Yeah…and I still believe I should be reviewing sizzlin’ punk 45’s for the New York Rocker’s Disques Du’ Mondo column.
“I figure I was the most dominant player through my era,” he said. “I’m not in the Hall of Fame, but all the Hall of Famers know what I brought to the table. My numbers are as good as most Hall of Famers who went in over the last five or six years. I just hope I get in while I’m vertical.”
...The knock on Parker most likely dates to his part in a drug scandal. He testified against a dealer in court and was fined by Major League Baseball for his admitted to using drugs, including cocaine.
“I was a recreational user,” Parker said. “I never had a problem where I needed to be rehabilitated. In that situation, I was the biggest name there. They went after me more so than other players. Everybody knew the same guy. It’s just that I was Dave Parker. It happened. I got over it. I’m glad to see some of the guys who had problems recover from their problems. We went through that cocaine era. I’m glad that it’s done.”
If Parker is to get into the Hall of Fame now, he’ll have to rely on the Veterans Committee to give him another look in the years ahead.
“As time goes by, the less it means to me because I did everything possible,” Parker said. “I played the game the way it should be played. I played hard. I never missed a plane, never missed a game. I don’t know what it is. They talk about baseball being forgiving and society being forgiving. Well, forgive me and let me be where I need to be.”
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If by "through his era," he means 1977-79, then sure.
I usually expect a more sustained peak.
The sun still rises in the east too.
I usually expect a more sustained peak.
Those three years were enough to get Rice in, and Parker was the better player in those years. He was better than Rice in 1978, Rice's calling card year.
(And yes, he deserves it much more than Jim Rice.)
But was he feared? Oh yeah, he was.
Blow.
(And yes, he deserves it much more than Jim Rice.)
Not really. When you look at their careers, Parker's was slightly longer, but Rice beats him in nearly every offensive category other than oWaR, which is solely a function of Parker's three extra years. Parker at one point had a reputation as somewhat of a speedster, but his career SB success rate was .577, which is worse than worthless. And while Parker was a better fielder in his prime, his career defensive numbers are still negative.
Parker's out of the HoF for one reason and one reason alone: His self-inflicted drug habit. Not because it was "performance-enhancing", but because it was exactly the opposite, which anyone who looks at the records can see. The closest parallel to Dave Parker's career isn't Jim Rice, it's more like Sam McDowell or Don Newcombe.
Has a very nice and neat five year peak from 1975-1979 and he was a hell of a player for those five years. He was not the best player in the NL over that span though, that was Schmidt and it wasn't close. Morgan probably was better too due to the sheer awesomeness of 1975-1976.
From 1986-1991 Parker racked up 3568 PAs and according to Baseball Reference -0.3 WAR during that time. He was regarded as having thrown his talent away on drugs before the revival in 1985, I'm not sure that was really fair. Other guys from the cocaine years seemed to play okay, although it's possible Parker's problems were substantially more worse and had a bigger effect.
I have absolutely no recollection of him playing for Milwaukee, Toronto or the Angels at the end of his career. I do remember his time in Oakland though.
Don't feel too bad about that, Voros. Parker may not remember it himself.
Unless, of course, I'm thinking of Don Baylor.
A very good player...not a Hall of Famer.
Parker did getfat in the early 1980s but I wonder if we looked at him today if we would call him that. If you look at the Bucky Dent game, Bill White makes jokes about Bob "Beetle" Bailey being overweight. Maybe in that era of skinny players but not today.
No, the assists were his. (-:
It didn't just get him the MVP, it earned him a defensive reputation for the remainder of his career that his actual performance didn't justify. He could run a little when he was younger and had a strong but terribly erratic arm. He was not a good defensive player, but a polyester-clad Vlad.
Or Andre Dawson, for that matter. There ain't a whole lot to choose from between the Cobra and the Hawk. Of course, the Hawk doesn't belong in the Hall, but he's there and so Parker has a point.
And here's where Jim Rice screws things up for everybody. Why not Dave Parker? Why not Dale Murphy? Why not Cesar Cedeno?
Remind me, when was Dave Parker a Gold Glove center fielder and excellent baserunner?
From 1975-1979 George Foster was also more impressive than Parker, at least offensively.
Andre Dawson was clearly a better all-around player than Parker, but I can't say the same about Jim Rice. Dawson was probably one of the 2 or 3 best all-around players in baseball when he was with Montreal, Rice might have been one of the 2 or 3 best all-around players on the Red Sox, but even that is debatable.
