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The AL West Win-Out Scenarios

October 1, 2015

The Pecan Park Eagle and his Gammie
Beeville, TX, 1939
“Never Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch!”

With the Astros down to 3 games at Arizona and the Rangers and Angels meeting in Arlington for 4 games to conclude their seasons, FOX SPORTS frames this zany down-to-the-wire pennant race very well. – We could end up in the AL West with a three-club tie that would require a 2-game divisional crown playoff prior to the scheduled 1-game meeting between the two AL wild cards at the home of the club with he best record:

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The Angels close the season with four games at Texas. The Astros close with three games at Arizona. If the Angels win three of four in Texas, and if the Astros sweep the Diamondbacks, that would leave the Angels, Houston and Texas with the same record.

That scenario would guarantee the Angels a postseason spot because they have a better record against both Texas and Houston. Those two clubs would then play a one-game playoff on Monday with the winner advancing to play the Angels on Tuesday. The winner of THAT game would win the West, and the loser would go play the Yankees in the Wild Card game.

~ FOX SPORTS

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/los-angeles-angels-houston-astros-texas-rangers-al-west-tie-scenario-complicated-093015

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What happens, however, if the Astros win-out in their 3-game series in Arizona that starts tomorrow, while either the Rangers or Angels win all 4 games they have scheduled against each other, starting today, Thursday, October 1, 2015? Here’s a two-table look at that scenario.

Table One shows the final AL West standings, if the Astros win their 3 and the Rangers take their 4 against the Angels:

TEAMS	GAMES	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
RANGERS	IF WIN 4	90	72	.556	~
ASTROS	IF WIN 3	87	75	.537	3
ANGELS	IF LOSE 4	83	79	.512	7

Table One provides a clear finish for Texas. The Rangers would take the AL West division title place in the playoffs. The Astros would also clinch a wild card spot, eliminating the Twins, who already have 76 losses, but also possibly allowing Houston to slip past the Yankees for the 1st wild card position by one game, while opening the door for a possible tie for the second wild card spot between the Yankees and Twins, who could possibly wind up with tied with 86-76 records.

Table Two show the final AL West standings, if the Astros win their 3 and the Angels take their 4 against the Rangers:

TEAMS	GAMES	WINS	LOSSES	PCT.	GB
ASTROS	IF WIN 3	87	75	.537	~
ANGELS	IF WIN 4	87	75	.537	~
RANGERS	IF LOSE 4	86	76	.531	1

Table Two results would set up a one-game playoff between the Astros and Angels for the AL West title. The game would be played at Anaheim because of the Angels’ superior head-to-head season record against the Astros. The loser would get one of the wild card spots, depending upon how the Yankees do over this final weekend. The Yankees would have to lose all four of their remaining games and the Twins would have to win all four of their last ones to set up a tie between those two clubs for the second WC spot.

General Thoughts

No matter how you slice it, it’s been an interesting season. The only thing that has saved me from disappointment this just concluded month of September is the fact of September itself. I was finally able to parlay all my seasons with the game into a memory that never left me through all those high-flying days of the summer of watching the Astros gliding along in first place in the AL West.

One thought prevailed: “The Astros still have play this well in September.”

They didn’t. And here we are. But the tempering remembrance that the season also includes the games of September did prove for me the validity of an ancient wisdom that all of us know, but often forget, and I heard it originally from my great-grandmother at her country home near Beeville so many years ago. And “Gammie”, God Bless her, was born prior to the Civil War.

Modern social observers have spruced up the thought in these terms:

“Disappointment is the downside of expectation!”

My preference is for the way Gammie and others from her now gone generation put it:

“Never count your chickens before they hatch!”

No matter what happens now, I’m ready for October, one day at a time.

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Thank you for both your loyalty and your patience.

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Tags:AL WEST win-out scenarios
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Rangers Still Holding the Catbird Seat

September 27, 2015

rare photo of an actual catbird

In spite of Saturday’s Six Astros homers and 9-7, stop-the-bleeding win over the Rangers, the boys from North Texas still hold their smiling spot in the “catbird seat” as probable winners of he AL West champions ticket into the 2015 AL playoffs for a World Series table for two.

