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1. Lassus Posted: August 13, 2012 at 04:03 PM (#4207413)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.
In 2004, a friend of mine got four ticket to Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees. You might remember that Game 3 was the last game the Red Sox lost that year - the 19-8 thrashing that preceded the historic comeback. Well, I didn't end up seeing that game, because we drove down for Game 3, waited in the rain for hours (we couldn't take the chance that it would stop raining, and they'd play the game, and we would've missed it), but they ended up postponing the game, and our tickets became good for Game 5, which was the most exciting game I've ever seen (the 14-inning epic won on an Ortiz single, Pedro started the game).
Anyway, during the rain delay, one of the other guys said that his grandfather was longtime good friends with Johnny Pesky, they had breakfast several days a week at a neighborhood diner near Boston. Many times, he had joined them for breakfast to watch them shoot the breeze (how cool is that?). He went down to an area near the clubhouse with us, and he was able to get Johnny to come out for a while and say hello to all of us, during the rain delay. Gave us a good 20 minutes of his time, and we were the ones that ended the conversation, feeling guilty that we were taking all his time on such an important evening.
I asked him to talk to me about Hal Newhouser, who always struck me as one of the most unusual stories in baseball history (two MVPs in a row, wartime pitcher, etc.). I asked Johnny how good Newhouser really was, and Pesky described in awesome detail how effective he was - the pitches he threw, how tough he was to hit against, etc.
I had chills - what an incredible guy, with countless stories from people talking about how generous he was with his time. He loved baseball so much, and he spread that love to so many people in New England and beyond. I don't know that I feel sad about his passing, because it is not unexpected, and he squeezed so much joy out of his life. It sounds corny, but I feel lucky that my favorite team had a guy like this to act as an ambassador for so long. I don't know if he's a Hall of Famer - whatever - but he's definitely in my Hall of Awesome.
I am sensitive to the fact that some people here feel hurt by Pesky's passing. But I think it's unfortunate they react negatively on this Discussion Board to anyone who diverges from the praise meme, wanting to discuss other baseball-related aspects of the deceased.
All prayers for his loved ones.
No, actually what's going on here is that you and others bizarrely don't understand that comments in these threads are not being re-tweeted to a big screen at Pesky's funeral. These threads are not "homages" to anyone; they are meant for discussion. Not that Dan's comment about Pesky not being deserving of the Hall of Fame was "insensitive" at all.
No, it wasn't. Actually, yours is.
What Dan wrote was entirely appropriate and reasonable, and what you've written is not. You're intruding on the right of people to discuss Pesky's life and career. Please stop doing that.
was "insensitive" at all.
It was an homage, until you guys barged in and inflicted upon the thread your creepy obsessions with the Hall of Fame and sportswriters.
I was always a bit more of a career-oriented voter. Even crediting him three years (giving him about 1720 G and 7600 PA) Pesky's career was short for a HOFer, done as a regular player by age 32.
Pesky scores big on the character and leadership criteria the Hall of Fame uses and he was an ambassador for the game. He would not be a terrible choice for the Hall to enshrine.
"Pesky is a gregarious, cheerful man who can tell stories about old-time baseball for hours--not the well-formed, punch line anecdotes retold a hundred times, but random, slice-of-life stories that resist efforts to move them to paper. Are athletes special people? In general, no, but occasionally, yes."
He rated several HOF SS behind Pesky (#20): Sewell (#23), Bancroft (#28), Tinker (#33), Ward (#35), Wallace (#36), Maranville (#38), Jackson (#40).
No one made any such demands. They merely pointed out how obnoxious (*) it is to haul your obsessions into an immediate post-death discussion of someone else's life well lived. The article-cum-obituary makes no mention of Pesky's worthiness for the Hall of Fame.
(*) And self-centered, though that wasn't mentioned before.
This.
There have been some great stories in this thread, 39 in particular.