Andre Dawson is a borderline Hall of Fame selection. If he made it fine, if he didn't, that's fine too.
Rice was an outright bad selection. Parker would be equally bad. Rice's selection gives better players such as Murphy and others a crutch. It's really not terribly helpful to Parker's non-case.
Wes should get credit for his brilliant acting career. How many times was Dave on the Brady Bunch? or Matt Helm? or Police Story? Okay, Dave may have portrayed on Police Story.
Because I started following baseball in October of 1986, I remember Parker's time with those teams, but not his time with the Reds or Pirates. (Although in the late 80s I played Tom Tippet's Pursue The Pennant with my brothers and I had the 1985 Reds, of which he was a key part.)
The problem with Parker is that he's all peak. He has five seasons that would fit very nicely into a HOF career... but not nearly enough outside of that. If your argument is mainly all peak, you have to have a Koufaxian one.
According to Francesa, Blyleven wasn't dominant and didn't "feel like a Hall of Famer" when he was playing. Francesa looks for dominance. "For example... Catfish. He was dominant. All of those 20-win seasons. Blyleven had a nice curveball but wasn't dominant. I never thought I was looking at a Hall of Famer. Look at Sandy Koufax. Koufax was the best pitcher ever at his peak. Mussina? No, he's not a Hall of Famer. Neither is Pettitte."
He's also supported Morris in the past. So: Morris and Catfish, but not Blyleven or Mussina. And he's right that Pettitte's not a HOFer, but even Pettitte beats Morris and Catfish.
And Koufax's peak is bested by, for starters, Pedro/Clemens/Johnson/Maddux.
Blyleven's an interesting case. He didn't really feel like a Hall of Famer and didn't feel dominant ... but he was dominant. The shutout and strikeout numbers don't lie.
Morris felt like a Hall of Famer (**) and should be in the Hall of Fame, though admittedly his is a close case with plenty of material for the antis.
Mussina sure felt like a Hall of Famer to me.
Pettitte didn't.
Catfish as "dominant" is preposterous on its face. Wins, while more meaningful in aggregate than sabermetric orthodoxy holds, do not translate to dominance. The guy was top ten in league Ks/9 once in his career. So, yeah ... Francesa.
(**) As chronicled herein, the divergence between his "playing ability" and "playing record" -- explicitly distinct HOF criteria -- and the reasons for it, were noted by contemporaries early in Morris's career. To those most familiar with his oeuvre, 1991 Game 7 didn't enhance as much as it confirmed.
I am sure Parker wishes he had gone to the movies all those nights in the early 1980s instead of doing lines. I don’t have a moral problem here–it has been suggested that half of all major league players were at least casual users, and the percentage in the rest of society (among people with money) was higher than that. I went to many parties in the 1980s where coke was everywhere. There are many coke users in the Hall of Fame, some that we know about (Molitor) and several that we do not. Most of the guys from the 1980s likely at least tried it.
That said, Parker has five years in the middle of his career where he did not help his teams. That is the truth. He recovered a bit in his mid-30s, but at that point he was just a hitter–he had lost all the other tools that made him Dave Parker.
He had a fine career, and I hope that he finds some peace with all the good things he accomplished.
I don't think Mazzilli had the arm for RF.
Although he is indeed all over the map, I think that Francesa's opinions on this probably line up with those of a large number of casual and serious fans.
If you're supposed to be an "expert," you really should understand ERA+ and the problem with wins.
And you don't really even need to understand ERA+. Morris has a 3.90 raw ERA. In a normal era of offense. The concepts are so simple.
SBB: If Morris was coming up big when it counted (let's say a 2.90 ERA), WTF was he doing when he didn't think it counted? Posting ERAs in the 5s? Do you think his team might have liked him to try during other times as well?
Regarding coke use in the early '80s: among affluent young people (which Parker and every other ballplayer certainly was), at least casual use of cocaine was extremely widespread. The only other non-legal recreational drug more pervasive was weed. No one should be the least bit shocked about Parker's or anyone else's indulgence in coke.
That said, it is apparent that Parker's usage was more than casual. That certainly would be consistent with the manner in which he was "managing" his consumption of calories and of tobacco and god only knows what all else, because he became amazingly obese. Somebody upthread wondered if we would think of early 1980s-Parker as fat today, and the answer is, yes, oh yes we would. Baggy modern unis and all, he would look fat as hell today, because he was.