With seven games left, including a final road game against the Astros today at Minute Maid Park, the Texas Rangers hold a 3.5 game lead over our Houston heroes. The sudden improbability that their second place intrastate rivals will suddenly become one of the hottest six-game road teams in history as the Rangers also discover that their own kind of winning momentum is like the thousand pound rock, rolling down hill. – How often do fast rolling half-ton rocks suddenly reverse directions going down the hill on their red hot dates with Mama Gravity? – Only those who recall the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers know the answer to that question.

Going into Sunday’s game, the Astros need to again beat the Rangers in their final meeting of the season just to stay ahead of the Angels and Twins for that second wild card spot and a chance to knock off the Yankees, the higher ranked wild card holder, for a full spot in the four club AL Division Series against either the Blue Jays or Rangers, who are now both tied for the best record in the AL.

That route won’t be any easy-go for the Astros, but worthwhile ambition ever is?

It’s time to do as old Bidge used to always remind us Astros fans. We need to take each game left, one day at a time, as the only game that needs to be won – and then just do it. The Angels and Twins are going to be nipping at the Astros all the way over the next week – and not from an anterior perspective. Unless the Astros are able to heed and fulfill the wisdom of Craig Biggio, and A.J. Hinch too, for sure, they are only a loss today, coupled by an Angels win, into becoming just one of the posterior-biting desperado clubs themselves.

On this Sunday morning, the Astros are only a (0.5) half-game up on the Angels – and a (1.5) game and one-half up on the Twins.

Well, let’s be honest, the Astros, Angels, and Twins are all desperado clubs this week. The only difference is, as all Houston fans know – is that the Astros held a lease on first place in the AL West for almost the entire 2015 season. – Much to our deflation, however, they just forgot to renew the deal to include September.

By the way, if you are interested in that od expression, “in the catbird seat,” here’s an interesting note about it from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary site:

“In the catbird seat” was among the numerous folksy expressions that legendary baseball broadcaster Red Barber used to delight listeners. Some say he invented the expression; others say that he dug it up from his Southern origins. But the truth may be far stranger than those rumors. In a 1942 short story titled “The Catbird Seat,” James Thurber featured a character, Mrs. Barrows, who liked to use the phrase. Another character, Joey Hart, explained that Mrs. Barrows must have picked up the expression from Red Barber. To Red, according to Joey, “sitting in the catbird seat” meant “‘sitting pretty,’ like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him.” But, according to Barber’s daughter, it was only after Barber read Thurber’s story that he started using “in the catbird seat” himself.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/1500e8764abae45f

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PS: At The Pecan Park Eagle, we are still working without a replacement plan for new column notices now that the faceless, human-less, and gutless Google has shut us down by categorizing our mass email Bcc notices as Spam. In the meanwhile, please feel free to just check into the site on your own to see if there is any new material you may have missed. A publication deadline and another minor health issue of the past week has also intervened to cut down our normal daily production, but we will be back soon. Thanks for both your loyalty and your patience. – Bill McCurdy.

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Tags:2015 AL pennant race, in the catbird seat
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Slip Slidin’ Away

September 24, 2015

“Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away”

~ Paul Simon

For whatever reason of coincidence or thematic association, Wednesday afternoon’s results at Minute Maid Park today were remindful of that classic old Paul Simon song.

I had to watch it at home with a bad head cold, but it wasn’t any prettier from the unobstructed, high definition, multiple angle coverage provided by the up-and-earnest ROOT television network. My only advantage is that I didn’t have to drive out the Katy Freeway at rush hour when the clock of doom finally struck for certain in the bottom of the 9th.

“Slip slidin’ away,” all right. It sure is.

Throw in “some’s gotta win, some’s gotta lose, Good Time Charlie’s got the blues.”

Somebody has to fold in this tight race to the 2015 MLB playoffs – and why shouldn’t it be the Astros? When a club that has just rallied to capture their first one-run lead in the 7th, why shouldn’t the Astros be the ones to blow it in the 8th by again putting the game in the hands of “all motion/no stuff” reliever Pat Neshek to give up that cruncher David Freese two-out double to left center that made the difference. This was the second game that Neshek has lost for the Astros on this once critical, now critically disappointing home stand.