I love a good HoF argument as much as the next guy, but I also think it's maybe nice to give a guy's corpse a chance to get to the morgue before enumerating his shortcomings. It was especially egregious considering that Pesky's case has already been dismissed (dude got 1 vote in his year on the ballot), and no one here had suggested Pesky should be in the hall.
As always, my 2nd cousin once removed (or something close to that ... I worked out our respective family trees a couple of years ago, but the details are at home somewhere) brings up the rear.
People should only talk about his career if he was hall of famer?
I'll be curious to see how people react when a link to the passing of Pete Rose shows up on this site.
Will everyone insist on only saying nice things about him?
Or is the rule only applied to specific people's heroes?
No, almost the opposite: it is actually possible to talk about the career of any player (living or dead) without doing so in reference to the HOF. Hard to believe I know.
I bet if someone tried to make every discussion among "thinking fans" of music about music/bands into one related to the Grammy's or the Rock n' Roll hall of fame, he or she would be laughed out of the conversation.
That's because the Grammy's and the RnRHOF are worthless in the eyes of fans/critics.
The equivalent would be a discussion if a pitcher won enough "Right Guard Reliever of the Year" awards, or was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
Right or wrong, the HOF (and MVP/Cy Young awards) are used by a large portion of "thinking fans" as a measurement of a player.
Just saying "I think Player X was good" is fine, but unless you're an over-50 baseball beat writer who says "because he looked like a baseball player should", then it's really not saying much.
Baseball's history is built around statistics, so it's only natural to review the career of a player on his passing.
I agree that DanG's first sentence comment ("Even with military credit, not a deserving hall of famer.") comes across as a little harsh, but the rest of his statement is perfectly fine.
They're on to something...
But it doesn't have to be this way. And it is ridiculous when everyone here spends so much time complaining about the output of using these things while at the same time propagating and strengthening them.
Around here, so is the extant baseball HOF, primarily because it doesn't "analyze" players "correctly."
The HOF comments in this thread really aren't about Johnny Pesky; they're about the writer, who's more concerned with showing that he knows how to "correctly analyze" Pesky's career than he is with Pesky.
So, yes, there is a direct parallel between obsessing over the Baseball Hall of Fame and doing the same with the Grammy's and RnRHOF.
No one is intruding on anyone's rights. Some people think you and Dan are jerks. You think them silly. Freedom.
As for Dan's post, it wasn't offensive, IMO, but it was bizarre. 92 year old who has been off the ballot for a very, very long time dies. Immediate response is to defend the HOF by stating that he isn't deserving when no one has actually said that he is. I've never heard anyone say Pesky was robbed. Dan's post just seemed to come out of nowhere for no reason. It was jarring, in my opinion.
If Jim Morris died today, someone discussing his HOF worthiness wouldn't seem odd - he's on the ballot and much discussed. If Craig Counsell died today, discussing his HOF worthiness would be weird.
I do with everyone would stop with the "intruding on rights" meme. You can say whatever you want. Others can think you silly, or mean, or clever.
Side note: I didn't know about Pesky's HOF status, so I assumed from DanG's opening sentence that he WAS in the HOF (veteran pick).
Again, I ask...
Is the same sort of reverence going to be shown when Pete Rose passes away?
Will everyone decide it's gauche to talk about the HOF and his place in (or out of) it?
It's assumed that everyone will be nice and talk about his hustle, and his desire to win, and how he helped contribute to the Big Red Machine?
If not, then I don't see why it should be selectively applied to certain players when their (unfortunate) time comes.
Will everyone decide it's gauche to talk about the HOF and his place in (or out of) it?
Depends on how much I make on Rose in the death pool.
Do you think all people should be revered equally?
But more to your point, I don't think that bringing up the HOF was disrespectful or irreverent ... just irrelevant (see post #71). Pete Rose was a player who was only not elected because of unusual circumstance. There is no connection between Pesky and HOF selection at all besides the pervading bizarre and unnecessary need to frame almost every discussion about a player around the HOF.
