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Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Daily Commercial: Jolley: Rickey beats Joe?
Man Without a Badge: Intrigue to follow!
So Rickey Henderson was better than Joe DiMaggio?
That’s the conclusion I drew from Monday’s Hall of Fame voting, when Henderson became the 44th player in baseball history to be voted into the game’s most exclusive club in his first year of eligibility.
I have no problem with Henderson getting into the Hall. He was the best leadoff hitter in history, but was he better than the “Yankee Clipper?”
DiMaggio, arguably one of the top five or 10 players in history, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1955—his third year of eligibility. I guess a .325 career batting average, 361 home runs and only 369 strikeouts weren’t impressive enough. Neither was his nearly flawless defense (a .978 fielding percentage), despite playing the toughest position in the outfield (center field) and playing half his games in the original Yankee Stadium—one of the most spacious outfields in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.
...The BBWAA’s original vision of the HoF as an exclusive club has taken a beating over the years, primarily because of voting scribes. The line between being “very good” and Hall-of-Fame caliber has become blurred.
Billy Williams, a standout with the Chicago Cubs and Oakland Athletics, was inducted in 1987 after hitting .290 and blasting 426 homers over an 18-year career that ended in 1976. Solid numbers, but they pale in comparison to Hornsby.
Repoz
Posted: January 14, 2009 at 09:51 AM | 229 comment(s)
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Isn't the answer yes? Followed by "by a lot?" I'm honestly asking...
But hey, was Rickey better than Joe? Peak, almost certainly not. Career, almost certainly yes. Next question :)
In the article, he admits that the voting process has changed (5 yr waiting rule, annaul voting), hence the reason Joe D (and Cy Young and R Hornsby) weren't elected in the first year eligible. Of course that didn't stop him from making the dumb comparison and saying that Rickey's higher vote % makes him conclude the writers believe Rickey was better!
And he wants a hall of about 50 players apparently (only the greatest of all time), so he is upset that dregs like Billy Williams are in. But then he's also upset that Willie Mays was not unanimous, so apparently the line bewteen clearly in and clearly out is so obvious that it shoud be clear to everyone.
And then, he tops it all off by saying Joltin Joe was top 10 in MLB history; I'd like to know who else is in his top 10. There must be no room for a few outfieders named Mays Ruth Mantle Cobb Aaron Musial Williams I suppose.
"The writers who show little respect for the sanctity of the Hall" who violate "The BBWAA's original vision of the HoF as an exclusive club" over the years are his bane (by voting for Rice, Raines, Dawson, Blyleven), even though it's the Vet Committee who has done 90% of the damage.
But at least he called for ballotting to be made public. So I'll give him an F+.
I was wondering for the briefest of moments what metric you had that caused you to lump Billy Williams in with those other guys. :)
Was Henderson better than DiMaggio? I'll leave that to the smarter people here to figure out. But, I'll answer that question with another.
Does it really matter? And if it does, why?
AO
And why do people insist on drinking Budweiser or Coors Lite when they are so obviously terrible beers?
almostcertainly not. Career,almostcertainly yes.Fixed it for you.
One of Rickey's biggest assets was his batting eye. One of the biggest complaints about Dimaggio here on BTF is that he didn't walk enough.
But the results? OBP: Henderson .401, Dimaggio .398. Maybe that's because Dimaggio's BA was .325 compared to the Rickey's .279.
And slugging average? Henderson .419, Dimaggio .579
It's going to take a lot more than stolen bases to close that gap.
Henderson's not only an inner circle HoFer, he's the greatest leadoff man in history, a truly unique combination of talents. But the only areas he beats Dimaggio in are walks and stolen bases. That isn't enough to make up for the huge gaps in power and batting average. And Dimaggio was far the superior fielder.
For a career, of course you'd want Henderson, since while Dimaggio's peak was much higher, he only played 13 years. But a "better player"? Don't be ridiculous.
Does it really matter? And if it does, why?
It matters only to the extent that idiots like me often feel compelled to set the record straight when someone comes out and says something totally ahistorical. I should probably not do this, but then that's the BTF Syndrome for you.
It's really hard to enjoy a quality Trappist Ale on the back of a riding mower?
And slugging average? Henderson .419, Dimaggio .579
It's going to take a lot more than stolen bases to close that gap.
I don't disagree that Dimaggio probably had a better peak, but you have to take into account context as well. Runs were harder to come by during Rickey's peak than during Dimaggio's peak.
True, but you can always just get a Sam Adams or a Sierra Nevada these days at your corner store. C'mon people!
You sure about that Andy? In his peak season, Henderson put together a line of .325 .439 .577 (188 OPS+) with a 65/10 on the bases. Dimaggio's best was probably .381 .448 .671 (184 OPS+). Henderson also has a bunch of years in the 140s and 150s, with equally big SB values - Rickey's peak is a lot better than people often remember.