I do think that few if any modern players are as out of shape as Parker was at his worst. Vastly fewer players (or young people in general, for that matter) smoke cigarettes today, for one thing.
"Doing" is too active a verb. Run of the mill games didn't put him in the zone as much as big games.(**) While they obviously impact different people differently, there's no way to simulate the bigger moments.
Do you think his team might have liked him to try during other times as well?
"Try" is too active a verb; see above. I suppose the answer is "yes," but the more precise answer for these purposes is that three organizations knew him warts and all, and all three denominated him their ace, deployed him as an ace, and paid him like an ace.
(**) As indicated by, among other examples, Game 7 1991. In an era before guys regularly pounded their chests, and emitted choreographed screams, and engaged in other simulacra of intensity for the television cameras, Morris looked and acted as if was genuinely possessed. Which, in a sense, he was.
Yep. "Clutch" is just another word for "lazy". Otherwise, he would've pitched like a stud all the time.
Well, not if you're a dude, maybe.
As a Jays fan, his shittacular 1992 post-season completely nullifies 1991 Game 7. How come he couldn't step it up, just one year later?
There's a rarity, we agree on something. :)
Do you realize how hard it is to get so obese while doing so much coke and also smoking? That's a Hall of Fame accomplishment right there.
In boxing some guys seem to completely fall off the cliff after one last epic effort. Ken Norton's 15 round squeaker loss to Larry Holmes in 1978, Tom Sharkey's 25 round torture test against Jim Jeffries in 1899, Ezzard Charles' twin brawls with Rocky Marciano in 1954, etc. They throw everything they have in one last valiant effort and seemingly deplete their reserves forever.
But Morris? He was a bum.
-------------------------------
In boxing some guys seem to completely fall off the cliff after one last epic effort. Ken Norton's 15 round squeaker loss to Larry Holmes in 1978, Tom Sharkey's 25 round torture test against Jim Jeffries in 1899, Ezzard Charles' twin brawls with Rocky Marciano in 1954, etc.
Not to mention Jersey Joe Walcott, who gave Marciano the battle of his life for 13 rounds while defending his championship, and then went down in the 1st round while trying to get it back.
Only a schoolmarm would care about how he performed on, say, October 1, 1983. It's of less moment for these purposes than the chemical composition of Francesca's ball sweat.
Morris pretty clearly ran out of gas in the 1992 postseason, at the end of a heavy-workload career marked by high-caliber work and elan. He wouldn't be "clutch" if he walked out on the mound today, either.
I suspect it was the weight gain more than the drug use that messed up Parker's career. Several players from that era had serious cocaine problems without it becoming evident in their statistical lines - Keith Hernandez, Paul Molitor, Tim Raines, etc.
On the other hand, the coke probably contributed to Parker's obvious lack of concern about his baseball career.
Gibson, 67 and 68
and Burdette 57 and 58
Debateable... I don't see how Pedro gets on this list, his numbers are propped up by him not actually bothering to face batters three or four times a game or pitch complete seasons. For 7 innings 29 times a year I'll take Pedro over probably any pitcher in baseball history, if I need a pitcher for a full season that is going to save my bullpen arms the other guys get my vote.
The other three I can see, especially Clemens in his youth where he was popping out shutouts and complete games. Koufax is really an elite four year period with two all star quality years tacked on roughly. He's about the absolute minimum peak candidate you could ever support and I don't see how a position player with a similar peak is remotely comparable, their impact isn't felt as much. (heck I don't think I could see a post 1985 starting pitcher with a similar peak relative to his peers garnering that much support---Koufax timed it perfectly, great years when pitching was arguably the most important part of the game since the end of the dead ball era)
Don't have them with me, but I have plenty of books from the 70's in which Bert is called dominant, mostly in regards to his curveball.(of course I also have books that actually use the word feared in regards to both Parker and Rice) There are also talk of his disappointing performances sprinkled throughout, indicating to me that he was at least a well thought of talent that underperformed. Of course there are several quotes from batters about how tough he was to hit. The funny thing is I don't think I have ever read someone saying that Morris was tough to hit.
A three-second Google search would have shown someone three results from the top
Disco Dan Ford, 2003:
The toughest pitcher for me to hit was Ron Guidry. Also Jack Morris was hard too. Best pitcher I saw was Jim Hunter.He was always around the plate. Best hitter…there were a few…Rod Carew, Puckett, and you could put Mattingly in there also. Think he should be in the HOF.