I don't really get this question. This little flap is similar to the DiPerna/Harwell flap in some respects, in that Pesky, like Harwell, was known for being an exceptionally kind and friendly man who was beloved by the fanbase of the team with which he was associated and respected by just about everybody.
A lot of Reds fans still (and will always) love Pete Rose, but he is known for being a comnsummate slimeball in general, so it's not the same thing.
The traditional "don't speak ill of the dead" custom exists for good reasons: 1) Nothing is accomplished by saying what an a-hole the dead guy was if you think he was one and 2) Pretty much everybody, even a-holes, has someone who will be saddened by his/her passing.
In this case, while no one bagged on Pesky, nothing was really accomplished by talking about Pesky and the HOF and while this is just a baseball site, it would probably have been wiser simply to let Boston fans share their thoughts/anecdotes about Pesky's passing without bringing in the HOF, particularly since there was no HOF controversy about Pesky as AFAIK.
... & Ray, of course, is known for having no understanding of human sentiment. (With the notable exception -- thank god! -- of child molestation at Penn State.)
The guy was 92 years old and played major league baseball for 10 years. His playing career was but one relatively small chapter of his life, and how "good" he was at it was an even smaller chapter.
Oh wah wah wah. I didn't think your inital comment was anything other than kind of strange; but I can actually SEE you stamping your foot in the sandbox now.
Of course, as you recognize, nobody here said anything ill of Pesky, nor did I say anything ill of Harwell.
I'm a Boston fan. I didn't mind Dan making a note of Pesky's career relative to the HOF.
Again, the idea that a discussion of the quality of Pesky's career in a thread citing to the news of Pesky's death is out of bounds is utterly bizarre.
You're moving the goalposts again, from "quality of career" to "Hall of Fame." I'm sure there were headlines somewhere along the lines of "Sox' Pesky, .307 career hitter, passes away."(*)
Of course, as you recognize, nobody here said anything ill of Pesky, nor did I say anything ill of Harwell.
True -- your comments about Ernie were merely self-centered and socially maladroit. (I'm going on recollection here and don't recall anything "ill.")
(*) Upon which I'm also sure various bluehairs thought, "Why is that headline writer overrating batting average? Doesn't he know OBP is more important?"
Here's my very, very educated guess. People would try to come up with non-insulting but not overly complimentary things to say about Rose (or they'd simply post just to post without even saying anything that substantive). Someone would then finally post that they won't miss him. Maybe someone would agree. Those one or two people expressing that opinion would then kick off a 500-post meandering about whether or not "everyone here" is disrespecting the memory of Pete Rose.
Which would all prove, yet again, that META IS A DUMB WASTE OF TIME.
(And yes, I realize I'm being meta by talking about meta. THAT'S ONE OF THE WORST THINGS ABOUT IT. IT'S A TRAP.)
Kinda would ;-)
My reaction is different; I like bunyon's word choice to describe the post: "jarring." DanG decided to use Pesky's death as a way to point out that Pesky's playing record was not in his opinion HOF-level. Had there been a raging HOF controversy about Pesky, or had Pesky spent a lot of time late in his life complaining about not being in Cooperstown, I could see that. As it is, I find it odd. In your case, you used the occasion of Harwell's death to call attention to the fact that you had "never heard a word" that he broadcast. I found that odd as well.
Neither is a big deal in the BTF scheme of things, but I certainly get that some Boston and Detroit fans would find it off-putting.
Pesky's HoF case is certainly a good strawman to knock down if you want to act dismissive about him in the first few posts in a thread about his death. Beats me why anyone would want to do that, though.
No, but there will definitely be some like "A hell of a player but a terrible person, I'm glad he never got in the HOF."