Henderson's case for the Hall doesn't have anything to do with DiMaggio's. And if members of the BBWAA screwed up when voting on DiMaggio, that doesn't obligate them to screw up every vote after that, henceforth and forever.
It's called learning from your mistakes. Give it a try some time.
Why ask why?
(Try Bud Dry.)
This column is a mess.
They had their first one when they were too young to know any better, and have never sobered up in the intervening period, thus denying themselves the good judgment needed to select a beer that doesn't taste like goat's piss?
At his very best (top 2-3 seasons), Henderson was about as good as Dimaggio, but Dimaggio had more seasons at that level. The wildcard is Dimaggio's defense -- obviously it was great, but it's hard to figure out how much it was actually worth in a comparison like this.
Hey, what can I say? The bar was out of everything but Coors Light, so it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The question is, was the goat's piss on tap or did you drink it straight from the, um, "bottle".
Check and double check.
Indeed!
A serious answer though? People drink crappy beers for some combination of the following;
1. Habit. "It's what I've been drinkin' since I was 17!"
2. Price. "$8.99/case? Sign me up!"
3. Tradition. "If Bud was good enough for my daddy..."
4. Ignorance and/or stupidity. "Durrrr."
5. Availability. "This gas station is apparently out of Orval."
6. Packaging. "No bottles permitted on boat."
7. Advertising. "If you drink this beer, hot chicks will come have sex in your yard!"
8. They actually like it. "..."
Hey now, at least goat's piss has some flavor.
1) They pull into a convenience store desperately thirsty. The convenience store doesn't carry a selection of Rogue Ales or even a bottle or two of Shepherd Neame's Bishop's Finger. Their choices are Bud Light, Miller Lite, Natural Light, Busch Light, and Coors Light. A man must drink.
2) They pull into a slightly better-stocked liquor store slightly less thirsty. This one has Genesee Cream Ale and Rolling Rock and Yuengling in addition to Bud Light, Miller Lite, Natural Light, Busch Light, and Coors Light, and there are even two six-packs of Sam Adams and a few of Heineken. But ... but ... what if I go for one of those odd-looking brands? Will he think less of me? Will he want to go out with me again? Suppose Yuengling is even worse than Coors Light. Surely they could come up with a name I could pronounce if they wanted to sell the damn stuff. If I grab the European beer, does that mean I am a surrender monkey? That Sam Adams looks a bit brown, and the long-haired guy on the label looks unlike someone you would desire to meet in a restroom. Hey, we got Coors Light at the convenience store the other night, didn't we? And did we live?
Edit :-D Well done, Good Face. Quicker and more to the point :)
DiMag was probably one of the 10-15 best defensive CFers ever through his prime. Rickey was a fine "range" CF with a poor arm. Not real close.
On the Q of better career, I'd take DiMag if I give him war credit.
We should e-mail this thread to the Yankee broadcast team. One of Waldman/Kay/Sterling would drop dead of a stroke if they knew we were actually debating the relative worth of Dimaggio vs. Rickey! It's an opportunity we shouldn't let pass through our fingers.
Joe had a much better arm (21 more assists in about 1100 fewer games) and patrolled a far bigger territory in the original Yankee Stadium. Their range factors were virtually identical, and if you can believe all of his contemporaries, Dimaggio's instincts were unmatched. So it's not hard to conclude that at the very least, Dimaggio's fielding added far more value to his team than Rickey's.
Ok. Ricky is Ommegang's Three Philosophers. Dark and chocolatey, but with sweet undertones, and overexposure to it will make you loopy pretty quickly. Also, what was Ricky if not an amateur philosopher?
DiMaggio is Stone's Ruination IPA. Lighter in color, hailing from the west coast, and astonishingly bitter, but still loved by fans.
I don't know that you can claim both of these as being in favor of Dimaggio. I can't prove it, but I have a feeling that a larger territory causes more balls to fall in, and more runners to try to stretch, giving the fielder more assists.
Now, I grant that DiMaggio was a better fielder than Henderson, but I don't know that those two points strengthen the case, when put side by side.
Yes.
DiMaggio, arguably one of the top five or 10 players in history
No.
Rickey Henderson - prompts a BBTF thread debating how he compares to Joe DiMaggio
Jim Rice- prompts a BBTF thread debating how he compares to Brian Downing
Fixed that for you.
As an aside, I'm going to miss all the "Jim Rice was worse than this non-candidate" threads. It was always interesting to learn exactly who he was worse than, and by just how much.
I don't know that you can claim both of these as being in favor of Dimaggio. I can't prove it, but I have a feeling that a larger territory causes more balls to fall in, and more runners to try to stretch, giving the fielder more assists.