I guess Dan Ford was blinded and deluded by teh wins, too.
An honest effort by anti-Morris people would see them finding these things before they go rambling on about stupid #### they have no clue about.
OTOH Koufax's postseason performances leave those four in the dust, even if you adjust for era. And while their ERA's went up in the postseason, Koufax's went down by about 65%:
Regular season / postseason ERA
Koufax 2.76 / 0.95
Pedro 2.93 / 3.46
Maddux 3.16 / 3.27
Johnson 3.29 / 3.50
Clemens 3.12 / 3.75
I have a theory that is probably not true over all, but it seems to be true on select cases(too bad it's not predictive) that a once great player who is declining, at around age 36, has a bounce back year before finally falling off the cliff. There are plenty of examples to back it up, but of course there are plenty of counter examples too. (I'm actually afraid that Berkman may be one of those examples this year.)
It could be following your line of reasoning about putting it all into one valiant effort.
Yes I do think he was blinded by Morris win totals, you are talking about an interview that happened almost 20 years after his last game. If he would have said Dennis Leonard, the guy who owned him and he faced 55 times in his career, I don't think it would have looked so good for him.
and my comment was in reference to books written in 1970's and 1980's. the mystic of Blyleven not being well regarded in his time is revisionistic history that doesn't match the comments written about him at the time. Morris reputation at the time is somewhat what you are talking about in that he found a way to get the win.
Did you actually adjust for era? Give Koufax another 50-150 innings and we'll see if his ERA decrease stays at 65%.
Then we can adjust for league, park, and the DH, and see how he looks.
Then we can have him pitch in playoff games when he's in his late 30s/early 40s, instead of just in his late 20s, and see how he looks.
Sure you did.
the mystic of Blyleven not being well regarded in his time is revisionistic history that doesn't match the comments written about him at the time. Morris reputation at the time is somewhat what you are talking about in that he found a way to get the win.
Speaking for myself, I kept an open mind about it and have been persuaded that Blyleven was better and a more deserving Hall of Famer than Morris -- irrepective of their contemporary reputations.
Morris's contemporary reputation was that he was one of the best pitchers in baseball, as amply demonstrated and catalogued in a myriad of methods, from a multiplicity of sources. It manifestly was not someone who merely "found a way to get a win."(**) I've never talked about it as that, and it was not that in fact.
(**) Though he did, in fact, win more games than his peers.
If you think I didn't, then stick to my original comment which is at the time. Dan Ford talking about it 18 years later is hardly a contemporary account, and of course the numbers don't back it up. He was better against Bert Blyleven than Morris so there is that point, but he was crushed by guys like Dennis Leonard, and the best pitcher of the 80's, Dave Stieb(.129 .156 .226 .382) but his memory seems to recall two of the biggest names in the era, neither of which he actually had significant problems against.
Morris contemporary reputation was he was a good guy to have at the top half of the rotation, nobody considered him among the best during the season. He wasn't dominant, he was good. He went out gave you complete games in an era where complete games were disappearing, and he kept a good offense in most games. Jack Morris managed to be a good pitcher for a long time, he was never a great pitcher, he was never dominant, he relied upon his offense to help him rack up a ton of wins, and he kept his team in games giving them a chance to come back. That is it. To say any different is silly.
You point to Stieb and his short career, which is fine, Stieb was better than Morris in 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990
Morris in 1986, 1987(and of course from 1977-1979 when Stieb wasn't in the league, only 1979 is notable) (and again in 1991-1994 when Stieb was on his way out)
You then say that Morris was chosen over Stieb for the post season, well yes Stieb had flamed out by then. That is like saying the Orioles would take Jeremy Guthrie over Millwood. It's not about who was the better pitcher in their career, it's about who is the better pitcher now.
Isn't that somewhat circular logic. He is saying something 20 years after the fact that matches up with current reputation of the player, therefore it means that the current reputation must be based upon a well established past reputation?
Dave Steib's short career has nothing to do with Jack Morris's Hall of Fame case and I've never said anything of the sort.
You then say that Morris was chosen over Stieb for the post season, well yes Stieb had flamed out by then. That is like saying the Orioles would take Jeremy Guthrie over Millwood. It's not about who was the better pitcher in their career, it's about who is the better pitcher now.
