat about Yogi Berra (IMHO the greatest winner in the history of baseball):

 Five times, Berra had more home runs than strikeouts in a season, striking out just twelve times in 597 at-bats in 1950.

That is a great stat for sure, especially in that era before they lowered the mound in '69.

[A.G._Crockett]

Bill Buckner was a VERY good baseball player. He was a career .289 hitter (with over 2,700 career hits) who won the NL batting title in 1980 with a .324 batting average. He struck out just 18 times that season.

Over his 8 seasons with the Cubs, his batting average was .300. He is on the relatively short list of guys who played in the Majors in 4 decades (1969 to 1990).

Correct, and I'll add two other notes to this that REAL baseball fans will already know about Buckner. 


1. His best position was left field; he became a full-time first baseman only after a staph infection ruined his ankle.  He was never the same, really, and was the first big leaguer to wear high top cleats to try to take some of the stress away from his ankles.  Watching him run was painful for most of his career, but he could HIT!


2. The REAL error in Game 6 was by the Red Sox manager, John McNamara, who had been using Dave Stapleton as a late-inning defensive replacement for Buckner much of the season; inexplicably, he did not do that in the bottom of the 10th inning with the lead.  It was an epic fail by McNamara, one of several in that series, with most of the others revolving around odd pitching strategies. 


It's always bothered me that Buckner is remembered the way that he is, rather that for a long, productive career played mostly on one good leg.  He's currently 66th on the career base hit list, and some of the names below him are pretty stunning; Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Vlad Guerrero, Ernie Banks, Joe Morgan, Jim Rice, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and so on. There are TWO active players with more hits; Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, and Cabrera just passed Buckner this season.  The guys that are ahead of him on the career hit list are almost all in the Hall of Fame; of the 15 that are not in the Hall, 5 are not yet eligible, 3 are steroid guys, and one is named Pete Rose.  On top of THAT, there are only 35 men that have played more seasons of MLB than Buckner, and nearly half of those were pitchers.

By any measure, Buckner's career was exceptional.  That he is remembered for that play is much more a commentary on the media and fans than anything else.

Just as an aside , if Ted Williams didn't spend 5 years in 2 wars he would have close to 4,000 hits.

Given that Williams never had a 200 hit season, and giving him his BEST season total (194) for each of the five seasons he missed, he ends up at just over 3600 hits for his career, safely inside the top ten.  Clearly, without the "interruptions" to his career, Williams is in very different places in ALL of the career hitting stats.

But I'll bet you that if I had asked you BEFORE you read my post whether Ted Williams or Bill Buckner had more career base hits, you would have said Williams, as would 99% of even hard-core baseball fans.  And it is in NO way a knock on Williams to point out that Buckner is ahead of him and a boatload of other Hall of Famers in base hits.  And seasons played.  And strikeout ratios.  (Think about THIS; Buckner averaged less than 21 strikeouts PER SEASON for his career!)

[Jeff Schley]

Bill Buckner was a VERY good baseball player. He was a career .289 hitter (with over 2,700 career hits) who won the NL batting title in 1980 with a .324 batting average. He struck out just 18 times that season.

Over his 8 seasons with the Cubs, his batting average was .300. He is on the relatively short list of guys who played in the Majors in 4 decades (1969 to 1990).

Correct, and I'll add two other notes to this that REAL baseball fans will already know about Buckner. 


1. His best position was left field; he became a full-time first baseman only after a staph infection ruined his ankle.  He was never the same, really, and was the first big leaguer to wear high top cleats to try to take some of the stress away from his ankles.  Watching him run was painful for most of his career, but he could HIT!


2. The REAL error in Game 6 was by the Red Sox manager, John McNamara, who had been using Dave Stapleton as a late-inning defensive replacement for Buckner much of the season; inexplicably, he did not do that in the bottom of the 10th inning with the lead.  It was an epic fail by McNamara, one of several in that series, with most of the others revolving around odd pitching strategies. 


It's always bothered me that Buckner is remembered the way that he is, rather that for a long, productive career played mostly on one good leg.  He's currently 66th on the career base hit list, and some of the names below him are pretty stunning; Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Vlad Guerrero, Ernie Banks, Joe Morgan, Jim Rice, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and so on. There are TWO active players with more hits; Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, and Cabrera just passed Buckner this season.  The guys that are ahead of him on the career hit list are almost all in the Hall of Fame; of the 15 that are not in the Hall, 5 are not yet eligible, 3 are steroid guys, and one is named Pete Rose.  On top of THAT, there are only 35 men that have played more seasons of MLB than Buckner, and nearly half of those were pitchers.

By any measure, Buckner's career was exceptional.  That he is remembered for that play is much more a commentary on the media and fans than anything else.

Just as an aside , if Ted Williams didn't spend 5 years in 2 wars he would have close to 4,000 hits.

