If I ever made it to Cooperstown, I would be a bit disappointed that there was not an entire wing devoted to the greatness of Roy Smalley. Sadly, Smalley never sniffed the Hall of Fame, and even more sadly his exclusion is entirely correct. Nevertheless, if I had my own personal Hall, he would be a charter member. I think many baseball fans have a player like Roy Smalley in their background, someone they loved when they were younger for reasons that are a bit tricky to articulate. As a matter of fact, most folks I know tended to have two favorite players as kids, one true superstar and one truly unique to the fan. In my case, I loved Kirby Puckett, but I loved Smalley first. So today, let’s here the tale of Roy Smalley, one time shortstop for the Texas Rangers, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, and New York Yankees.

As a shortstop, Roy Smalley was a failed prototype of the Cal Ripken model. Smalley was the first overall pick in the January amateur draft in 1974, a draft open to players who graduated from high school or college in December. (This draft was discontinued in 1986.) Smalley came out of USC, where he had won the College World Series every year he was in college. Taken by the Rangers, Smalley quickly became one of the larger shortstops in baseball, and an early power-hitting shortstop. Compare him to two top shortstops of the time, Mark Belanger and Dave Concepcion.

Belanger was 6′1″, and weighed 170 lbs. In his biggest power year, he hit 5 home runs in 1974. Concepcion was slightly bigger, at 6′1″, 180. He hit double digit home runs twice in his career, with 14 in 1974 and 16 in 1979. Smalley, a rookie in 1975, was 6′1″, 185, but he combined the slightly higher weight with legitimate home run power for a shortstop. He would hit double digit home runs 9 times, topping 20 on 4 separate occasions. During the 1976 season, he was traded to the Twins for, among others, Bert Blyleven. While with the Twins, he would be one of the best hitting shortstops in the American League, trailing Robin Yount. He would make the All Star team once, in 1979, also the only time he received an MVP vote. In 1982, the promise of the power-hitting shortstop, first seen in Ernie Banks and then revived by Roy Smalley would come to fruition in Cal Ripken, Jr. While Smalley would hit double digit home runs 9 times and top 20 4 times, Ripken would top 20 home runs each of his first 10 full seasons. Smalley was an important part of that transition, but obviously his numbers don’t stack up to his Hall of Fame contemporaries.

For his last hurrah, Smalley would make the World Series with the 1987 Twins, in his last season. He would pinch hit four times, going 1 for 2 with a double and two walks. For his career, Smalley hit .257 with 163 home runs. He had an OPS+ of 103. He was a fairly average fielder, with a fielding percentage nearly identical with the league average for shortstops and a range factor slightly above the average. This is not the resume of a Hall of Famer, though it is arguably the resume of the best shortstop the Twins have ever had.  Smalley was a good player, and in his best years he was very good.  Unfortunately, that description pretty accurately fits many players that have been or will be long forgotten.

Who are the completely random players that would make your own personal Hall of Fame?

The biggest injustice of the Hall of Fame is that they refuse to allow the great shortstops of the 1960’s and 1970’s through the door.   The only exceptions are Luis Aparicio and Robin Yount.  The Dean’s Cards player of the Week is Dave Concepcion who played in four World Series and was named to the All-Star Game 9 times between 1973 and 1982. 

The Hall-of-Fame selection committee prefers the hard hitting first basemen and outfielders to the slick fielding infielders – but the saying goes “you can not win a pennant unless you are strong up the middle”.  As much as I like Concepcion’s old road game roommate and Hall-of-Famer Tony Perez – Concepcion would have been much harder for the Reds to replace than Perez.  In fact, the Reds had Danny Dreissen waiting in the wings for four years until they decided to trade Perez for a couple journeyman pitchers.

Shouldn’t there be at least one shortstop in the Hall of Fame for every 1B or every LF?  OK, I realize that hitters are more exciting. What about just one SS for every three 1B?  If that were the case you would see guys like Jim Fregosi, Maury Wills, Don Kessinger, Larry Bowa, Bert Campaneris and Davy Concepcion elected.  They were the best at their position during their time.

The first game that I ever attended was at Crosley Field on April 16, 1970.  My parents took me to the game as the Reds were going to move to the new stadium after the All-Star game that year.  The Reds beat the Dodgers 12 to 2.  Nineteen year-old Rookie Don Gullett relieved (soon to be retired) Jim Maloney for the first win of Gullett’s career.  Gullett also had a triple and a stolen base.  Concepcion went 0 for 4.