They overlapped one year, in that year Morris was 50 times better at 37 than Steib was at 34, and was obviously called upon for greater post-season duty -- Cito Gaston not being batshit insane and all. I'm not sure I even realized that until now, and it also has nothing to do with Jack Morris's Hall of Fame case.
Option J. No, seriously!
In the past you have pointed to Jack Morris 1. opening day starts as evidence of his reputation as dominance. 2.that Stieb was not selected over Morris is indication of his(Morris) reputation. Neither of them are evidence of the sort, but you have pointed to them in the past. (unless I'm confusing Tommy with you, which is possible although you are much smarter, more coherent and saner than Tommy)
You have been able to convince me to give Morris bonus credit, which allows me to rate him as a 110 era+ pitcher instead of a 105, it's not enough to get him into the hof, but it moves him probably from being top 150 pitcher of all time, to the cusp of top 125 of all time. It's still not enough to put him in the hall without opening the doors to Stieb(the best pitcher of the 80's) and three dozen other pitchers(at least).
He went 21-6 in the regular season. I mean, it wasn't like he was 10-15 and stumbling to the postseason.
The Metrodome was rockin' in 1991, no doubt about that. I can't imagine pitching in that atmosphere. That said, SkyDome was pretty crazy too in '92, what with an entire freaking country watching every pitch. It would have been a hell of a story if Jack couldn't had one last stellar postseason, instead of crapping the bed in every start.
Did you actually adjust for era? Give Koufax another 50-150 innings and we'll see if his ERA decrease stays at 65%.
Then we can adjust for league, park, and the DH, and see how he looks.
I said that they were unadjusted, since I don't know of an easy converter for postseason stats. But they're certainly far enough ahead of the other 4 that you couldn't adjust them enough to put Koufax behind any of them.
And of course I'm talking about the postseason only. By any other standard other than the "Who would you want for one game?" Koufax doesn't measure up to any of the others, but that's so obvious I wouldn't think I've have to mention it.
Then we can have him pitch in playoff games when he's in his late 30s/early 40s, instead of just in his late 20s, and see how he looks.
Obviously we can't do that, but we can see how those others performed in the postseason up through age 30. Johnson didn't get there till he was 31, but the others did, and here's how they stacked up to Koufax:
Koufax 1949-66 - 8 games (7 starts), 57 IP, 0.95 ERA
Pedro 1998-99 - 4 games (3 starts), 24 IP, 1.13 ERA
Maddux 1989-96 - 14 games (all starts), 95 IP, 3.51 ERA
Clemens 1986-90 - 8 games (all starts), 48.2 IP, 3.88 ERA
Walter Johnson did this in 1924-25, too.
Good point, Sweatpants, though I should have said "started and won", since Johnson's win in '24 was in late inning relief, after he lost his only two starts.
Because I started following baseball in October of 1986, I remember Parker's time with those teams, but not his time with the Reds or Pirates.
Likewise, my mental image of both Eddie Murray and Dave Winfield displays them as Indians.
I don't see a problem with that comparison, the Colon one, not the Bedard one. Colon has an 8 year stretch where he posted 135-75 record, with a 119 era+ over 1725 ip. Morris has a 7 year stretch(going beyond that hurts his numbers) where he posted a 125-77 record with a 117 era+ over 1788 innings. Over the rest of his career it's 2100 ip at 94 era+ with two good seasons and a bunch of poor or below average---basically his remaining career is equivalent to Mike Krukow's entire career.
Morris is a borderline ace level pitcher who was healthy for a long period of time, who pitched complete games in an era where complete games were going by the wayside(he has 133 complete games in the 80's---in comparison Stieb, the best pitcher of the 80's had 92 in one fewer start, and only Fernando broke 100 complete games--of course Stieb, Fernando, Hershiser, Welch Blyleven and Clemens all had more shutouts than Morris)
Marilyn Monroe had a "nice figure."
seems kind of heavy for a supermodel, at least when judged by the standards of today.
Pfft. I just realized that I've outlived her.
And here's where I call bullsh!t on WAR. In those six years, Parker made three All-Star teams, won two Silver Sluggers, and got MVP votes three times (5th in '86, 11th in '89, and 16th in '90). OK, so he was below average on defense. No way the average MLB team had a replacement option in their organization available that was capable of running off +0.3 WAR on Parker during those years.
