Sunday, May 19, 2013
Cafardo: Dustin Pedroia the best second baseman in MLB?
(www.bostonglobe.com)
Sweet spectroscopy! The argument is rolled out again!
Read More...It’s not surprising to hear what two scouts from each league, who both have watched a lot of the American League this year, say about Dustin Pedroia.
“Nobody is playing his position better in baseball right now than Pedroia,” said the AL scout. “He’s playing out of his mind. The plays he’s making — you just don’t see that stuff every day, but you see it with him every day. Honestly, I’m surprised he doesn’t get hurt ...
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1 2 >A much better ballplayer than I realized. He led the AL in hits three times, drew three times as many walks as he struck out, and had a lifetime OBP in the 390s. He also missed three full seasons due to military service. Really a very fine player, perhaps a borderline HOFer.
In 1999 my father and I attended the Futures Game (think it was the first one). Anyway, Fenway was probably 2/3rds empty and about midway through the game two older gentlemen sat down behind us. My father and I immediately recognized Pesky and the other gentleman turned out to be Ray Boone. Pesky and Boone chatted with us for about half an hour about the specific game and baseball in general, it was an incredible conversation.
Pesky finally stood up to leave and after he walked away Boone pointed to him and said "there goes everything that is right about this game."
I don't think anything I can say epitomizes Pesky better than that comment from Ray Boone.
what exactly is the complaint here? This site is pretty much dedicate to evaluating players and especially their chances at the HoF. Maybe not everybody's biggest interest, but it's certainly a main part of BTF.
cards fans have the same sort of good feelings about red schoendienst. stan is the man, but red is typical of the cardinal coaching staff lifers.
People get obnoxious in these "so-and-so just passed away" threads. Post 7 by Scott Ross is a representative example.
Yes -- telling stories, reminiscing about, and paying tribute to 92-year-old men who've lived admirable lives that have reached an end.
What a silly folkway.
Maybe they can put "Not a Deserving Hall of Famer" on his tombstone.
See, Sunday silence?
Earth to SugarBear: A BTF thread is not a tombstone; it is a discussion forum on the internet.
The medium begets asshattery.
Film at 11.
That sounds.... odd.
That sounds.... odd.
A plaque then? That's kind of traditional but doesn't fully recognize how unique it is for a MLB player to get naming rights for a feature of his home ballpark.
I find this statement somewhat true and think that it is a needless, sad, restrictive, and boring way to predominantly discuss baseball. Especially when many, if not most, HOF discussions eventually boil themselves down from the actual player(s) and the actual sport into analyses of the HOF voters and voting, a topic which people give so much weight that it seems like a big field of baseball research rather than the small frivolous diversion it should be. The people who give a lot of serious analysis to voting behavior for the awards and the HOF should be on the BBWAA payroll for how much they are inflating the BBWAA's prestige and power. That these same people obliviously often are critical of and condescending toward the BBWAA in their next breath is almost humorous.
You realize we're talking about baseball here, right? Everything we're doing here is more or less a small, frivolous diversion, and I say that as someone who does more than a reasonable amount of baseball analysis just for fun.
Sure, but such a big percentage ends up once-removed once we're talking about Joe Blow sportswriter and his voting tendencies - which happens so often. But yes, my post #29 was intentionally a little over-the-top.
Complaining about political threads is one thing, but complaining about the HOF being discussed at a baseball site is beyond bizarre. Where is Phil Gramm to speak the truth about us being a nation of whiners when you need him?
This makes me think I'm on the right track.
I wasn't complaining about it being discussed, but that it has to be the framework for such a high percentage of discussions. It is needlessly limiting.
(Forget) that. People talk about military credit as if only players were effected by WWII. What about teams? Did the Red Sox (we're on the subject of Pesky here, so I'm bringing them up) lose a possible pennant to the war?
I grew up an Angels fan, thanks to my Dad, before I moved to San Diego and transferred my allegiance to perpetual Padres mediocrity. At any rate, sometimes someone gets associated with a franchise just by coaching for them forever. Even though Jimmie Reese never played for the Angels, he coached for them until he was about 90 or so and was the legendary King at hitting fungoes. He had tremendous bat control - he could hit any number of balls just beyond the reach of infielders or outfielders to get them to really work at stretching their range. Of course, when asked why he couldn't do that as a player, Jimmie would say doing that with a fungo bat and tossing the ball up to yourself is easy. Doing it with a round bat against a pitcher throwing 90 mph - not so much.