Now, I grant that DiMaggio was a better fielder than Henderson, but I don't know that those two points strengthen the case, when put side by side.
That's a point to consider, but (a) Dimaggio played a relative shallow CF, and (b) Henderson had a flat out mediocre arm at best. In his years in centerfield for the Yankees, he had a total of 11 assists in 321 games, and in 1988 he was moved over to LF in favor of Claudell Washington. That alone should tell you a bit about Henderson's overall outfielding talent. It wasn't much to write home about.
This year's Hall of Fame inductees:
Rickey Henderson - prompts a BBTF thread debating how he compares to Joe DiMaggio
Jim Rice- prompts a BBTF thread debating how he compares to Brian Downing
Ryan Jones Posted: January 14, 2009 at 12:33 PM (#3051711)
Rickey Henderson - prompts a BBTF thread debating how he favorably compares to Joe DiMaggio
Jim Rice- prompts a BBTF thread debating how he unfavorably compares to Brian Downing
double primey for the best comments of the year
and as for beer, it all smells like cat piss to me
and i hate cats
- but just out of curiousity (yeh, i know) any of all yall beer drinkin boys have that experience that you are sitting with a couple of your dork geek buddies in yo mamma basement and suddednly the swedish bikini team dropped in and suddenly things got a whole lot interesting (especially when they said WARP and VORP)
Until Rickey! beats the snot out of Scarlett Johansen, I'll stick with Rickey!
The co-deans are Dave Anderson of the NY Times (retired) and Sy Siwoff of Elias, both of whom joined the BBWAA in 1952. Since the next current member only goes back to 1959, those two are the only ones who were around for the Dimaggio votes. And I'm not sure if the Times allowed employees to vote even back then, and Siwoff probably just voted for himself.
Not exactly, but I was sitting in a bar in Switzerland once drinking a Klosterbräu when Tim Berners-Lee stopped by, said, "I like your choice in beer," and praised me for mastering Cascading Style Sheets on my blogs.
This reminds me of a letter in an old issue of National Lampoon. This may not be quoted exactly, but it's close:
Dear Sirs,
Please tell Arthur Miller to quit masterbating on my grave, or Joe is going to kick his @ss.
Sincerely,
Marilyn Monroe
Comparing OF assists is difficult at best. Poor arms like Rickey get a lot of assists since everyone and their dog runs on it. Great arms (don't know if this applies to JoeD) sometimes have low assist totals since no one will test them.
More art than science in comparing OF arms, IMO.
What do you think are the relative sales figures of Bud Light, Coors Light, and Shepherd Neame's Bishop's Finger? What do you think that says about which beer is actually preferred by the overwhelming majority of people?
(Disclaimer: personally, I think all beer tastes identically foul, but at least I'm not insisting that my personal tastes are the only possible choice for everyone in the world)
I'd say that those sales figures have a lot more to do with availability and affordability and ignorance(how many people have even heard of epherd Neame's Bishop's Finger? I hadn't before this thread) than they do with preference.
The Yankee Clipper was Spider-Man?
It says that most people drink what their parents drink, which is largely from the massive brewers who were able to survive prohibition without tearing apart or selling off their facilities. It's only been in the last 20 years or so that microbreweries have started returning to prominence, and signing decent national distribution deals, and people have had a greatly increased choice. In that time, the market shares of the major brewers has actually been decreasing.
Naw, I am 100% correct that Budweiser and Coors Lite are awful and I'm usually reticent about making black and white statements like this. Bud and Coors are only popular because of advertising and distribution. If thinking Bud and Coors are awful makes me a snob, so be it. That makes the threshhold for being a snob pretty low.
Ryan is exactly right in #60. It's why the big breweries are trying to market specialty beers now.
Sure, it's not a Belgian Style Quadrupel Ale with 15% alcohol and tons of character. But beers need to be compared within their style. Comparing Budweiser to Genessee Cream (Cream Ale & not my favorite of that type) or Samuel Adams (a Vienna Lager & honestly not my favorite because of soapy notes) fails to recognize that different beers serve different purposes. I understand that many are missing out by never drinking a Chimay or a Rogue Chocolate Stout or a Duvel or whatever. That doesn't mean that Budweiser is a bad beer, though.
Now Light beer, it sucks.
The archaic and bizarre liquor distribution laws are fairly protectionist for the existing big market beers.
I drink plenty of cheap beer. Belgian beer is just an occasional for me. The deli on the corner is stocking Leffe now which is cool, though.
I'd agree with Randy and Ryan Jones. Part of "preference" is cost, of course, and standard products marketed in huge distribution networks have an advantage there. Part of the mix is simply that the big suppliers muscle out the smaller ones, especially in highly standardized niches like beer and soft drinks. Marketing creates demand as much as it answers demand.