Yeah, no. Cito was pretty stupid setting up his '92 post-season rotation. Cito was always the king of throwing players into the starting rotation/lineup and letting them go based on previous reputation. Morris was 21-6/4.04 as the "Ace" of the staff, while Jimmy Key went 13-13/3.53 and Juan Guzman went 16-5/2.64. Can you guess who pitched well in their post-season starts and who lost or was bailed out of all of theirs?
As we said in the 80s, "FACE!" :)
By going on 4 decades, yet.
It's bad, but I don't think it's on radar with his nonsensical Rafael Palmeiro presentation.
So in your opinion, would the "It Gets Better" campaign have made a difference during your teenage years?
Morris was well-respected, for sure. He's another HOF candidate who was hurt by having one of his best seasons in '81. But really, he wasn't regarded nearly on the same level as say, Tom Seaver or Steve Carlton or Jim Palmer. In the early 1980s, Dave Stieb was nearly universally regarded as the toughest pitcher in the American League. If you want a good comp to a terrific pitcher no one remembers, Morris was probably in a class with guys like Steve Rogers. FWIW, I don't really ever remember anyone putting Bert in the elite class, either.
And here's where I call bullsh!t on WAR!
And I second Srul. Looking back, three of the most amazing feats of the 1980s were:
- Dwight Gooden breaks the all-time record for strikeouts per nine innings as a 19-year-old
- Vince Coleman and Rickey Henderson make 100-steal seasons an annual occurrence.
- Dave Parker snorts rock-star levels of blow AND reaches the kind of superfat stratosphere that only Mo Vaughn's Diabetes Across America Tour and a few others have dared match. Hall of Fame-caliber self-destruction, that.
And that's a major shame, because Parker was a singularly talented ball player with a penchant for the spectacular. He took the most consistently ferocious cuts of any high-average hitter in the game, had a legendary rocket arm, and, before perfecting the high art of doing lines at the Burger King drive-thru window, moved astonishingly well for a big man. But to his credit, he pulled himself together and had one hell of a career. Over 15,000 men have played major-league baseball over the past 130+ years and not one in fifty had clearly better careers than Dave Parker's.
Happy Base Ball
Oh.
No.
honest-to-christ the only ballplayer I've ever cursed on sight...
the ######## just could NOT take a pitch...
Not sure how old (or young) you are, but that's just wrong. Especially regarding Murray. I'm a life long Indians fan and I don't even think of Murray as an Indian. Dude is an Oriole. I think of Eddie I imagine him in the uniform with the ugly bird they had in the 80's. I think of him and Cal. Dave is less indelibly etched in my mind because he moved around a little more, but I think of him mostly as a Padre or Yankee.
Black Ink Batting - 26 (70), Average HOFer ? 27
Gray Ink Batting - 145 (99), Average HOFer ? 144
Hall of Fame Monitor Batting - 124 (110), Likely HOFer ? 100
Hall of Fame Standards Batting - 42 (144), Average HOFer ? 50
If he were elected we wouldn't be lowering the standards much, but there wasn't an overwhelming case to elect him. He couldn't know it at the time, but the 1981 and 1982 seasons are why he wasn't a more credible HoF candidate.
Jim Rice debuted on the ballot in January 1995, at a time when the Red Sox had not reached the postseason in five years, hadn't won a postseason game since 1986, were coming out of the dark ages of the Hobson years and were not expected to contend that season. He got 29.1 percent of the vote that first year, which was a higher percentage than Dave Parker ever received during his time on the ballot.
I know it makes a lovely BTF story that Jim Rice's Hall of Fame path was entirely the creation of an orchestrated Boston media campaign that took an otherwise forgotten ballplayer and turned him into a Hall of Famer. It just happens to be a crock. He started with a percentage where people sometimes make the long slogs toward Cooperstown, like a Goose or a Sutter or Bert.
My mental image of Winfield is Angels/Twins/Jays/Indians.
For Murray it's Indians too. Though (without looking it up) I remember his .330 year as a Dodger, 1990.
EDIT: Checking... Wow. I'd totally forgotten Murray played with the Mets. And returned to Baltimore for an encore at age 40.
Huh? This is the BTF story?
When people say that coke kept him out, they're referring to the disastrous effect it had on his production, not some kind of blackball. I thought that was pretty obvious.
I strongly doubt coke has a negative effect on production, except to the extent that it causes work/eating habits to fade. Gooden's performance, for example, suffered from an arm injury, not cocaine use. Strawberry seemed to play well. Molitor. Hernandez.
But at her best, she's a striking physical presence.
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