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Defense--Great/Elite
I cannot speak to the methods used in generating the list, but this assessment is completely ridiculous. Zeke Bonura was widely derided for his defense. It was a running joke among his peers, writers, and after a while filtered out to the fans. I doubt it would take more than 0.4 seconds on Google to find a half dozen Zeke Bonura/Jimmy Dykes/fielding items. Dykes, his manager at the White Sox, was exasperated on a daily basis by the inability of Bonura to do more than catch a thrown ball. Branch Rickey used Bonura as exhibit A when discussing why fielding percentage was misleading since it was well known that Bonura was instructed to pretty much let grounders go that were more than one step away to his right since he tended to just make matters worse when attempting to field his position. On balls to his left Dykes did ask him to try to cut down on doubles. Didn't work.
I grew up with guys on the playground mimicking Bonura failing to pick up a ball that was sitting idle on the ground for cr*ssakes. When he was in Washington Al Schacht had lots of fun putting a ball on the ground and treating it as a land mine, grenade, etc to represent how Bonura "fielded" his position.
I just had to mention this because somewhere, someone is going to read this individual's work and believe it to have credibility. And this evaluation of Zeke Bonura's defense is completely at odds with the facts.
Good grief................
Also, Adam Dunn is one of the best left-fielders in the league? Really?
Does the article attempt to come up with any criteria for short-career pitchers?
And my impression (decades after the fact) of Zeke Bonura's reputation in the field echoes Ryan's.
I grew up with guys on the playground mimicking Bonura failing to pick up a ball that was sitting idle on the ground for cr*ssakes.
Every once in a while I'm reminded that it's kind of awesome to have an old-timer around, as Zeke Bonura has always been just a name to me. The fact that you were on the playground mocking him is phenomenal. Never thought I'd have heard a contemporary Zeke Bonura story, thanks HW.
I do have to ask, they let you out on the grounds during recess? What about pterodactyls?
I work to keep from being too caustic in reviewing other folks efforts, but this item REALLY calls into question what effort, if any, went into generating the list.
Bonura was an OAF in the field.
Actually, I must be, because Merkle's Boner was first.
Zeke was known as "Banana Nose".
The VERY common heckle to Zeke about his fielding was "Next time, use your nose!" Or something about trying to sniff the ball off the ground.
Seriously though, I wonder if you transplanted that situation to today, what the reaction would be. I honestly don't know, but something strikes me that it would turn into some big deal.
Afterward, the coach was asked about why he hadn't changed the signs, and responded "Bonura could never remember them when he was here, so why should I think that he would remember them now?"
It's probably made up, but I like the idea of a player being so incredibly out of it that he forgets which team he's playing for.
No, it's because (as James makes quite clear to anyone who's read the damn book) BJ believes the quality of play in the 19th century does not compare to the quality of play today. It's a timelining concern; James ranks Lankford ahead of Lange because he believes that if they played in the same league, under the same circumstances, he believes Lankford would be the better player.
I don't know that I agree to the extent of ranking Ray Lankford ahead of Bill Lange, but I'm quite a timeliner myself. I *would* rank Bernie Williams ahead of Lange, and not just because of career length....
2. Hugh Jennings hung around just long enough as a nothing-special first baseman to get to 1285 career games, but he fits the spirit of the list for his five years as an elite SS. He's also a Hall of Merit choice - and also far from unanimous.
3. I went to the article looking for one name in particular, and was disappointed when I didn't find it: George Stone. At 849 games played, he does fit the criteria. The thing is that his all-too-brief career lay in the very heart of the dead ball days, so the raw stats don't have quite the impact they might otherwise have. Seeing a season of .358/.417/.501 doesn't get most of you too excited, but a season of .358/.417/.501 in 1906 - now that's something. His contemporary Mike Donlin is there, and Donlin could hit some, too - but Stone had the higher peak.
4. On computer, the article ends abruptly in the middle of the McGraw comment. It looks like there should be more but there isn't. So tell me: is Al Rosen on his list?
Musial spent more time in right in the 1940s. B-ref doesn't break down his OF games by position, but the ESPN Encyclopedia does. In the 1940s, he played:
444 games in right
266 games at first
257 games in left
186 games in center.
I assume he played multiple positions in some games, as that adds up to more games than he played overall in the 1940s.
Yeah, I remember reading about Bonura's defense in the Hall of Shame books that came out in the 1980s.
Incredibly, Win Shares gives Bonura a B+ for his work at first base.
B-Pro lists Bonura at 13 fielding runs above average and 92 above replacement.
Normally I'll trust the numbers over anecdotal evidence, but I get the feeling the numbers are missing something given how incredibly bad the stories of Zeke's D were.
Thanks for sharing that information. These evaluations astound me. I am floored.
Luke Sewell would joke that he stayed in the league thanks to having to run down all of Zeke's missed throws at first base........
There's quite a few Primates in a historical DMB league with me. Feel free to taunt them that my Brooklyn Dodgers have both Teddy Ballgame and Stan the Man.