Well, I was just using that as an example because it has a funny name. Swap in, say, Stella Artois if you like. Lots of advertising, fairly available. But it's not outselling Coors, and I believe that's because most people in the US prefer the taste of Coors. Sure, that's weird and indefensible, but it is what it is. Most people don't go into a 7/11 and look to see if there are Stellas; they just grab the beer they like and go.
Do you know if the BBWAA had the ten-year membership rule for HOF voting back then, because if they did then nobody voting today ever had a chance to vote for Joe D. I enjoy calling them a bunch of maroons as much as the next guy, but the point is that it's two whole different bunches of maroons in these cases.
Useless trivia department: Anderson shares a birthday with Willie Mays, and is only two years older.
Incidentally,Stella Artois, in Ireland or the UK, has much the same reputation among beer-lovers that Coors Light has here. It may not be quite the same stuff that they make in Belgium, though. Some lagers have separate British versions which are fairly ghastly.
Did he get her all sticky?
My brother and I once whipped up a small batch of something we dubbed "goat scrotum ale." Although no actual goats suffered in any way from the production of said brew, I'm pretty sure it tasted foul in a way not identical to anything else you've ever had the pleasure of sampling.
It's a little different in that in the UK, Stella is often regarded as a beer consumed by chavs and violent louts, but the beer itself isn't considered particularly bad. Stella is a bit higher in alcohol than comparable lagers and it definitely seems to hit mission control pretty hard if you throw them down quickly... moreso than your run of the mill pint.
Nothing except the recent Yankees' downfall really disillusions me, but the first time I ever tasted that stale piss known as Coors came pretty close. This was back before it had national distribution, and when Colorado congressmen were flying it back to Washington to get themselves laid on a slightly higher talent level than before.
Anyway, I was out in Berkeley and tried it. Bleeecccchhhh. Then a second time. Then once more back home after it'd become available on the East Coast.
What the f*ck was THIS about? Are they using imported Los Angeles tap water? Worst. Beer. Ever.
Stick with any beer or ale in a green bottle. You can't go too wrong with that. But in a pinch, anything but Coors.
To completely switch sides: I know! It's so weird to watch, say, Smokey and the Bandit where they're going to a terrific amount of effort to get a lot of Coors to a party. Really? You guys are that desperate for Coors?
he wrote about her in his blog?
I knew a fellow in college who drank Schafer because it was the last beer to have those ringed poptops that come off the can - his fingers were too fat to get under the modern ones. Eventually he gave up and started drinking quarts of malt liquor. A much better value for the cash-strapped buzz seeker.
I don't understand how Peroni suddenly got popular, it's all over Nationals Park for some reason. Stella Artois is just a little more refined version of Heinie-ken. Those beers need to have skunk stripes on the label as should Corona.
I'm a beer snob, but if I have to drink a mass-market beer, I'll happily settle on Bud - I'm not going to pretend that it's stellar, but there's a lot worse out there than a Bud.
To each their own!
Just for fun--not to offend you--I googled Why Budweiser Sucks and it came back with 220,000 hits. I dislike Budweiser, but some folks out there really, really don't like Budweiser and have taken time out of their lives to let the intertubes know why. Damn.
Does Rolling Rock have alchohol in it?
I used to go to a bar where they sold them for a buck a piece. I never came close to getting a buzz. With that said, it wasn't bad. Of course, I can drink any beer.
I have plenty of respect for what the folks at Budweiser do. It's got to be astonishingly difficult to produce a light crisp lager in those quantities with that kind of consistency. But I just don't care for the product. Never did, even back in the day when I was a poor student drinking swill like Pabst Blue Ribbon.
groupthink.
I'd agree with this. I don't actually like Bud, and I would never buy it for my own consumption if given decent alternatives, but it's drinkable if the situation calls for it. It's certainly superior to Miller or Coors.
Beer is served ice cold to stun the tastebuds, thereby concealing the foul taste (or complete lack of taste) of lousy beer. A brilliant marketing scam.
When I've traveled to Cuba or Costa Rica or Belize, I have to admit, the cold beer--and they keep it super cold--tastes so, so very good. I have no idea if it's the beer or the fact I'm about to die of heat stroke, but man, that's some satisfying beer drinking.
You know, I always thought the latter was brewed by the old F.X. Matt's (home of the Brooklyn Brewery COUGH) in Utica, but I guess it was - upon some Wiki-ing - made in Rochester.
It's all about meltability.
I'm disappointed, Beer Think Factory, this is not.
That would be Crest beer - 10% ABV, and dirt cheap. Tastes like it too.
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