Given that Williams never had a 200 hit season, and giving him his BEST season total (194) for each of the five seasons he missed, he ends up at just over 3600 hits for his career, safely inside the top ten.  Clearly, without the "interruptions" to his career, Williams is in very different places in ALL of the career hitting stats.

But I'll bet you that if I had asked you BEFORE you read my post whether Ted Williams or Bill Buckner had more career base hits, you would have said Williams, as would 99% of even hard-core baseball fans.  And it is in NO way a knock on Williams to point out that Buckner is ahead of him and a boatload of other Hall of Famers in base hits.  And seasons played.  And strikeout ratios.  (Think about THIS; Buckner averaged less than 21 strikeouts PER SEASON for his career!)

AG you are omitting why Williams didn't get as many hits as others, he walked a heck of a lot, really at a historic pace of only Ruth/Bonds level. If he was swinging at more bad pitches sure his hits would go up along with HR's etc. However, his OBP would fall which wasn't Teddy ballgame's approach. He is one of the highest, if not the highest, for career OBP.  Tremendous hitter and a travesty he missed several years to the war as well as playing on 154 game seasons as opposed to 162 they started back sometime in the 1960's. Over his career that is almost another season as well.

[A.G._Crockett]

Bill Buckner was a VERY good baseball player. He was a career .289 hitter (with over 2,700 career hits) who won the NL batting title in 1980 with a .324 batting average. He struck out just 18 times that season.

Over his 8 seasons with the Cubs, his batting average was .300. He is on the relatively short list of guys who played in the Majors in 4 decades (1969 to 1990).

Correct, and I'll add two other notes to this that REAL baseball fans will already know about Buckner. 


1. His best position was left field; he became a full-time first baseman only after a staph infection ruined his ankle.  He was never the same, really, and was the first big leaguer to wear high top cleats to try to take some of the stress away from his ankles.  Watching him run was painful for most of his career, but he could HIT!


2. The REAL error in Game 6 was by the Red Sox manager, John McNamara, who had been using Dave Stapleton as a late-inning defensive replacement for Buckner much of the season; inexplicably, he did not do that in the bottom of the 10th inning with the lead.  It was an epic fail by McNamara, one of several in that series, with most of the others revolving around odd pitching strategies. 


It's always bothered me that Buckner is remembered the way that he is, rather that for a long, productive career played mostly on one good leg.  He's currently 66th on the career base hit list, and some of the names below him are pretty stunning; Dave Parker, Billy Williams, Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Vlad Guerrero, Ernie Banks, Joe Morgan, Jim Rice, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and so on. There are TWO active players with more hits; Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, and Cabrera just passed Buckner this season.  The guys that are ahead of him on the career hit list are almost all in the Hall of Fame; of the 15 that are not in the Hall, 5 are not yet eligible, 3 are steroid guys, and one is named Pete Rose.  On top of THAT, there are only 35 men that have played more seasons of MLB than Buckner, and nearly half of those were pitchers.

By any measure, Buckner's career was exceptional.  That he is remembered for that play is much more a commentary on the media and fans than anything else.

Just as an aside , if Ted Williams didn't spend 5 years in 2 wars he would have close to 4,000 hits.

Given that Williams never had a 200 hit season, and giving him his BEST season total (194) for each of the five seasons he missed, he ends up at just over 3600 hits for his career, safely inside the top ten.  Clearly, without the "interruptions" to his career, Williams is in very different places in ALL of the career hitting stats.

But I'll bet you that if I had asked you BEFORE you read my post whether Ted Williams or Bill Buckner had more career base hits, you would have said Williams, as would 99% of even hard-core baseball fans.  And it is in NO way a knock on Williams to point out that Buckner is ahead of him and a boatload of other Hall of Famers in base hits.  And seasons played.  And strikeout ratios.  (Think about THIS; Buckner averaged less than 21 strikeouts PER SEASON for his career!)

AG you are omitting why Williams didn't get as many hits as others, he walked a heck of a lot, really at a historic pace of only Ruth/Bonds level. If he was swinging at more bad pitches sure his hits would go up along with HR's etc. However, his OBP would fall which wasn't Teddy ballgame's approach. He is one of the highest, if not the highest, for career OBP.  Tremendous hitter and a travesty he missed several years to the war as well as playing on 154 game seasons as opposed to 162 they started back sometime in the 1960's. Over his career that is almost another season as well.

Jeff,

If you read ANYTHING that I write as in ANY way selling Ted Williams short, you are completely mistaken.  I'm 67, and my dad called me in from outside to watch Teddy Ballgame's last AB in the majors.  Which, as we all know, was a home run...

Williams was, arguably, the greatest pure hitter for both power and average in baseball history, and it is no secret to any of us who follow baseball obsessively that his career numbers would have been off the charts had he played a full career.  I won't get into the 154 game thing, because that's only ONE variable among many; night games, coast to coast travel, completely different uses of pitching staffs, and so on.)

It in no way detracts from the greatness of Ted Williams to point out that Buckner had more career base hits than did Williams.  Buckner had more career base hits than approx. 50 position players that are in the Hall of Fame; it's a stat, not an indictment.

