JoltinJoe wrote:
Gil, your memory betrays you. Before Mattingly's back surgery, he was a .335, 35 HR, 120 RBI guy every season (remarkable numbers in the pre-steroid era). Not one of the guys you mentioned ever achieved that sublime combination of power and average. Brett, Boggs could hit for that type of average, but not that type of power. Murphy and Schmidt could hit for that power, but not for that average. Henderson was a selfish player who was only ocassionally as good as his stats would indicate, and Ripken wouldn't even be in this discussion but for his "streak." (PS -- When Henderson played in New York, his nickname among fans was "Mr. Me").
If Mattingly had stayed healthy, he would have been a first-ballot lock. I still wonder how Puckett got a first-ballot pass and a guy who was a far better player in his prime, and a far better person too, can be left out with the almost identical career stats.
PS -- Your reference to Murphy has a two-time MVP reminds me that Mattingly was jobbed in the 1986 MVP voting, and should have won back-to-back MVP awards. Another instance of a Yankee being passed over simply because he was a Yankee.
@ Joe for getting into an argument on something that is supposedly undisputed. The fact that you are in a dispute means you lose the argument just by having it.
Boggs was a dinky singles hitter. Mattingly was being compared to Lou Gehrig. Come on, Gil, you remember. When Mattingly was at his best, he had no equal in baseball.
Mattingly's reputation for an extended period of the '80s as baseball's best player was well deserved; and he has nearly identical career numbers to a first-ballot Hall of Famer who was a contemporary and never considered Mattingly's equal during Mattingly's prime. That Mattingly has been excluded from the Hall of Fame is the result of an anti-Yankee bias among sports writers -- the same bias that finds a way to justify giving the Cy Young award to a 13-win pitcher when the Yankee ace has 21 wins, or the same bias that screwed Mattingly out of the 1986 MP. This guy should have been one of the rare players in baseball history to win back-to-back MVPs.
If Mattingly had played for any other team, he would been admitted long ago. But there is NO justification for voting Puckett in ON THE FIRST BALLOT and leaving Mattingly out.
You know, I lot of what I say here is just intended to have fun and bust balls, but I am very serious about this point.
Dinky singles hitter with 578 doubles, that's more than Lou Gehrig
Boggs was a dinky singles hitter. Mattingly was being compared to Lou Gehrig. Come on, Gil, you remember. When Mattingly was at his best, he had no equal in baseball.
Mattingly's reputation for an extended period of the '80s as baseball's best player was well deserved; and he has nearly identical career numbers to a first-ballot Hall of Famer who was a contemporary and never considered Mattingly's equal during Mattingly's prime. That Mattingly has been excluded from the Hall of Fame is the result of an anti-Yankee bias among sports writers -- the same bias that finds a way to justify giving the Cy Young award to a 13-win pitcher when the Yankee ace has 21 wins, or the same bias that screwed Mattingly out of the 1986 MP. This guy should have been one of the rare players in baseball history to win back-to-back MVPs.
If Mattingly had played for any other team, he would been admitted long ago. But there is NO justification for voting Puckett in ON THE FIRST BALLOT and leaving Mattingly out.
You know, I lot of what I say here is just intended to have fun and bust balls, but I am very serious about this point.
Dinky singles hitter with 578 doubles, that's more than Lou Gehrig
SuperHornet's Athletics Hall of Fame includes Jacksonville State kicker Ashley Martin, the first girl to score in a Division I football game. She kicked 3 PATs in a 2001 game for J-State.
@ Joe for getting into an argument on something that is supposedly undisputed. The fact that you are in a dispute means you lose the argument just by having it.
@ Joe for getting into an argument on something that is supposedly undisputed. The fact that you are in a dispute means you lose the argument just by having it.
Well, Gil thought Larkin was a second baseman.
Gil never was one of the great thinkers of our time.
@ Joe for getting into an argument on something that is supposedly undisputed. The fact that you are in a dispute means you lose the argument just by having it.