I was 5 years old at the time and did not notice any of those things.  What I do remember is that about a dozen Reds signed my glove.  At Crosley Field, the players had to walk past the fans to get from the clubhouse to the dugout.  With only 6100 people in the park that night, almost all of the players stopped to sign my glove.  You just do not see that anymore.

Concepcion was a 21 years old rookie who would start his 7th major league game that night.  Dave was so tall and skinny (6′2″, 155 pounds) that he towered over me.  He handed me his ”super sized” Coke through the green wrought iron fence that separated the fans from the players- which I needed both hands to hold – while he signed my mitt.   I was a bit surprised when I had to return the Coke to him because I assumed it was a gift!  My mother later told me that she was afraid that I would spill the Coke all down Concepcion’s bright white uniform.

Davy was very nice, but could not speak a word of English. At just 5 years old, I had never met someone who didn’t speak English and I remember being worried for him because he could not communicate with other people to get food or find his way around.  My parents reassured me that the other Spanish speaking players on the team would help take care of him.  This is how I will always remember Dave Concepcion.

It is doubtful that many more of the great shortstops of the 1960’s and 1970’s will make the Hall-of-Fame anytime soon, especially since the shortstops in today’s game now routinely hit 25 HR’s and bat .300 each year.

For me personally, the 1970s saw some of the greatest baseball this country has ever seen. Two teams will go down in the pantheon of teams as some of the greatest of all-time. A rivalry born in the Bronx and Brooklyn is reborn in LA. Free agency began, Astro-Turf ruled, and some of the greatest October nights ever seen were witnessed by the world. For after this decade, baseball began to fade from the nation’s conscience. It would no longer be the same as it ever was in a world with more than three TV channels. It’s as if baseball reached its peak in this decade.

Being born in the 1960s gives you a unique perspective on a lot of things. You are old enough to remember the Beatles, a black and white TV world, and a much simpler life. When 1970 started, the Beatles were breaking up, Nixon was President, we had just put a man on the moon, and I still dreamed of playing second base for either the Baltimore Orioles or the Chicago Cubs. Ten years later the world was a much different place. The US was in a funk, John Lennon would be assassinated, cable TV was being installed everywhere, President Carter had scolded the American public on TV for being in a “malaise” and cynical, and baseball players now were free to go to the highest bidder…but Astro-Turf was still there – in fact, it was almost everywhere.

As for the 1970s making a case to be “The Golden Age of Baseball”, it all starts with stars. In the 1980s, David Stern and the NBA began marketing the league around its stars: Magic, Larry, and Michael (notice I had only had to say one name). Baseball had stars out the wazoo in the 1970s: Pete Rose, Vida Blue, Jim Palmer, Brooks Robinson, Johnny Bench, Willie Stargell, and the star of all stars – Reggie Jackson. People forget before Michael Jordan won 6 titles in 8 years that Reggie Jackson won 5 World Series in 7 years.

What 1970s baseball also had were some great teams. The Baltimore Orioles began the decade by winning with pitching and defense. As a kid I wanted to play for either the Cubs or the Orioles. No one could play defense like Brooks Robinson and the Orioles would be the last team to have four twenty game winners on one staff in a season – let alone in the entire league for a season. The four man rotation was nearing its end. The A’s would win three championships in a row. The Reds and Yankees both would win back to back while the Pirates would bookend their series victories in ‘71 and ‘79.

Rollie Fingers and writer Jerome Holtzman reshaped the game with the save. Rollie did so on the mound for the A’s while Jerome did so with his typewriter by creating the save statistic (which in my mind is the most over-rated stat in all of sports) . Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s all time career home run mark and then soon called it a day a couple years later. I got to see Willie Mays in his last season play on a hot summer night in Busch Stadium.

If baseball was anything in the 1970s, it was a sport of extremes. A team’s offense depended on either speed or power. There was little in between. The playing surface dictated it. Astro-Turf began in the 60s in Houston and by the end of the 70s, half the teams in the National League had it.

Free agency had its roots with Curt Flood in the 1960s and it was fully born with Andy Messersmith in the 1970s. And in 1976, he became the first true free agent. The game would never be the same. Players would no longer play their entire careers for one team. They were now independent commodities in the business that had become baseball. In fact, having won three rings, A’s owner Charlie Finley began selling his players for money – some successfully, some not.