Now all the Astros have to do is sweep the Rangers in three at home and probably win out or post nothing less than a 5-1 record on their final road trip next week to avoid this season becoming just the latest letdown in our club’s long history of same. And please, we all know – it’s not just Neshek. Someone other than Altuve or Correa has to bring their bats into these games earlier – and in critical scoring situations. – We need to stop giving up 3 to 4 runs in the first inning to clubs like the Angels or Rangers – and then rolling up “three and out” innings until somebody on our side starts a desperation move in the 8th or 9th. – Yes, we need to play each game as though we already understood that it is OK to have good hitting and good pitching in the same game.

C’mon, Astros! ~ Spare us fans from the bitter end that is the foreboding message of the Paul Simon song. We heard it playing Wednesday – and we already know it by heart.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

The Alleged 100 Worst Players of All Time

September 20, 2015

“Am I really the worst player of all time?”
~ Mario Mendoza

Darrell Pittman sent me a link this evening to the DeadSpin.Com’s list of the 100 worst players of all time in MLB history.

http://deadspin.com/5820716/the-100-worst-baseball-players-of-all-time-a-celebration-part-1

Not surprisingly, Mario Mendoza, icon of the infamous “Mendoza Line” for low batting average was named as the worst, followed by another easy punch, the selection of funny man Bob Uecker as the second pick.

The first Astro to show up on the list is Curt Blefary at the #15 spot. Blefary was the wonderful bargain that Spec Richardson grabbed for Houston from the Baltimore Orioles ages ago. What a deal! It only cost the Astros a future multiple-year 20-game winner in lefty Mike Cuellar, plus however many fan strokes and heart attacks that resulted as residual citizen casualties.

Eddie Gaedel, all 3’7″ of him, who took ne walk for the old St. Louis Browns and then retired with a career OBP of 1.000 was ranked a peg ahead of Blefary at #14. And that says a lot. For one thing, it says that the vertically challenged Gaedel, who never had played baseball prior to his major league debut, was regarded by the folks at DeadSpin.Com as superior to the 13 men who have preceded him in the poll, if there even was one. The whole thing could be the creative genius of some lone baseball wizened one.

Other Astros on the list include #18 J.R. Phillips, #22 Brian L. Hunter, #31 Jose Lima, #61 Mark Lemongello, #67 Casey Candaele, #73 Enos Cabell, #86 Tuffy Rhodes, and #92 Anthony Young.

Even if every guy here pegged as an Astro also played for other MLB teams, there are a total of 9 chosen for this infamous list as having played some big league time for Houston. In only 53 years of existence, far less half the time that professional has existed, could the Astros possibly contributed 9 names to any list of the 100 worst players of all time – regardless of how sordid, murky, or flippant the original standards were.

Have a nice Sunday – and please remember – I will not be sending these notices much longer. So, please, either stay with us on your own by checking the site at https://bill37mccurdy.com/ or else, contact WordPress about a subscription through them that will automatically notify you of new columns. The WordPress link is https://wordpress.com/

Regards, Bill McCurdy, Publisher/Editor, The Pecan Park Eagle

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Tags:100 worst baseball players of all time
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Milo Gave Back to Houston Big Time

September 18, 2015

Milo Hamilton
1927 ~ 2015

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During the four years I served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame (TBHOF), no one was more helpful to the effort in Houston than Milo Hamilton, the radio Voice of the Houston Astros from 1987 through 2012. Appropriately, Milo was honored as the 1992 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award winner for baseball broadcasters, a rare and coveted recognition that only goes out to the best of the best at what they do.

Milo Hamilton also was a force of energy in this community as a volunteer participant in more charitable causes that we could possibly hope to list over the course of short time and column space this morning. All I know from the personal experience we had with Milo as the only Master of Ceremonies we knew during the TBHOF’s brief time in Houston was that nobody could have done it better. He brought positive energy and an upbeat sense of humor about all things to his role as time-management director of the annual banquet program. And he had the greatest projected voice of clear speech I’ve ever heard from a program MC. Every guest in attendance easily could hear every word that Milo said – and, just as importantly, feel all of the genuine enthusiasm he transmitted through his manner of expression.

Milo could have brought enthusiasm to a most tasty three-minute egg boiling contest. He also brought that same kind of broadcasting energy to quite a few Astros baseball seasons that otherwise were about as interesting as a boiling egg.

Milo Hamilton’s death on Thursday, September 17, 2015, at age 88, is our profound loss. We already miss him.