[Jeff Schley]

 it's a stat, not an indictment.

Thank God!  We can all exhale for anyone who doesn't kneel at the feet of Teddy ballgame doesn't know baseball we can agree. His stats are insanely good, not to mention he played at a time where there were half the number of pitchers there are today and a higher mound.

[A.G._Crockett]

Hijacking this thread for just a moment re: not striking out much, here is a remarkable stat about Yogi Berra (IMHO the greatest winner in the history of baseball):

 Five times, Berra had more home runs than strikeouts in a season, striking out just twelve times in 597 at-bats in 1950.

It is a remarkable stat, one of many from Berra's career.  And I agree with you that he is the greatest winner in baseball history; I'd have to sit and study a bit to decide if it's him or Bill Russell for ALL sports!


It is perhaps unfortunate that these days Berra is sort of a baseball version of Charles Barkley, in that he is arguably better known NOW by both younger people and casual fans for comedic stuff than for what he was as a player.  Berra was truly, truly great, and while there were a lot of Yankees from those days who had more glitz and curb appeal and so on, nobody was better than Berra, and certainly nobody was more integral to the Yankee dynasty of the 50's.

To get back to Buckner, the Berra strikeout stat is yet another good measure of how good a hitter Buckner was.  While Buckner never managed to hit more HR's than K's, he actually ranks AHEAD of Berra on the career list of K's to AB's.  Berra K'd once every 18.25 AB's, and Buckner's rate was once every 20.74 AB's.  Both, fwiw, rank pretty high on the all-time list for this, given that the ratios from the dead ball era are sort of crazy.  (Wee Willie Keeler K'd once every 63.7 AB's!)

[A.G._Crockett]

 it's a stat, not an indictment.

Thank God!  We can all exhale for anyone who doesn't kneel at the feet of Teddy ballgame doesn't know baseball we can agree. His stats are insanely good, not to mention he played at a time where there were half the number of pitchers there are today and a higher mound.

Jeff,

If you haven't, get a copy and read "The Teammates" by David Halberstam, about the lifelong friendship between Williams and Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, and Bobby Doerr, centered around a car trip in 2001 by Pesky and DiMaggio to see Williams one last time.  I am far from a Sox fan, but it is a touching book if you love the game and the relationships than grow out of being teammates.

And to finish the story about my father calling me inside to watch Teddy Ballgame's last AB (I was 8 years old at the time, and was throwing a rubber ball against the side of the house and practicing making game-winning catches at the moment, something that is sort of lost nowadays), my father was a Tiger fan of the first magnitude and had NO use for the Sox, only slightly below the Yankees in that regard.  But he knew true greatness in a player when he saw it, and he wanted me to appreciate it, too. 


I've never forgotten that lesson; I don't give a damn about Tiger Woods' personal life, for instance.  I just appreciate the historic nature of what I'm seeing, and I think it all goes back to that day in 1960.  I've never gotten over my love affair with baseball, either.

[David_Tepper]

It is a remarkable stat, one of many from Berra's career.  And I agree with you that he is the greatest winner in baseball history; I'd have to sit and study a bit to decide if it's him or Bill Russell for ALL sports!
A.G. -
I agree with you about the Berra-Russell comparison. Add in Berra's career as a manager/coach (managing teams from both the American & National Leagues to the World Series, which only a handful of guys have done) and his life in baseball gets even more impressive.
DT

[Jeff Schley]

AG I haven't heard of the book and will download it.  I had to do a double take when you put down Dom Dimaggio as I was thinking Joe D died before 2001.  Had no idea Dom and Ted were buddies.  I'll check it out as I'm a big baseball fan.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Hijacking this thread for just a moment re: not striking out much, here is a remarkable stat about Yogi Berra (IMHO the greatest winner in the history of baseball):

 Five times, Berra had more home runs than strikeouts in a season, striking out just twelve times in 597 at-bats in 1950.

Casey Stengel was asked how he could explain his success with the Yankees (7 world series championships between 1949 and 1958). He said, "I never play a game without my man." That man was Yogi. I lived in New York City from 1950-1958. It was a great time to be a New Yorker and a Yankee fan.


I will second the book The Teammates. It is a great read.

[Peter Pallotta]

Heard today this stat:
Bill Buckner played in 23 post season games.
You know how many errors he committed in the field?
1.

[Tim Martin]

Hijacking this thread for just a moment re: not striking out much, here is a remarkable stat about Yogi Berra (IMHO the greatest winner in the history of baseball):

 Five times, Berra had more home runs than strikeouts in a season, striking out just twelve times in 597 at-bats in 1950.

I always thought Yogi was the ultimate “gamer”. Anyone that’s a baseball fan and especially a Yankees/Berra fan should check out the Yogi Berra Museum at Montclair State College in NJ. Some amazing black and whites from the Berra era blown up into mural size and a bunch of incredible memorabilia.