An argument can be made that what made the 1970s a “golden age” in the seventies would destroy it in the 1980s. The DH created two different brands of baseball. Astro-Turf created careers for the speedy and ground ball hitters while destroying the knees of so many others including the freak of an athlete, Andre Dawson.

In the end, the decade that had created such excitement destroyed the game. But what is undeniable were its stars and its teams. The 72-74 A’s were the greatest team I have ever seen. They had it all – the pitching of Vida Blue and Catfish Hunter, Reggie, the wizardry of Bert Campeneris, Joe Rudi, the man from nowhere, Gene Tenace, and former and future Cubs, Ken Holtzman and Manny Trillo. One could make the case for the Big Red Machine of 1975 and 1976, but I would probably rank them third behind the 27 Yankees and the 1972 A’s. The Reds’ pitching was just not that great. Don’t get me wrong – I loved Johnny Bench (the greatest catcher of all time), Tony Perez (somebody had to drive Joe and Pete in), and a man who should be in the hall despite all of Joe Morgan’s objections – Dave Concepcion.

Here’s the kicker for why this decade is the golden age. Despite Astro-Turf, cookie cooker stadiums, the DH, and free agency, its all about the players and the product on the field. Despte when, what on, and where it was it played, the players and teams of the 1970s were some of the greatest of all time.

A few weeks ago I was reading a column by Chicago-based sportswriter Rick Telander, who as a longtime member of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) gets a Hall of Fame vote every year.  This was his (presumably) annual column about his vote.  One of the benefits of being a BBWAA member is that every year you get an easy column by just writing about your ballot.

Telander’s column is a bit of a ramble.  He whines about steroids, decides he’s getting old, and also mentions the “grandeur” of the Hall.  He writes:

When you go to Cooperstown, there is not a player enshrined (other than maybe Rabbit Maranville) who doesn’t blow your socks off.

There it is again.  Somebody who doesn’t understand why Rabbit Maranville is enshrined in Cooperstown.

It’s not like Telander’s the only one.  I remember reading an article on the Hall of Fame back in 1989 by Steve Wulf, then writing for Sports Illustrated.  While leading up to a paragraph about Abner Graves (!), Wulf wrote:

Some are more deserving than others, but once you walk into the Hall of Fame Gallery—the wing that holds the famous bronze plaques—you know you are in a place of worship, and you could never begrudge a man his place there. You might wish that Phil Rizzuto, Richie Ashburn, Leo Durocher, Roger Maris, Nellie Fox, Bill Mazeroski, Ron Santo, etc., could be there too, but you wouldn’t wish to unscrew Rabbit Maranville’s plaque to make room for another, even if Maranville did hit just .258 lifetime.

Besides, there’s no sense in trying to read the minds of the baseball writers who vote for the Hall of Fame candidates (in the first election, in 1936, 11 of them left Ruth off their ballots). And there’s no benefit in chastising the veterans’ committee, which, in trying to undo past injustices, has perhaps relaxed the standards a bit; Jake Beckley may not be a household name, but that’s not to say his name doesn’t belong here. No, the overwhelming feeling you get in that splendid room is one of gratitude. Thanks, fellas, for filling up the afternoons and evenings of so many, for bringing them to their feet, for the memories.

The story was accompanied by a picture of Maranville’s plaque.  I don’t remember the caption under the photo, but I am fairly sure it was something along the lines of “he only hit .258 and shouldn’t really be in the Hall, but don’t sweat it”.

Re-reading that passage, I think it’s interesting that of Wulf’s list of players “you might wish” would also be enshrined, all of them have now been elected except for Maris and Santo.  (Poor Santo.  A quarter-century of being the woulda-coulda-shoulda guy when it comes to the Hall.)

The thing that kills me, though, is that he says that while Jake Beckley “may not be a household name” that doesn’t mean he doesn’t belong in the Hall, even though he mentions Beckley while mildly criticizing the Veterans Committee.  He says that and then talks about Maranville as something of a lesser pick than Beckley, despite the fact that Maranville wasn’t a VC pick — he was elected by the BBWAA.  It’s obvious that Wulf doesn’t know anything about Maranville either, other than his .258 career batting average.