Holy Toledo, Milo! Your departure means that Houston baseball just lost one of its biggest friends!

Rest in Peace, Milo Hamilton. Our love and affection goes with you.

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ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE: Since 2009, The Pecan Park Eagle has used Gmail to send “new column” notices to hundreds of readers without a problem – until this week. Three days ago, however, for some unclear reason, Gmail has mistakenly identified my Gmail address as a probable spam base and made it impossible for us to send our usual daily notices.

It would seem to be an easily resolvable problem if it were possible to speak with a human being at Gmail, bu that is not an option. Gmail, like all Google programs, apparently expects users to find their answers for help from the robots, and, after three days of trying, I give up.

While I still do not have a way to reach everyone at once about this issue, here’s what I choose to suggest to those of you find this notice:

(1) If you wish to have an automatic “new column” notice, please go directly to WordPress and register as a WordPress subscriber to The Pecan Park Eagle:

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We resuming our columns today in the hope that those of us who counted upon our contact through Gmail will now find our way back together in spite of Gmail or some transferred reliance to some other fickle server site.

Thanks for both your patience and loyalty – and please help us spread this word to others you may know who have relied upon those Gmail notices for confirmation of new material.

Thanks!

Bill McCurdy, Publisher, The Pecan Park Eagle

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Tags:RIP Milo Hamilton
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All Time Astros Hitting Stats

September 15, 2015

Darrell Pittman
Our Pecan Park Eagle Baseball Researcher
“Nobody Does it Better or with More Passion for Accuracy!”

He’s done it again. Big time, this time.

The indefatigable baseball researcher we all know as Darrell Pittman has come up with just about all the nuts and bolts that have gone into Houston MLB batting history against right and left handed pitchers, separately and collectively, since the franchise began in 1962, and running through the completion of last season’s 2014 data.

If you bear in mind that “RH” signifies right-handed batter, “RP” symbolizes right-handed pitcher, and that “LH/LP” bear the same values for players performing on the southpaw side, the following table will read easily on just a few of the data items that Darrell has captured.

There is much more to the data base. I simply could not come up with a readable format for displaying it here on short notice, forcing me to fall back on my personal rule about data charts and tables: “If you can’t make it neat – relax and delete.”

If anything, the data stands as confirmation that opposite hand hitter-pitcher match-ups do result in an overall advantage to the batter.

Through 2014, the Houston MLB team batting average was .254. For me, that information simply confirmed why I still harbor affection for .300 as the “Mantle Crying Line” for greatness with the stick. Mantle forever lamented that his performance fell hard off the hitting cliff after 1964 and carried him through his final four seasons to a .298 finish in 1968, his last call, for hitting, at least.

When he has time, I will ask Darrell for his sources on the compilation of this data – and the much more me he sent me that is not shown here. When that narrative is available, we will add it to this column as an addendum to this post.

Meanwhile, enjoy what you may derive from this limited display and please do not be shy about posting your comments and questions below.

H v P	AB	H	HR	BA	SA	OBP

RH v RP	118159	29474	2852	.249	.378	.311
LH v RP	86703	22543	1764	.260	.385	.334
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RH v LP	66449	17222	1469	.259	.386	.328
LH v LP	15603	3665	221	.235	.330	.300
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All v RP	204862	52017	4616	.254	.381	.321
All v LP	82052	20887	1690	.255	.375	.322
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All v All	286914	72904	6306	.254	.379	.321

Thanks, The Pecan Park Eagle.

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Addendum source Information from Darrell Pittman, 9/15/15 (same date as column):

The data source is Retrosheet. More specifically, the season batting splits pages that start at:

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1962/WHOU01962.htm

and go up through:

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2014/WHOU02014.htm

I used the first section of each page, labeled “Batting Splits”. (The lower section, labeled “Pitching Splits” appears to be opponents’ batting against our pitchers.) The software just downloaded and added up the “Batting Splits” figures from the season pages.

