Thursday, May 16, 2013
SBnation: Brisbee: Jim Leyland Holds Court on the Shift
(www.baseballnation.com)
I’m seeing double here, four Leylands.
Warning article contains some salty, grizzled NSFW-ish real talk.
I’m seeing double here, four Leylands.
Warning article contains some salty, grizzled NSFW-ish real talk.
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1. Ulysses S. Fairsmith posted on March 05, 2013 at 06:59 AM # hit 0 | hit 0Ron is one of the few baseball cards that I remember being legitimately excited to open.
Its pretty hard to argue with that. He didn't play any organized baseball until he got to prison, and didn't make his MiLB debut until age 25, appearing in 32 games at Class A Clinton in 1973. The next year, over two levels he hit .331/.391/.443 with a 41/79 BB/K ratio and went 45/5 on the bases, then got called up to finish the season in Detroit.
He then went on to receive MVP votes in four of five years beginning in 1976, hitting .300/.359/.416 and averaging 105 runs and 68 SB. Hard to imagine what kind of Cobb-esque numbers he'd have put up with a remotely typical childhood.
I distinctly remember it being a bit racy (for an elementary school library), but pointedly not telling anyone so as to avoid seeing it removed from the library.
And I remember watching the Ron LeFlore Story, a CBS movie of the week, back in 1978. My favorite part was during a prison ballgame, when LeFlore launched a drive over the prison wall, and a fellow inmate screeched, "I'll go get it."
My 11-year-old self thought that was the funniest thing ever, and, to this day, I routinely repeat that phrase in my best bit actor playing a Michigan inmate voice whenever I volunteer to retrieve an object. I doubt anyone has ever known why the hell I do it.
They made a TV movie about LeFlore, iirc.
He is in a sweet spot of not being good enough for people under 40 to know who he is - but good enough, and with a sufficient backstory - to be worth finding out about it. Just oh so crappy that thiis is the way it happens...
There was a picture in the book of LeFlore watering a plant at Tiger Stadium. A tomato plant sprouted up on the warning track in center field, so LeFlore took care of it. I always got a kick out of that.
Not a sentence one wants to read around mealtime.
Or anytime else, really.
Well, there's an awful lot of fat bastard5 in this country, so making it a point to read the sentence before every meal might
actually extend some lives?
Great big ditto to this entire post, except I was 12 in 1978. "I'll go get it." Still cracks me up.
and take a really, really big lead?
Why not? Is it in the rulebook? Where?
the actor that played Billy Martin was turrible
LeFlore basically missed the first quarter and the last quarter of his career. He only played nine years, and was really a regular in just seven of them (1975-81). If he had played, say, 16 years like Larry Bowa did (Bowa is just behind LeFlore in the Elo ratings), LeFlore would be in the neighborhood of 2,400 hits and maybe 800 stolen bases. Toss in a ring or two, and that's a genuine HOF candidate.
Its pretty hard to argue with that. He didn't play any organized baseball until he got to prison, and didn't make his MiLB debut until age 25, appearing in 32 games at Class A Clinton in 1973. The next year, over two levels he hit .331/.391/.443 with a 41/79 BB/K ratio and went 45/5 on the bases, then got called up to finish the season in Detroit.
Wow. I didn't know this. I was 7 in 1978 and so I saw him play. And I remember the movie, though don't remember seeing it but can't imagine I would have skipped it. In any case, I always assumed he'd grown up playing ball and was on a MLB track when he got arrested and that it was admirable he was able to comeback after prison.
But, geez, to not have been on that track at all and still have the career he had? Amazing.
I think I'll start telling kids who ask how to be ballplayers to commit crime.
Fully one-third of the AL starters in the bicentennial year All-Star Game at the Vet were Tigers -- Leflore, The Bird, and Rusty Staub.
Leflore had a nice quick opposite-field stroke and, obviously, blazing speed.
I'm actually in that movie. When Levar Burton looks up into the stands at Comiskey and sees the poster that says "drop dead Leflore" it's me and my drunken pals holding up the sign. Almost as memorable as my appearance in Code of Silence as "man on bench".
He wouldn't have a leg to stand on, anymore than if he left his shoe on first base.
I'll see you and raise you: my wife and I are in a crowd scene shot at Tiger Stadium for the movie "61*". (I was also an extra in the upcoming "The Wolf of Wall Street". Got to shake Martin Scorsese's hand. Bliss!)
What a hypochondriatic wimp.
As I've noted before, the backy of my house & yard appear in Big Fish as part of the scenery during a ballgame scene filmed at the junior high field next to me. Can't remember offhand whether it was baseball or football.
Outlines the continuing wussification of the modern player. Pete Gray had his arm eaten by wolves and went on to not only finish the game, but to play the second half of the doubleheader. Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown was actually known as Mordecai "Five Finger" Brown until a badger attack in the clubhouse prior to one of his starts, and he went on to shut down the Beaneaters 1-0 that day.
Well, they did make up the part in which LeVar Burton is in any way believable as an athlete.
Man, I had thought Anthony Perkins was bad.
In the first game of a doubleheader, Babe Ruth ran into an outfield wall & was unconscious for five minutes.
He stayed in the game, doubled and walked, and played the full second game.
As Linda Loman said, attention must be paid. This joke is not to be allowed to fall into a grave like an old dog.
I'm on screen for about three seconds during the stadium scene of The Dark Knight Rises. Look for the surprised fat guy with shades in the second row.
I dunno, it seems like it would cause a no-win situation for the umps. If they call him safe, they never hear the end of it from the opposing manager. And if they call him out, LeFlore is hopping mad.
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