Wulf was only three years old when Maranville was elected to the Hall (in 1954).  Still, a little research wouldn’t have hurt any.  Of course today finding out about past players is much easier than it was in 1989, so Telander has even less of an excuse.  The thing is, though, Maranville still comes up on lists of “least deserving” or “not deserving” Hall of Famers, even among people who follow the sport fairly closely.  At first glance he looks like a guy who didn’t hit for average, had little power, and just hung around a long time.  All of that is true, and yet…

Maranville debuted in the majors in 1912, for the Boston Braves.  He was 20 years old and appeared in 26 games that season.  In 1913, he became the everyday shortstop for the Braves, batting .247 in 143 games, with two homers.  His OPS+ that season was 83, right around his career average (82).  Not impressive, at first glance…but then you realize that in 1913, at the age of 21 and playing his first full season in the major leagues, Maranville finished third in the MVP voting, just ahead of the great Christy Mathewson (who won 25 games that year with a 2.06 ERA).  So how does a guy batting .247 with no power finish so high in the MVP voting?

Well, he was a great defensive shortstop, and a great defensive shortstop can be tremendously valuable, especially if he can hit just a little (and it’s arguable that such a player had more value in the Dead Ball era than at any other time in baseball history).  This was the first of several years in which Maranville fared very well in the MVP voting without obvious offensive numbers to justify it.  That in itself probably is a good indication of just how good a fielder Maranville was.

Another indication, of course, is just how long a career he had.  Maranville had a 23-year career in the majors, playing a total of 2670 games, all but four of which were as a middle infielder (80% of those appearances came as a shortstop).  Maranville held the record for chances for a shortstop for decades and still holds the record for putouts by a shortstop.  At age 41, Maranville batted .218 in 143 games, with no homers (OPS+ of 60)…and finished in a tie for 12th in the MVP voting, ahead of Frankie Frisch (who batted .303 that year with an OPS+ of 111).

Maranville was the runner-up in the MVP voting in 1914 to his middle infield partner, Johnny Evers, as the “Miracle Braves” won the pennant and swept the World Series.  Maranville batted cleanup on that team.  He also finished seventh in the voting in 1924 (OPS+ of 86) and had two other top-10 finishes.

From 1915 through 1923, there was no MVP award for the National League.  It just so happens that Maranville’s seven best offensive seasons (in terms of OPS+) came during that stretch.  I think it’s likely that he would have finished in the top 10 in the MVP voting (if not the top 5) in most, if not all, of those seasons.  If you add, say, five top 10 and two Top 20  finishes (which is probably a bit conservative) to his already impressive MVP history, you would have a player who in his career compiled ten seasons in which he finished in the Top 10 of the MVP voting and another five seasons in the Top 20.

I compared that to some of the players on his “most similar batters” list, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.  Ozzie Smith finished second in the ‘87 MVP voting (he probably should have won it; that was a weird year) and had three other Top 20 finishes.  Luis Aparacio had two top 10 finishes and four other finishes in the top 20.  Like Smith and Maranville, Aparacio was also an MVP runner-up, in 1959.

Tangent:  the top of the 1959 AL MVP vote mirrored the top of the 1914 NL MVP vote.  For both, the top three finishers played for the pennant winner, and the order was second baseman (Nellie Fox/Evers), shortstop (Aparicio/Maranville), and pitcher (Early Wynn/”Seattle Bill” James).  Also, the fourth place finisher both times was an outfielder.  The 1959 outfielder was Rocky Colavito, who played in 1841 career games.  The 1914 outfielder was George Burns, who played in 1853 career games.

Next on Maranville’s most-similar list is Omar Vizquel, who has one Top 20 MVP finish in his entire career.  Part of why I’m posting about Maranville is that I suspect Maranville’s name is going to pop up more and more as people continue discussing the Hall of Fame candidacy of Vizquel.  They are going to be compared, and my hope is that folks are able to start understanding Maranville’s career a little better.

Nellie Fox follows Vizquel on the comp list, and here finally we have a player who shares Maranville’s propensity for getting MVP votes.  Fox finished in the top 10 six times (as mentioned above, winning in 1959) and had three other Top 20 finishes.  Fox was elected by the Veterans Committee after narrowly missing election by the BBWAA; really, the writers should have elected him.  He’s not as big a miss by them as Arky Vaughan or Johnny Mize, but it was still a mistake.

One other player on the similar-list to note:  Dave Concepcion had two Top 10 MVP finishes and another in the Top 20.