~ Darrell Pittman

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Tags:1962-2014, All Time Astros Club Batting
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Astros Miracle Overcomes Angels in Outfield

September 14, 2015

Alden Gonzalez and Brian McTaggert of MLB.COM covered the miraculous recovery by the Astros after two were out in the 9th at Anaheim yesterday about as well as anyone could describe it.

http://m.angels.mlb.com/news/article/149191320/mike-trout-homers-on-first-pitch-vs-astros

That Astros rally for 5 runs a crucial win against the worst odds in baseball ranks right up there with this ancient fan as one of the most exciting things we’ve ever seen an Astros club do, well, you tell me, can you imagine any better time for it to happen. Just as it appears we are going be swept by the Angels and down to 1-5 on the west coast part of this killer road trip, a miracle arrival of good luck and magical bats (the same ones that have been sorely missing) arrives together to paint a rainbow on the horizon before the team’s flight east to Arlington and the 4-game showdown with the Texas Rangers.

Twice those Angels in the outfield on Sunday afternoon came within inches of capturing George Springer’s triple to right center and within a glove scrape miss of Jed Lowrie’s 3-run homer down the right field line. And, in between those two breaks, a ball traveling at bullet-train speed off the bat of rookie sensation Carlos Correa got stuck in the glove of an Angels infielder for a trapped ball infield single that could not be removed to make a throw to first for the final out. Even earlier than Lowrie’s Angels-killer blow off Huston Street, one of the toughest closers in the game, Preston Tucker had started things off with 2 outs by blasting a Street pitch deep into the right field stands to reduce the Angels lead to 3-1. Then Jose Altuve singled in Springer from third to pull the Astros even closer at a 3-2 deficit. Altuve then advanced to 2nd base on Correa’s infield smash that got stuck in the glove of Angels infielder Taylor Featherston.

Lowrie finished the job as a left-handed pinch hitter for slugger Evan Gattis, even drawing his margin of error down to two strikes from Street before he delivered the 3-run high floating homer down the line that apparently even made a scraping sound off the glove of Angels right fielder Kole Calhoun as it eluded his catch before falling safely over the wall. Calhoun said in another interview that he either felt or heard or thought the ball skimmed off his glove before it left the yard. Whether it did or not for sure, we may never know, but Calhoun was the only one close enough on the field to have sensed anything at that moment in time.

The Jed Lowrie 3-run homer made the score now 5-3, Houston, a margin that would survive the carnival of joy that was then the state of the Houston Astros dugout on its way to remaining as the final score.

The whole thing played out like a surreal reminder of the wonderful 1951 original version of the baseball movie, “Angels in the Outfield,” only this time, the spiritual angels weren’t there to save the pennant hopes of the Pittsburgh Pirates movie good guys – and they sure as heck were not there in Anaheim yesterday to save the 2015 Angels.

The incredible win by Astros kept the Houston Astros 1.5 games up on the Texas Rangers as the start a 4-game series in Arlington today against their too-close-for-comfort tracker foe – and it dropped the Los Angeles Angels back to a 4.5 game deficit in the AL West.

Keep it up, Astros, but please spare us our hearts by not waiting until there are two outs in the 9th to start getting the job done on an everyday basis.

Thank you very much, Astros – even if Sunday was the result of some kind of deal that Manager A.J. Hinch worked out with the real life spiritual angels in the outfield and infield at Anaheim!

Tags:Astros Have Miracle WIn Over LA Angels
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Help Solve This Baseball Photo’s Mysteries

September 13, 2015

A St. Louis Browns Home Game Sportman's Park, St. Louis Sometime during WWII ~ But what are the other details?

A St. Louis Browns Home Game
Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis
Sometime during WWII
~ But what are the other details?

We found this World War II photo of the St. Browns performing a rundown play on an unidentified player from an unknown American League opponent tonight. It was among a group of pictures in one of those column stories sponsored most likely by one those Advertising-Trackier-Trojan-Horse-Loader sites. This history tempter site was called something like “rare photos from WWII”. The photo above was the only one about baseball, but it just happened be my old MLB favorites, the St. Louis Browns – and I never had seen it before.

I’m only guessing it was the 1944 Browns’ AL championship year, but the only things we known for sure are: (1) It is the St. Louis Browns in the field; and (2) The venue is unmistakably old Sportsman’s Park. That field scoreboard, even without the name “St. Louis” being clearly present, is also a no doubter.