Yes they do. Check the right side of the fielding section.
The B-R Bullpen entry for Bonura backs up what you say about this, Harveys. I wonder if the author checked there? It would strike me as odd if he didn't, as even with the usual caveats for wikipedia-like information it's often a useful source of info on players.
Bonura was 6 feet and 210lb. That's pretty hefty.
Plus I gotta defend him, he is family.
From the various "Zeke Bonura was so dumb" stories that have filtered down through baseball history, I'm guessing that it's signed with an X.
Leon Durham
Jim Ray Hart
Bob Horner
Trot Nixon
Roy Cullenbine
Andy is supposed to be ugly? I never would have guessed it but I'm not the best judge of male attractiveness. Baseball Chick or any of the gay primates care to weigh in?
Plus I gotta defend him, he is family.
- he's not MY idea of a good-looking white boy and there are moren a few FINE lookin white boys in baseball besides bradley awesomeness
James Rodney Richard
James Rodney Richard
The list of great short career pitchers in a million names long.
Since short brilliant pitching careers come at a wide variety of ages, you can have fun stapling together non-overlapping careers. The HoM favorite at this: the "Iron Thunderbolt" Take the careers of Amos Rusie and Joe McGinnity and add them together, noting that Rusie's career was effectively over before McGinnity's began, even though Rusie was the younger of the two.
Stan Spence?
Steve Kemp?
Johnny Lindell?
Wes Covington?
I loved reading those books when I was a kid. The one fielding-related tidbit I remember off the top of my head was Smead Jolley committing what should have been 3 errors on the same play but only being charged for two of them.
I had a similar experience. (I was looking for Ferris Fain.) He misses Ripper Collins too, and if you stretch the definition a bit, there's Dave Orr (791 games) and Gavvy Cravath (1220).
No, but he played too many games.
The author proposed something like Range Factor to evaluate fielders better, though that's not what he called it.
Street & Smith's was a damn good annual, the best of its kind.
I'm more offended that many official scorekeepers seem to think this is the rule.
Don't get me started on official scorers. I swear to god, in this day and age unless a fielder absolutely kicks a ball, it's scored a hit.
Sometime's it's still scored a hit, even when the fielder does obviously screw it up. I saw a ball which bounced off of Shannon Stewart's face scored as a double. He was set up underneath it, and somehow missed it with his glove. The thing hit him right between the eyes with enough force to knock him to the ground.
The batter got a double with 2 RBI.
Ok, how about Glenn Davis, then?
The other great example of this is Dwight Gooden and Randy Johnson. Believe it or not, Gooden is younger. I believe I saw somewhere that if you add Gooden's career through 1992 to Johnson's career since 1993, the result would be the best pitcher ever.
the frist guy that came up was a pitcher with 2 career at bats :-) (well he does have a career OPS+ of 166)
Cnt Player OPS+ G BA OBP SLG From To Ages+----+-----------------+----+----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+-----+
1 Roberto Hernandez 166 1010 .500 .500 .500 1991 2007 26-42
2 Pete Browning 162 1183 .341 .403 .467 1882 1894 21-33
3 Charlie Keller 152 1170 .286 .410 .518 1939 1952 22-35
4 Charley Jones 150 894 .298 .345 .444 1875 1888 25-38
5 Benny Kauff 149 859 .311 .389 .450 1912 1920 22-30
6 Mike Donlin 144 1049 .333 .386 .468 1899 1914 21-36
7 Lefty O'Doul 143 970 .349 .413 .532 1919 1934 22-37
8 George Stone 143 849 .301 .361 .396 1903 1910 26-33
9 Bill Joyce 143 904 .294 .435 .467 1890 1898 24-32
10 Tip O'Neill 143 1054 .326 .392 .458 1883 1892 25-34
11 Henry Larkin 141 1184 .303 .380 .440 1884 1893 24-33
12 Denny Lyons 139 1121 .310 .407 .443 1885 1897 19-31
13 Al Rosen 137 1044 .285 .384 .495 1947 1956 23-32
14 Jim Gentile 136 936 .260 .368 .486 1957 1966 23-32
15 John McGraw 135 1099 .334 .466 .410 1891 1906 18-33
16 Oyster Burns 134 1187 .300 .368 .446 1884 1895 19-30
17 John Kruk 133 1200 .300 .397 .446 1986 1995 25-34
18 Fred Dunlap 133 965 .292 .340 .406 1880 1891 21-32
19 Bob Nieman 132 1113 .295 .373 .474 1951 1962 24-35
20 Roy Cullenbine 132 1181 .276 .408 .432 1938 1947 24
someone mentioned George Stone, he's on there.
you have to get to 55 to find Zeke Bonura's name and he's a 1b- he shouldn't sniff the list even if he really was a good defensive 1B
1Bs, 1934-40, 1000+ PAs:
Cnt Player OPS+ PA From To+----+-----------------+----+-----+----+----+
1 Lou Gehrig 175 3503 1934 1939
2 Johnny Mize 173 3035 1936 1940
3 Jimmie Foxx 166 4533 1934 1940
4 Hank Greenberg 166 4088 1934 1940
5 Dolph Camilli 136 4369 1934 1940
6 Hal Trosky 136 4451 1934 1940
7 Ripper Collins 132 2694 1934 1938
8 Bill Terry 128 1589 1934 1936
9 Frank McCormick 125 2138 1934 1940
10 Zeke Bonura 121 4026 1934 1940
There were 16 team back then, if his Dee was as bad as is reputed, the n he was clearly a below average ball player.