I realize that the MVP voting is not the end-all and be-all.  There is a danger that you can compound a mistake by referencing an error of the past (i.e. the 1987 AL MVP vote, which still haunts Alan Trammell).  Still, when you have a player whose statistical batting line does not immediately suggest greatness, it’s worth it to check the historical record.  In the case of Maranville, in his time he was obviously considered to be something special.  Generally speaking, the MVP voting tends to favor offensive-minded players (especially HR-RBI guys).  This is why a comparison to Maranville’s peers is appropriate; I think most people consider Ozzie Smith to have been a great player, but other than one season he never did very well in the MVP race.  Yet despite the historical tendency by MVP voters to not recognize defensive specialists, Maranville still did well.

Of course, there was another thing about him that probably is reflected in his MVP voting — he was famous, for he was a great player who also happened to be a clown of the highest order.

There are many, many Maranville stories, and a lot of them are actually true.  If you needed a player to wax another player’s bat with soap, or swallow a goldfish, or jump into a hotel pool fully clothed, or offer a pair of eyeglasses to an umpire after a bad call, Maranville was your man.  If you needed a player to go drinking with Jim Thorpe, and swing through tree branches screeching like Tarzan, or to be dangled outside the 15th floor of a Manhattan hotel by Thorpe (with one arm), Maranville was your man.  If you needed a player to paint iodine streaks on a hapless ump, or to throw buckets of ice at fellow train passengers (which he did as a player-manager), or trick a teammate into thinking he had accidentally killed him, Maranville was your man.

Maranville once got a hit off Carl Mays by making him laugh so hard he couldn’t maintain his control.  He was in the dugout during the infamous Babe Herman-three men on third base play; when Wilbert Robinson asked Maranville what had happened, Maranville said, “There’s three men on third and if they hang on long enough I’ll go down and make a quartet out of it.”

Once during a pitcher-vs.-batter fight, Maranville distracted everyone, including the fans, by going into the first base coach’s box during the fracas and pantomiming a fight against himself, pretending to knock himself out.  (Judge Landis thanked him later for that one.)  Entertaining the crowd during a slow part of the game with various pantomime activities was one of his specialties.

When Maranville caught a popup, he usually caught it by holding his glove open at his navel, allowing the ball to strike him in the chest, and having it roll down his shirt into his glove.  He called it his “vest pocket catch”.

Bill James (not the Boston Braves hurler), in his New Historical Baseball Abstract, refers to Maranville having a “Marx Brothers life”, and I think there’s a lot of truth to that.  He was probably on Chico’s level, but definitely ahead of Zeppo.

Maranville was elected by the BBWAA in 1954, shortly after his death.  The fact he had recently died had little to no impact on his election; he had risen in the balloting gradually over the preceding decade, finishing tenth in 1949, ninth in 1950 and 1951, seventh in 1952, and fifth in 1953.  Two players were elected in 1953, meaning that Maranville was in the top three of those on the ballot who had not been elected, along with Bill Dickey and Bill Terry.  All three of those players were elected in 1954.  Maranville actually jumped ahead of Dickey and Terry in the voting to finish first overall that year.  Keep in mind that the Hall had only been around for a few years and there were many outstanding players on the ballot.  Nineteen of the top 20 vote-getters from 1954 are now in the Hall (the exception is Hank Gowdy).

After his career in organized baseball was over Maranville helped run youth baseball programs in Detroit and New York.  One of the kids he taught was Whitey Ford.

Anyway, to sum up:  Maranville wasn’t a great hitter, but he was a great player.  His specialty was in preventing runs as opposed to producing them, and this was recognized by his contemporaries.  He was considered something of a clutch hitter (although I tend to find most claims of being “clutch” not involving George Brett to be somewhat dubious).  He had an incredibly long career, and he was enormously popular.  Thinking of him as just being a .258 hitter is small-minded, to say the least.

I’m not saying he was the greatest player who ever lived.  All I’m saying is that if you’re a writer and you’re trying to reference a player who doesn’t belong in the Hall, Maranville is not the right guy to name.  Look, you want suggestions?  Try Chick Hafey or George Kelly, or Rube Marquard if you need a pitcher (don’t get him confused with Rube Waddell, though).  You’ll be safe criticizing those selections — unless a member of one of their families is reading your column.

Just leave Maranville’s plaque alone…

 ”31 in 31″ – The 1970’s – Card #29

Dave Concepcion – 1971 Topps – #14

Dave Concepcion played 19 seasons for the Cincinnati Reds and was a big part of one of baseball’s most dominant dynasties – ‘The Big Red Machine’.  Although Concepcion was never known as the leader of the team, his play earned the respect of his teammates, his fans, and the baseball world.  A 9-time All-star and 5-time Gold Glove winner at shortstop, Concepcion anchored an amazing Reds infield.  With a career batting average of .267 with 321 stolen bases and 993 runs scored, Dave Concepcion added the fuel to the fire that helped lead the Cincinnati Reds to 4 World Series match-ups in 7 years while winning 2 titles in 1975 and 1976.