If it’s 1944, the catcher is either Frank Mancuso or Red Hayworth. The cut-of man behind the retreating runner probably is the 3rd baseman, either Mark Christman or Ellis Clary. The shortstop probably came over to cover 3rd base. If he did, it may be Vern Stephens, but it’s impossible to tell. The unidentified umpire has him covered pretty well in the picture.

No ideas come to me about the name or team of the runner. He may be wearing the number 2, but that could be the second of a two-digit number cannot see.

Hey, Bill Hickman! You are our SABR guy on ancient baseball photos. Do you happen to have some or all of the answers we seek? – And that call also goes out to our fellow members in both the St. Louis Browns Historical Society and the Eddie Gaedel Society! _ Do any of you visually knowledgeable people know the answers we seek here?

Have a cup of coffee and think about it. If we really need to solve any mysteries on a pleasant Sunday morning, let it be one of these – the baseball fun kind.

ADDENDUM 1, 9/13/15, 12:00 PM, CDT: Mike Vance e-mailed me an important set of facts that I could not see with own eyes: “The scoreboard says they are playing New York. Snuffy Stirnweiss wore number 2 for them in 1944.” Mike also notes that New York closed their 1944 season with the Browns in St. Louis. -Thanks, Mike.

ADDENDUM 2, 9/13/15, 3:05 PM, CDT: Keith Olbermann e-mailed the following link to what appears to be the game. Check out the Yankees time at bat in the top of the 3rd with Stirnweiss, who wore number 2.):

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1944/B10010SLA1944.htm

Olbermann added his own fitting comment: “The term “mystery” is overused.”

Thanks, Keith.

ADDENDUM 3, 9/13/15, 3:30 PM, Bill Hickman posted this confirmation of Olbermann’s information with these remarks in the comment section which follows this article:

“Think I may have it this time. Stanfromtacoma’s hint about large crowd size got me to thinking about the pennant race. On Sunday, October 1, 1944, the Yankees played the Browns at Sportsmen’s Park in front of 35, 518 cash customers (37,815 total) in a day game. The Yankee’s Stuffy Stirnweiss (#2) was out at home (third to catcher third to catcher) on a fielder’s choice in the top of the third inning. With the scoreboard clock showing about 2:25, that would probably be about the right timing. The game started at 2 pm, midwest time. The whole game only lasted 1 hour and 38 minutes.

“The third baseman for the Browns that day was Paul Christman and the catcher was Ray Hayworth. The third base umpire was Jim Boyer.

“Bill, if you have a larger version of this mystery photo, you might want to compare the shot of the umpire with the photo of Jimmy Boyer found on the following webpage to see if it matches: http://tinyurl.com/3seax65 “

Thanks, Bill, for that diligent second breath pursuit of the truth.

And thanks to all of you who care enough about baseball history to feast upon this kind of dedication to the discovery of the arcane.

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Tags:a baseball mystery photo
Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

The DiMaggio Diagnosis That Cracked Up Joe

September 12, 2015

Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio

Joe DiMaggio was a complex personality, to put it mildly. Aided by his dark and handsome Italian good looks, his model-like Adonis physique, his quiet and reserved demeanor, his flair for really fashionable conservative taste in the best of men’s clothing, and his radiant energy appearance as a sophisticated, well-educated man of the world, Joe DiMaggio owned the key to the City of New York.

Fellow teammates, the media, New York socialites, theater and movie celebrities, and even some world-shakers all tended to deferentially give Joe D. wide berth as the royal American guest to the best that the Big Apple had to offer. Famous club host Toots Shor fawned all over the needs of Joe DiMaggio at his famous Manhattan club. – You get the picture.

Underneath all of this external view, I’ve formed the reasonably stable impression that Joe DiMaggio was many things as the real person behind that “yield to my needs” power he obviously possessed over so many who gave him his start on his finally insisted upon reputation by introduction at all baseball events as “the world’s greatest living ballplayer.”

Inside, Joe was still a poorly educated son of a San Francisco area immigrant fisherman, but very intelligent to the effect of the image he projected to others. He knew he wasn’t the suave, wise, and educated man of the world that everyone thought he was. In the company of the literati, he was often exposed in small group table talk to words he did not understand. All the more reason he remained quiet, probably in the hope too that no one would ask him for his thoughts on the subject.