I used to play city-league softball with a guy who went in completely the opposite direction: if you touched the ball and didn't get an out, it was going to be an error. So we got bizarro situations like:
.....Right fielder lays out for a foul liner, which ticks off the end of his glove: ERROR
.....SS takes a terrible hop, right off the face: ERROR
.....LF slips on the grass, falls down, throws himself backwards to try & catch it, but can't hold on: ERROR
What all of this was really about was, the pitcher was also the team stats guy.
That's right: tracking his ERA. In city-league softball, on pretty bad fields.
Man, I'm glad I don't play with those guys anymore.
/OT rant
A good player he missed was Whitey Kurowski (although my article got cut off midway through the first third baseman on the list, so maybe he is there....)
To be fair, a big part of why Jaha spent a lot of time DHing was because of his consistently poor health. That's not to say he was a good fielder, but just that he didn't play DH only because he was a bad fielder.
He was brought back to San Francisco last weekend with a boatload of other Giants from their 1989 NL penant-winning club. I saw him interviewed alongside Will Clark. What struck me from that interview, as well as from times I heard him interviewed when he was a player, was the dichotomy between his youthful reputation (probably deserved) as a dope who made a lot of poor decisions and the smart, articulate, likeable guy in interviews. My guess is that he was just immature in his 20s and, alas, didn't get the most out of his talent because of it. All of his teammates (who I have heard speak of him) really liked Kevin. And now that he's older, he appears to be a very decent guy. I would bet he'd make a great hitting instructor or bare-handed outfield coach.
I don't want to pick on the guy too much, because he did a lot of work, and has a decent writing style, but this list was ridiculous, I'm a little hard headed in that I consider modern baseball to be 1920 and later and everything before that was the game ramping itself up to figure out how best to play this game. but even accepting a definition of modern baseball as when they moved the mounds back, I still can't see how you can claim Lange to be on par with either of those guys or a handful of dozens of others.
Haven't we discussed other articles by this Bleacher Report guy that have the same flaws? Interesting topics, but overly confident and - again - his actual technique (research) is obviously lacking.
I could see putting him ahead of Lankford on peak/prime. Lankford from '94-'00 is probably a bit behind Lange's 7-year career value if you don't timeline at all, thanks to defense and baserunning (assuming Lange's rep is accurate). Of course, Lankford has some very good years outside of that span, but if you don't care about those at all... it's still pretty close. The conclusion that Lange was a superstar of the first order, though, is pretty impossible to reach. He was Andy Van Slyke, or Amos Otis, or someone like that. He wasn't Jim Edmonds or Jimmy Wynn or Larry Doby, and he wasn't even in the same zip code as the first tier center fielders.
Never been able to figure out why he disappeared from the majors so quickly.
He'll throw in some vague "most historians say" to justify some, but it appears to me he came up with some kind of formula and trusts it a tad too much.
Never been able to figure out why he disappeared from the majors so quickly.
Good call. That one's always been a mystery to me; I have to assume he got hurt.
Possibly because the scorer is required by rule to always give the batter the benefit of the doubt.
I think it's pretty clear that he's quite intelligent, and was always a decent guy, but kind of a space cadet, and extremely undisciplined when he was young. He came from a really tough slum environment, which no doubt did him plenty of harm.
Say what?
You're related to Andy Van Slyke of the the Clark Mills Van Slykes? One of Oneida County's most famous athletes?
From the rule book:
Rule 10.05(a) Comment: In applying Rule 10.05(a), the official scorer shall always give the batter the benefit of the doubt.
Rule 10.05 (a) covers when to credit a base hit.
Rule 10.05(a) Comment: In applying Rule 10.05(a), the official scorer shall always give the batter the benefit of the doubt.
Rule 10.05 (a) covers when to credit a base hit.
Jeebus. What in the world is the purpose of that?
I didn't know it either, but I don't see how it changes much. It just means today's scorekeepers have a lower doubt threshold than previous iterations did.
Agreed. It can't be proven, of course, but I'm positive that the normative standard of what's considered a fielding error has changed over the 40+ years I've been watching, in the direction of more bias toward hits.
Other good ideas might have been:
Gene Alley
Tony Bernazard
Tim Teufel
Every time I go to an MLB game, I see at least one play scored a hit, that would've been an "error" on my old softball team.
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