Yesterday’s pack was horrid. I only received one non double. Made me want to cry. The card count now stands at 132 and with only 4 packs left (60 cards) I am starting to feel dejected. I knew a pack like that was coming, it just hits hard when it does. So today we have a new pack and although I am tepid about opening it for fear of a repeat of yesterday, I forge on for my readers. I just hope it doesn’t suck. So let’s get amped because it’s time for pack 69 . . .dude (I couldn’t resist).

1. Enos Cabell – 3B/1B – Dodgers – 197 – Double, first reviewed in pack 42.

2. Kirk McCaskill – P – Angels – 628 – Double, first reviewed in pack 48.

3. Dave Van Gorder – C – Reds – 143 – Double, first reviewed in pack 48.

4. Dave Concepcion – SS – Reds – 195 – Double, first reviewed in pack 48.

5. Mariners Leaders – 546 – Double, first reviewed in pack 56.

6. Frank WIlliams – P – Giants – 341 – Double, first reviewed in pack 43.

7. Greg Gagne – 3B/SS – Twins – 162 – Double, first reviewed in pack 43.

8. Pascual Perez – P – Braves – 491 – Double, first reviewed in pack 43.

9. Ernie Riles – SS – Brewers – 398 – Double, first reviewed in pack 43.

10. Dodgers Leaders – 696 – Double, first reviewed in pack 52.

11. Bill Doran – 2B – Astros – 57 -.Double, first reviewed in pack25.

12. Dick Williams – MGR – Padres – 681 – Double, first reviewed in pack pack25.

13. Glenn Brummer – C – Rangers – 616 – Double, first reviewed in pack 14.

14. Steve Garvey – 1B – Padres – 660 – Double, first reviewed in pack 24.

15. Ron Davis – P – Twins – 285 – Double, first reviewed in pack 48.

Well here is my second full pack of doubles. to that I rate you 0.0 stars. So, like I said, I’ve been waiting for this to drop in my lap for quite some time. I just hope my luck turns soon so I can get under the 100 card level. Since no new cards were found, we are still at 132. Maybe tomorrow will bring a better day of cards. I did bring in one more pack to review, so maybe I can do that later today. Have a great day!

Dave Concepcion has a special place in my memory because when I was a kid he once appeared on the cover of Boy’s Life, which my brother had a subscription to as part of his membership in the Cub Scouts. This was for me something like finding some Spiderman comic books or a plate of fudge in the socket aisle at a hardware store. The usual contents in Boy’s Life—fixing stuff, building stuff, lighting fires with no matches, performing resourceful courageous rescues, communing healthily with other young capable outdoorsy boys, cataloguing in a manly scientific way the splendor of nature, helping others, etc.—never interested me, so I was pleased to have something in that corner of my brother’s life that I could relate to.

I don’t actually know how much my brother enjoyed the Cub Scouts, and in fact I’m pretty sure he bailed out prematurely, right around puberty, after he’d earned a couple but not all of the hierarchical series of patches. But into adulthood he has retained a level of comfort with the tasks of the outdoorsman that far surpasses my own. He knows how to set up a tent and identify a bird and start a fire, to name but a few of the things that I approach clumsily and stagger from frustrated, my glasses askew. For him the wild is a place to go to shrink the tasks of a difficult everyday world to a manageable level while simultaneously widening a sense of that everyday world beyond the confines of the necessary economic trenches most of us dive down into most of our days. I like going into the woods for the same reasons, but the work that needs to be done there always gives me back a familiar sense of myself as a generally incompetent guy.

Given this, it occurs to me to wonder where I go, if not the woods, to give myself a sense of competence. The answer is the same now as it would have been thirty years ago, when I was the kid who got excited to see Dave Concepcion on the cover of Boy’s Life. I liked at that time to get away from the world by going into baseball universes inside my head, and the same is true today. What I’m driving at here is that while I may not know how to fix a flat or gut a fish or understand what an IRA is or ballroom dance or tell a joke or build a table, I am, by god, a pretty good leader of imaginary baseball teams in the online Strat-o-matic baseball leagues with player pools based in—where else?—the 1970s and 1980s. I am no Panzer Ace, mind you. (In case you were wondering, Panzer Ace is the unfortunate moniker of the guy who wins just about every league he enters. If inflection of voice were possible in such areas, he would be spoken of on message boards in hushed tones.) But my teams manage to get into the playoffs more often than not.