DiMaggio’s classic shyness, I think, was not the easy self-esteem problem that many of our pot-boiling social media shrinks today might think it was. Joe D. had many reasons to feel good about himself. He knew he was great ballplayer, he knew he was a winner, that young women were attracted to him, he even stood up for more baseball salary money in a 1938 holdout from the Yankees that cost him the affection of some Yankee fans and New York media types,

When Joe demanded $40,000 for 1938 over the club offer of $25,000, Yankee GM Ed Barrow pointed out to DiMaggio that he was asking for more money than the great Lou Gehrig was paid, the Yankee Clipper replied: “Then Mr. Gehrig is a badly underpaid player.”

Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert held his ground and Joe finally came around to something less than the original club offer, but he never forgot those who sided against him in the struggle, nor did he ever abandon the idea that, no matter how much money he had, he always felt he deserved more. If that’s anyone’s argument for DiMaggio’s damaged self esteem, I would not waste time in fractious argument, but I would ask: How many of us human beings have ever not wanted more of something from some source outside ourselves. On this level of understanding, Joe DiMaggio is only different from so many of us because he’s Joe “Freakin'” DiMaggio.

What really signatured Joe was the fact that he both wanted more of what he knew he had – and all of whatever everyone else thought he had, thought he was, and he thought he deserved that perceptual credit and royal treatment – beyond simply being a great ballplayer. So, in a way, Joe had to keep his mouth shut from being discovered a fraud on many levels. He was never the educated, sophisticated man of the world, and savvy dude that so many thought he was. He was just a savvy dude and one helluva baseball player.

People bowed and scraped in the presence of Joe DiMaggio until they day he died.

The wonderful late baseball writer, David Halberstam, tells this great story of how one of the few people who was allowed to be honest with Joe DiMaggio was Yankee clubhouse guy, Pete Sheehy.

“Once, when DiMaggio had been examining a red mark on his butt, he yelled over to Sheehy, ‘Hey, Pete, take a look at this. Is there a bruise there?’ ‘Sure there is, Joe, its from all those people kissing your ass,’ Sheehy answered.” *

“Summer of ’49”, David Halberstam, William Morrow & Co., 1989, p 50.

______________________________

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Eagle Eye Sketch of Ruth and Company

September 11, 2015

This Pecan Park Eagle Quick Data Power Study of the ten greatest career home run hitters to date is based upon the following tables from Baseball Almanac. The simple weighted point assignment value methodology is explained below.

1. Top 10 Home Runs, All Time

Name	Home Runs	Rank
Barry Bonds	762	1
Hank Aaron	755	2
Babe Ruth	714	3
Alex Rodriguez	684	4
Willie Mays	660	5
Ken Griffey, Jr.	630	6
Jim Thome	612	7
Sammy Sosa	609	8
Frank Robinson	586	9
Mark McGwire	583	10

2. Top 10 Slugging Average, All Time

Name	Slugging Average	Rank
BABE RUTH	.690 (.68972)	1
Ted Williams	.634 (.63379)	2
Lou Gehrig	.632 (.63242)	3
Jimmie Foxx	.609 (.60929)	4
BARRY BONDS	.607 (.60689)	5
Hank Greenberg	.605 (.60505)	6
MARK McGWIRE	.588 (.58817)	7
Manny Ramirez	.585 (.58540)	8
Albert Pujols	.582 (.58202)	9
Joe DiMaggio	.579 (.57880)	10

3. Top 10 Batting Average, All Time
Name	Batting Average	Rank
Ty Cobb	.366 (.36636)	1
Rogers Hornsby	.358 (.35850)	2
Joe Jackson	.356 (.35575)	3
Ed Delahanty	.346 (.34590)	4
Tris Speaker	.345 (.34468)	5
Ted Williams	.344 (.34441)	6
Billy Hamilton	.344 (.34429)	7
BABE RUTH	.342 (.34206)	8
Harry Heilmann	.342 (.34159)	9
Pete Browning	.341 (.34149)	10

4. TOP 10 Runs Scored, All Time

Name	Runs	Rank
Rickey Henderson	2,295	1
Ty Cobb	2,246	2
BARRY BONDS	2,227	3
HANK AARON	2,174	4
BABE RUTH	2,174
Pete Rose	2,165	6
WILLIE MAYS	2,062	7
ALEX RODRIGUEZ	1,994	8
Stan Musial	1,949	9
Derek Jeter	1,923	10