He was in pro baseball in some capacity for almost 70 years, and I always thought he should have written a book about all his years in the game. I even thought he had a ready-made title for it - "I Roomed with Babe Ruth's Suitcase". This from the tale he used to tell of his time with the Yankees in the early '30s. He was just a utility player and his main function, to hear him tell it, was to be Babe Ruth's roomie at the hotel on road trips. When asked what it was like to room with the Babe, Jimmie would just say "I can't really tell you anything about that. Mostly I just roomed with Babe's suitcase 'cause he was never there."
I'm sure Pesky could have had a ton of tall tales to tell as well; wish I could have been there to hear some of them.
Johnny Pesky may not have been HOF-good as a player; I have no problem with someone stating that here. Sometimes we focus so much on who's a HOFer or not that we forget just how good these guys are (or were). A team full of Johnny Peskys would have been a pretty good team indeed.
He will be missed, particularly in RS Nation.
Well, they were all conditioned athletes. Also, I have no idea is this is a coincidence, but they were all guys with reputations of being incredibly nice people.
Well, it's probably relevant in that nobody killed them.
Look, "I never saw him play". Or speak. Or anything. My primary reference to Pesky is his BB-Ref page. And yes, my favorite topic is the Hall of Fame. Johnny Pesky is better than some players in the Hall. This puts him in the Grey Area and renders him worthy of discussion as regards the Hall.
A fine man died. He lived an enviable life, by all accounts. He was not a HOF-caliber player and no disrespect is intended in that opinion; less than 2% of players make the Hall.
I think that the occasion of a fine player's death is a natural time to discuss his case for the Hall.
I have had Pesky on my Hall of Merit ballots. He was 9th on my 2012 ballot. That puts me somewhat at odds with the consensus of the HoM electorate, who had Rizzuto 4th (Rizzuto was not in my top 15), and Pesky 22nd. DanG last voted for the HoM on the 2008 ballot. At that time, he had neither Rizzuto nor Pesky among his top 15 but did have Aparico 10th and Maranville 12th.
Among shortstops active in the 40's, the obvious top choice is Arky Vauhgan, with a big gap after him. The next one in line is probably PeeWee Reese, and we have elected Reese to the HoM. So Rizzuto, Pesky, and a few others such as Vern Stephens, are the next place the argument goes.
Such reasonable disagreements are the defining characteristic of the gray area.
I'm probably not as obsessed about the HoF as some, but if any game can be said to be enhanced by statistical analysis it is baseball. Amazingly, every time I see myself doubting the value of stuff like pythagorean wins, or BABIP or something another logical argument comes up forcing me to face the inevitable mathematics of it..
Well, they were all conditioned athletes. Also, I have no idea is this is a coincidence, but they were all guys with reputations of being incredibly nice people.
You got that right. About a year ago my dad bumped into Bobby Doerr's grandson and mentioned that Doerr was his favourite player growing up. Well about 2 weeks after that, this person calls up my dad and says they have something for him. Well they finally meet again and he hands my dad an autographed ball and photo of Doerr from his playing days. That ball today is now in my possession and sits with pride on my mantle piece in the family room of my house in Sydney.
Ah yes, the immediate defense of someone being an insensitive jerk. I held my tongue last night because I wanted to let this thread be an homage to Pesky but your comment last night was incredibly rude. Just because you have a right to say whatever you want about someone who just died doesn't mean it's appropriate. A little consideration for the fans and people who cared about this man and allowing a place to discuss him and honor him isn't unreasonable.
As for the occasion of a player's death being the time to discuss his Hall case, that's equally silly. The time to do that is when the player is on the ballot. That you feel this is the relevant thing to discuss about Johnny Pesky displays a spectacular lack of understanding about Johnny and a terribly narrow point of view about baseball.
Read my stories in #11&12;, see Nate's photo in #3 or read any of what is sure to be an outpouring of love for the man by fans, media and players today in Boston. You are missing out. This was a genuinely good person who positively touched the lives of so many people. Whether or not Johnny Pesky was a Hall of Fame baseball player is incredibly irrelevant to who he was. You will respond to this by saying this is a baseball site but this is true of his life in baseball. His tireless work with players like Rico Petrocelli, Wade Boggs and Nomar Garciaparra (to name a few) mpacted the game for half a century. If you watch the 2004 WS ring ceremony at Fenway you will see a man beloved by everyone around him.
That is his legacy. That he may or may not have been a Hall of Fame player is meaningless for the Hall of Fame person he was.
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