So what’s my secret, you ask? (I am sure this is the first question that comes to your mind, and not, for example, “Doesn’t it ever occur to you that one day you’ll be on your deathbed wondering why you spent so many hours worrying about imaginary batting orders?”) I’m glad you asked. In two words: Dave Concepcion.

Well, not just Dave Concepcion. But in my experience building a team around a great-fielding shortstop and a great-fielding second baseman, especially if either or preferably both of them can also contribute to the offense, is the best way to ensure that your team will be competitive. Centering your team’s defense, they make mediocre pitchers good and good pitchers great by gobbling up everything hit to them. And if they can hit, as Dave Concepcion could (or, in my imaginary worlds, still can), they make it much easier to build a lineup without any holes, other spots on the diamond being much more easy to fill cheaply with effective offensive players. 

I realize that there is nothing more boring than hearing about someone else’s imaginary sports team, so I understand that I may have killed off most readers willing to start off on the trek of this essay by now. But initially my main goal today, believe it or not, was to give my voice a rest and open up a discussion. It’s just taken me a long time to get to the point I intended to make early on: that according to one of my lone areas of expertise, on-line imaginary baseball, the surest way to build a good team is to start with excellence at shortstop and second base.

That said, here’s the question nagging at me today, one which has me leaning toward including in my own answer the player pictured at the top of the page:

With peak performance and long-term effectiveness having equal importance, which two players made up the best second base and shortstop combination in baseball history?

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Also, FYI: There’s an interview with me about baseball cards on ephemera today. The fascinating site, which focuses on various types of collecting, is definitely worth a look.

Last night I counted all the cards I have in the set and come up with 507. That means I am only 285 cards away, here is the problem though. 285 cards translates to 19 packs. However I am running at about a 30% double rate, which means I would really need 27 packs. The problem is that I only have 24 packs left which would leave me with a 45 card deficit. I can’t go out and get another box with my fingers crossed that I would finally find the last 45 cards, because that would be boring. So as I have gotten tons of offers on completing the set after the 2 boxes have opened, I will probably go that route since, it would be more fun to open 1987 cards as soon as I can. Lets take a look at pack number 48.

1. Dave Van Gorder – C – Reds – 143 – I made a scn of this picture not because Dave was some brilliant player (he wasn’t) but because the picture is of him acting as the warm up catcher. Topps got this one right and finally snapped a picture of a player in “action” doing what he does best. Overall Dave spent 5 seasons as the thrid string catcher and in 1986 he spent most of his time in AAA. He had no hits in 10 at bats. It’s a wonder they got an action shot of him at all.

2. Twins Leaders – 786 – Mickey Hatcher is the dean of the Twins. The offensive leaders were Puckett, Hrbek and Brunansky. The pitching leaders were Frank Viola and Ron Davis. How much can I really right about a card that has Mickey Hatcher as the dean of the team?

3. Kirk McCaskill – P – Angels – 628 – 1986 was Kirk’s second year in the majors. He had a good first season picking up 12 wins and a nice ERA and WHIP. But in 1986 he got confortable as a big league pitcher and it showed. He went 17-10/3.36/1.21 for an Angels squad who went to the playoffs. Incredibly, even though he had a good year he had no All Star appearence of top 10 finish in Cy Young voting.

4. Blue Jays Leaders – 96 – The dean of the Blue Jays was Jim Clancy (and I though Mickey Hatcher was bad). The offensive leaders were Barfield, Bell, and Moseby. The pitching leaders were Stieb and Alexander. Nothing too exciting about his card.

5. Lance McCullers – P – Padres – 44 – Here is another card that I needed to scan, because if I’m right it appears that Lance has an old school Padres uniform on under his regular one. 1986 was his second year in the league and as a reliever he went 10-10/2.78/1.18 in 70 games. So as you can see he was actually a very good reliever. He should celebrate with that comment since, I ordinarily have a bitter taste in my mouth when reviewing relievers.

6. Steve Mura – P – A’s – 281 – Steve was a starter for the majority of his career, but his career ended in 1985 and in that season he was a reliever with the A’s. He went 1-1/4.13/1.38 in 23 games. It’s not that he was a bad pitcher, but that was a bad team and when you are bad on a bad team it’s tough for you to find work again.