5. Top 10 Runs Batted In, All Time

Name	RBI	Rank
HANK AARON	2,297	1
BABE RUTH	2,213	2
ALEX RODRIGUEZ	2,047	3
BARRY BONDS	1,996	4
Lou Gehrig	1,995	5
Stan Musial	1,951	6
Ty Cobb	1,937	7
Jimmie Foxx	1,922	8
Eddie Murray	1,917	9
WILLIE MAYS	1,903	10

6. Top 10 On Base %, All Time

Ted Williams	.482 (.4817)	1
BABE RUTH	.474 (.4739)	2
John McGraw	.465 (.4655)	3
Billy Hamilton	.455 (.4552)	4
Lou Gehrig	.447 (.4474)	5
BARRY BONDS	.444 (.4443)	6
Rogers Hornsby	.434 (.4337)	7
Ty Cobb	.433 (.4330)	8
Jimmie Foxx	.428 (.4283)	9
Tris Speaker	.428 (.4279)	10

7. Top 10 Total Bases, All Time

Name	Total Bases	Rank
HANK AARON	6,856	1
Stan Musial	6,134	2
WILLIE MAYS	6,066	3
BARRY BONDS	5,976	4
Ty Cobb	5,854	5
BABE RUTH	5,793	6
Pete Rose	5,752	7
ALEX RODRIGUEZ	5,707	8
Carl Yastrzemski	5,539	9
Eddie Murray	5,397	10

8. Top 10 Walks, All Time

Name	Base on Balls	Rank
BARRY BONDS	2,558	1
Rickey Henderson	2,190	2
BABE RUTH	2,062	3
Ted Williams	2,021	4
Joe Morgan	1,865	5
Carl Yastrzemski	1,845	6
JIM THOME	1,747	7
Mickey Mantle	1,733	8
Mel Ott	1,708	9
Frank Thomas	1,667	10

FINAL POWER RATINGS For BASEBALL”S CURRENT TOP 10 CAREER HR LEADERS

Based upon the 8 career offensive categories used as simply a power sketch on each of the current top 10 career home run list, we used our little “developed tonight” plan to see how these ten great sluggers compared to each other in seven other prime offensives categories. The total eight categories were listed above with the “Top 10 HR Guys” that also showed up in these seven other categories.

We made no attempt to study any players other than those listed in Table 1.

When players from the Table 1 list appear in any of the other seven tabular lists, we show them in all caps and bold type for easier focus on who shows up in other relevant offensive categories beyond HR hitting.

In the case of all eight categories, 10 power points were awarded to each player who finished 1st, down to 1 point for any player that finished 10th. Players who didn’t finish in a particular category, of course, received no points.

As you will see in the point tabulation chart that concludes our brief glimpse, Babe Ruth was the only player to appear somewhere in each of all the 8 categories. Barry Bonds missed only once; and Hank Aaron missed only twice. Not surprisingly, Ruth, Bonds, and Aaron finished 1,2,3 in these roughly estimated power rankings for the current Top 10 HR Hitters in baseball.

To those who argue that other offensive categories could have been added to this quick study, I shall humbly fall upon my own petard and concede the point that you may be correct, Just try to bear in mind that this material was not something I was preparing for a either a doctoral dissertation or a major research grant proposal.

Two hours ago, this idea didn’t even exist within me, although it may have been done by others in the past, many times over. With no apologies for curiosity, I just latched onto this sudden attraction to the idea of using all that wonderful data at Baseball Almanac for a column on a subject that has held me in awe since I was a kid. That is, the powerful force that was, and still is, Babe Ruth.

At any rate, here’s how the Top 10 HR Club finished in relation to each other using the Pecan Park Eagle Statistical Sketch Method:

PLAYER	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	TTL PTS.	RANK
Babe Ruth	8	10	3	6	9	9	5	8	58	1
Barry Bonds	10	6		8	7	5	7	10	53	2
Hank Aaron	9			7	10		10		36	3
Alex Rodriguez	7				8		3		18	4
Willie Mays	6				1		8		15	5
Jim Thome	4							4	8	6
Ken Griffey, Jr.	5								5	7 tie
Mark McGwire	1	4							5	7 tie
Sammy Sosa	3								3	9
Frank Robinson	2								2	10