My intent was the exact opposite of being "dismissive". To discuss a player's career in the context of a serious discussion of his qualifications for the HOF is, to me, a high compliment. I would think you would be more upset at all the posts here implying it's absurd to even discuss Pesky in this light.
I think the natural time would be when he is eligible for the HOF, or during a HOF thread, or in a discussion of an article advocating for or against said player's HOF worthiness. ymmv, and apparently does. :-)
It might also be helpful to learn a little bit more about the man beyond the Baseball Reference page on him. If you're a true fan of the game, you'd know a little bit more than just his numbers on Baseball Reference (or at least you'd to try to learn). You perhaps would know that he was a coach (not just with the Red Sox but with the Pirates), a minor league manager, spring training instructor, a broadcaster, and a generally positive influence on decades of young Red Sox players. Perhaps you would know about the thousands of fungoes that he hit in a Boston uniform, about his involvement in the World Series, the debate surrounding his supposed "hesitation" in making a critical throw in the World Series against St. Louis, and about his heroic service in World War II, which deprived him of three of his prime seasons. Perhaps you would bother to learn a little about his unofficial achievements as a goodwill ambassador for the Red Sox.
This thread should not be about you, Dan and Ray. It should be about a great man in Johnny Pesky.
Okay, he doesn't know that.
Ray's Harwell thing was also jarring, but it was different in that it was not the least bit enlightening about Harwell. It was enlightening about Ray, which the thread wasn't about. The personal stories about Pesky, as well as summations of Pesky's career in stat form - however jarring a manner in which they are presented - are conveying information about Pesky moreso than info about the people presenting them.
And I'm not even a Red Sox fan. To me, guys like Johnny Pesky are what helps make the game more colorful and intriguing.
Can you actually express a logical argument as to why it would lack understanding? ( I mean I get the "narrow point of view," I see what you did there.)
Forget the Pete Rose analogy. What if say, Ron Kittle dies? or Rennie Stennet? or Frank Malzone? WOuld you be equally offended?
Because the reason Johnny is so immensely popular in Boston has virtually nothing to do with his playing record. He is popular because of the way he has treated people over the course of his life. If you read the stories some of us included above you'll notice there was almost nothing about his .307 average or any of his on field accomplishments. The stories were about him being gracious, about him being kind, about Johnny Pesky the man, not Johnny Pesky the baseball player.
My comment shouldn't have been made because I didn't want this thread to go down this road. I would strongly encourage DanG to read Dan Shaughnessy's piece in the Boston Globe today. Shaughnessy is (and deserves to be) a punching bag most of the time but he nailed it today. Peter Gammons wrote a lovely piece at MLB.com and a simple Google search will find plenty of stories as to why we feel the way we do about Johnny Pesky.
No I wouldn't but that is simply because they don't mean as much to me as Johnny Pesky did. I literally cannot remember a time when baseball and the Red Sox were not a major part of my life and Pesky has been a part of the team that entire time. Read the story I put in #11 if you haven't. I can't adequately express what a thrill that half an hour was for me.
When any of those folks you mention passes away it won't be as impactful to me as Pesky's death was. But, I hope I would have the decency to not jump into a thread and make my first comment "man, Kittle whiffed a LOT didn't he?" I would hope I would allow those who cared about him to mourn him from a respectful distance and discuss his flaws in a different forum. Just by way of example it took all of half a day for a thread about Pesky and the Hall to pop up and that certainly was an appropriate thread and a place to discuss his flaws as well as his successes. I would have preferred this thread remained a place to celebrate his life and his achievements both on and off the field. Maybe that's what DanG had in mind but when the first thing he wrote was "not a Hall of Famer" he set a bad tone (perhaps inadvertently).
And that's the last I'll say on the meta-topic. My intention was never to drive this thread down this path. Despite the fact that he wasn't family, wasn't a friend, wouldn't have known me if he tripped over me, Johnny Pesky meant a lot to me. If that makes me a sentimental sap, so be it.
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