Metro West: Buckley: The ‘greatest’ third baseman hails from Framingham

Snork!!....That is almost enough to make Mike Schmidt change his view on cocaine!

Time passed and his career neared its end. Some players who have achieved near-greatest have found that by leaving the limelight of actual participation in the sport they were gradually forgotten. But that was not Traynor’s fate. He continued to be identified by his fans and the sports writers as the game’s greatest third baseman. In 1948, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. In 1969, during baseball’s centennial celebration, he was selected to be a member of the sport’s all time “dream” team.

Despite the fact he never lost his New England accent, Traynor was enthusiastically adopted by the citizens of Pittsburgh as one of their own. And his fans wholeheartedly agreed with the Giants’ John McGraw when he said that Traynor was the greatest team player ever to participate in the major leagues.