7. Pete Rose Cards 1971-1974 – 4 – I was wondering if I was going to be able to get the last of these, now I believe I am only two cards away from finishing it. I like these cards. They show a history of how their cards evolve from a player’s perspective.

8. Pete Rose Cards 1975-1978 – 5 – This is cool to get these cards back to back, because now we are at the point where I started to collect cards from 1977 – 1979, were my first years into collecting.

9. Dave Concepcion – SS – Reds – 195 – At first I thought I had done a review on Concepcion.  But after an exhaustive search of my blog, I couldn’t find a reference to it.  Dave was another member of the Big Red Machine of the mid 70s Reds. During those years, he usually had a batting average of between 0.275 and 0.300 and averaged about 8 homers, 50 RBIs and 25 stolen bases a season.  In 1986 his career was winding down but he still managed to hit 0.260/3/30/13 in about 300 at bats.  So really not too far off his averages and he was 38.

10. Rob Deer – OF – Giants – 249 – Double, first reviewed on pack 17.

11. Ron Davis – P – Twins – 265 – Double, first reviewed on pack 9.

12. Steve Garvey – 1B – Padres – 660 – Double, first reviewed on pack 24.

13. Jim Frey – MGR – Cubs – 231 – Double, first reviewed on pack 21.

14. Dick Williams – MGR – Padres – 681 – Double, first reviewed on pack 25.

15. Tom Tellman – P – A’s – 693 – Double, first reviewed on pack 17.

Overall this was a fairly good pack of cards.  We got the Rose cards, Rob Deer, Dave Concepcion,  and the Krik McCaskill.  So again, not bad at all, I am going to give this one a 2.0 star rating.  I am still bummed out about the prospect of not being able to fill out the set with the two boxes.  But I will do my best to get as close as I can/  Unfortunately you can’t beat statistics and I don’t think I’m going to be able to  even if I wanted to.

In what had to be one of the strangest games of season Carlos Guillen hit a walk-off 3-run home run in the bottom of the 11th for the Detroit Tigers in a win over the New York Yankees. The blast came at 3:30am after a 4 hour rain delay pushed back the start time of the game until 11:06pm EST.

The umpiring crew decided to delay the game after strong storms swept through Detroit right around the original gametime of 7:05pm, and again around 9:30pm. Yankees manager Joe Torre said he “may have mentioned a doubleheader,” and with today’s gametime of 7:05pm that idea seemed like a good one. The umpires vetoed it though and Tigers pitcher Andrew Miller threw the first pitch at 11:06. Looking out my window at 2:00pm it might have been the right decision since it is raining again here in southeast Michigan.

The game itself was full of storylines and excitement. With both Miller and Yankees starter Roger Clemens (who pitched in his first major league game a year before Miller was born) having poor starts the game came down to the bullpens. The Tigers pen threw 6 2/3 scoreless innings with the Yankees bullpen throwing five before Sean Henn gave up the homer to Guillen.

Tigers CF Curtis Granderson went 4-6 with two triples and three RBIs. He now has 21 triples and is the first Tiger to hit 20 since Ty Cobb in 1917. Granderson may have a shot at becoming the first major leaguer to hit 25 triples since Kiki Cuyler had 26 for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1925. No one has hit more than 23 since Dale Mitchell in 1949.

Tigers 2B Placido Polanco may have wanted to wait another day as he committed his first error in 147 games in the first inning last night. He broke the record for second basemen earlier in the week.

Whether it was the late night, or the mysterious strike zone of home plate umpire Bob Davidson Yankees catcher Jorge Posada was thrown out of the game for arguing calls in the ninth inning. Both teams had issues with Davidson’s strike zone when an inning later Tigers OF Magglio Ordonez argued two calls in the same at-bat. Magglio must not have said the magic word because he was not thrown out.

About half of the 44,000 fans that sold out Comerica Park were around when Guillen hit his game winning home run. The Tigers needed the win to gain a game on the Cleveland Indians who lost to the Kansas City Royals almost six hours before the game in Detroit ended. Some in the crowd were sent home disappointed though as the stadium announced it would not be holding fireworks after the game due to field conditions and Detroit noise ordinances.

Other News:
- San Diego Padres P Greg Maddux became the first major league pitcher to win 10 games in 20 straight seasons with his victory over the Philadelphia Phillies last night.
- The Cincinnati Reds are retiring Dave Concepcion’s #13 today. The shortstop played 19 seasons for the Reds from 1970-1988.