For instance, there was a player, a really good player, who had never hit more than 26 home runs in a season. He was a good hitter but he was just not a 30-home run guy. And he was also a catcher, which meant that it was likely his body had taken a terrible beating and had worn down.
But this is the point I want to make: When you talk about the three greatest power hitting catchers of all time — Mike Piazza, Johnny Bench and Yogi Berra, right? Well, there’s Josh Gibson, of course, but we don’t have his numbers. When the three power catchers (Piazza, Bench and Berra) were 37 years old, how many home runs do you think they averaged? The three greatest power-hitting catchers of all time averaged 11 home runs at age 37. How many do you think our guy hit? He hit 37!
Of course, our guy is Carlton Fisk. And I am not suggesting that he did anything illegal — I am in fact entirely convinced that he did not do anything illegal and never would. But he had never hit more than 26 homers in his career. And he was a 37-year-old catcher — no 37-year old catcher had ever even hit 20 homers before. And at 37, he hit 37 home runs because, well, baseball isn’t always easy to reduce to a few indignant words.
See, there’s a lot that goes into baseball. Stuff usually isn’t black or white, up or down, left or right. It’s complicated. Carlton Fisk, of all people, should know that. If it makes people feel better to shout “fraud” in a crowded theater, hey, it’s a free country. But it seems to me there’s already enough noise out there.
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1. Frisco Cali Posted: January 20, 2010 at 06:50 AM (#3441839)He's a good writer, but it's not like this wasn't shooting fish in a barrel.
Sammy Sosa is really glad Bill James is so observant.
Mythbusters is mandatory MLB viewing now?
Adair's criticism was better stating that any benefits from corking (all involve a lighter bat with the same hitting circumference) could be achieved by legal means. Now I suppose you could use those means AND cork, but since many very good hitters don't use them to begin with it's hard to think that the benefits of corking amount to much anyway.
I'm not. Who was his manager when Fisk hit 37 home runs and otherwise had his late career renaissance?
Tony LaRussa. Manager of Canseco, McGwire and Giambi.
I'm not saying. I'm just saying.
I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what the reference might be. (Fisk wishes he was a Big Earner?) But for now I'm tired and my mind has Munsoned.
I suspect the above was typed on some sort of cell phone device.
Don't know if Frisco Cali ever met Fisk but one of my co-workers (Big Yankee Fan, detests Red Sox every year except 1986 and detests them for choking) got to talk to Fisk a few years ago. He liked him: polite, answered questions honestly about why he left Boston for Chicago (had a chance to make some money, didn't have much after 8 years with family expenses).
Besides, Oliver Wendell Holmes never ruled against using that word in a crowded theater anyway.
I've never met him, but he was my favorite player when I was 5 or 6. I wrote him a letter. Pretty soon after that, I got an autographed photo back, and about a week or two later, I got another one which was personally addressed to me. I'm guessing that the team secretary sent the first one from a pre-signed pile, and he wrote out the second one himself when he got back from a road trip.
1985 was the first year of hardcore weight training for Fisk.
I loved the Sanders incident. A player yelling at an oppenent for not running out a pop-up. Pudge was a 'back in my days' player before he even retired.
Hmm, I just noticed this article is cross-posted on si.com. I wonder if the average baseball fan has heard of Poz though. I certainly don't think his words have the weight of Verducci's or Heyman's.
Pos writes for SI. He started a few months ago.
Silly Srul. Everybody knows that PED's didn't exist until 1996.
Guilty.
Or, perhaps, Fisk discovered something with a "restorative" effect that "aids recovery" which allowed him to maintain health. Perhaps these substances could have been obtained by, I don't know, by a teammate Cy Young winner who had access to drugs.
I'm just thinking out loud. You would think, however, if that one wanted to use steroids, and nobody in baseball had heard of this 30-year-old drug, a drug user might know where to obtain such things.
Jack McDowell introduced Carlton Fisk to steroids. There. I said it.
I dunno, I think most people who seek Poz's opinion already support McGwire, or are at least indifferent to his transgressions.
No, no, no. We know they existed in 1993/1994 now. Because that's when McGwire admitted to using them.
And that's when Jose Canseco began supplying Rafael Palmeiro.
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