Baseball: Happy Birthday

today is Stan "the Man" Musials birthday, he is 85....
did you know that for his career he had exactly as many hits on the road as he did in St Louis

birthdays for 11/22

Lew Burdette is 79
Wade Blasingame is 62
Greg Luzinski is 55

Originally posted by toejam
today is Stan "the Man" Musials birthday, he is 85....
did you know that for his career he had exactly as many hits on the road as he did in St Louis

Really?!?!?

That stat genuinely shocks me. In Sportsman's Park, it was 310 down the RF line, 322 to straightaway right, and 351 to fairly deep RCF. I have a litho of Ted Williams batting against the shift there in the 1946 Series, so I know. And I always figured those dimensions and the easy-to-hit screen accounted for Musial's high averages and prolific doubles. (Of course, I've been hard-pressed to explain why Musial is easily #1 of all post-WWII players in career triples.)

I followed Musial's final four seasons as a child, when I was 7, 8, 9 and 10. The Giants announcers talked about him and Spahn like they were gods, and I accepted that as fact, but since I found out about the dimensions of Sportsman's Park, I've discounted Musial a bit--nothing like Chuck Klein or Larry Walker, of course, but a bit--in my mind.

Your stat appears to blow that out of the water. Indeed, I just now walked back to my mini-law library, which has two shelves that function as a baseball law library, and grabbed what I believe is Bill James' first great historical abstract, published in 1985. It gives the following home and away stats for Musial:

Bat.Avg: .326, road; .336, home
Runs: 950, road; 996, home
Hits: 1,815 as to both
2B: 331, road: 393, home (the screen effect)
3B: 87, road; 90, home
HR: 223, road; 252, home
RBI: 890, road; 1,053 home

Well, OK, obviously Sportsman's Park's cozy dimension's for lefties (the other half of the field was not generous) helped Stan with his power stats. This is especially so in that he had 172 fewer career at bats at home (i.e., and more walks).

Then again, in the days of asymmetric parks, you were SUPPOSED to learn your park's anomalies and benefit from them. You weren't supposed to play in a joke of a park, like Klein at the laughable Baker Bowl, or Larry Walker (check his home vs. away stats in the Colorado years and prepare to laugh--end of his case for the HOF). But home was supposed to help you.

It looks to me like Musial's power stats were helped perhaps a bit more than normal by Sportsman's Park, but the most noticeable differences are doubles (almost 20% more) and RBI's (ditto). The RBI's are almost entirely a function of his teammates, given that his hits were equal and his batting average near-equal. And you should figure Musial would have gotten nearly 700 doubles even without that wonderful screen and short fence. (Incidentally, for a large part of Babe Ruth's career, the screen wasn't there and games at St. Louis were a turkey shoot for the big guy--which is a big part of the surprising stat that he hit more HR's on the road than at home, during the years he played in Yankee Stadium.)

My final judgment: I've been too harsh on Musial. The park helped him a bit more than one expects an asymmetric home park to help its natives, but not vastly so. James rates Musial as the #8 greatest MLB player, and the #10 greatest baseball player, of all time. For people who place huge emphasis on a great season or two in rating players, Musial in 1948 had one of the greatest seasons ever by a non-steroid user not named Babe Ruth. With one more HR, he would have led the NL, or tied for leading the NL, in doubles, triples, HR's, on-base, slugging, total bases, runs scored, RBI's and runs created, in which he led the NL 9 times! Also--and this fact surprises a lot of people--while Hank Aaron is obviously #1 in career extra base hits, Musial is #2.

So....

Since his park didn't help him nearly as much as I thought, this dude obviously was every bit as good as James makes him out to have been. In the 1985 and 1988-1989 books, James rated him ahead of Ted Williams, due to Williams' insufferable personality and overt indifference to working on fielding and baserunning. James changed his mind in the huge 2001 book (only as to the rating; not as to what kind of person or player Williams was), but I'm not sure he didn't have it right the first time.

B.H.N.

todays birthdays 11/23

Louis Tiant 1940
Eddie Collins 1916

died today

Bo Belinsky 2001
Hac Wilson 1948

Eddie Collins in 1916???

Unless you're talking about some other "Eddie Collins," I don't think so. Eddie Collins was born around 1887, and was well on his way to having a HOF career by 1916.

BTW, when I was a little kid first studying baseball history (circa 1960), it was accepted by almost all that Eddie Collins, and not the egomaniacal, petty, fractious and traded-every-year Rogers Hornsby, was the greatest second baseman of all time. IMHO, Joe Morgan came along and rendered that debate moot, but I agree with Collins over Hornsby. Dave Kingman was not traded as often as Hornsby, even when Hornsby was still hitting .380 with decent power every year. There had to be a reason.

good catch, this eddie collins is eddie collins jr. played partial seasons with philadelphia in 1939, 1941, 1942, not quite as sucesful as eddie collins senior

I just now looked him up at my on-line super-source. Apparently he died just over 5 years ago. Too bad, because he surely would have appreciated the thought that his baseball career warranted his inclusion at this site among notable birthdays.

B.H.N.

toejays birthdays

Joe Medwick 1911
Bob Friend 1930
Jim Northrup 1939
Steve Yeager 1948

todays birthdays....11/25

Bucky Dent....54
Joe Dimaggio 1914

birthdays for 11/26

Hugh Duffy 1866
Lefty Gomez 1908

haven't updated this thread in a while, i should start it up again, i can't believe that

Sandy Koufax is 70 today....

now i feel REALLY old

Originally posted by toejam
haven't updated this thread in a while, i should start it up again, i can't believe that

Sandy Koufax is 70 today....

now i feel REALLY old

Why tj, is he your nephew or something?

Happy Birthday Edgar Martinez :party-smiley-018:

today is Babe Ruths birthday....Happy Birthday Babe...

BABE RUTH, 1895-1948
YEAR AGE RCAA OBA SLG OPS OWP RC/G AVG HR RBI SB G TEAM
1918 23 45 .411 .555 .966 .831 9.01 .300 11 66 6 95 Red Sox
1919 24 92 .456 .657 1.114 .872 12.39 .322 29 114 7 130 Red Sox
1920 25 156 .532 .847 1.379 .913 18.41 .376 54 137 14 142 Yankees
1921 26 166 .512 .846 1.359 .891 17.90 .378 59 171 17 152 Yankees
1922 27 64 .434 .672 1.106 .796 11.01 .315 35 96 2 110 Yankees
1923 28 157 .545 .764 1.309 .896 17.31 .393 41 131 17 152 Yankees
1924 29 138 .513 .739 1.252 .879 15.61 .378 46 121 9 153 Yankees
1926 31 132 .516 .737 1.253 .883 15.60 .372 47 146 11 152 Yankees
1927 32 138 .486 .772 1.258 .874 14.91 .356 60 164 7 151 Yankees
1928 33 117 .463 .709 1.172 .861 12.79 .323 54 142 4 154 Yankees
1929 34 82 .430 .697 1.128 .802 11.60 .345 46 154 5 135 Yankees
1930 35 122 .493 .732 1.225 .860 13.90 .359 49 153 10 145 Yankees
1931 36 128 .494 .700 1.194 .872 15.11 .373 46 163 5 145 Yankees
1932 37 101 .489 .661 1.150 .860 13.73 .341 41 137 2 133 Yankees
1933 38 66 .442 .582 1.023 .795 10.05 .301 34 103 4 137 Yankees
1934 39 43 .448 .537 .985 .748 9.49 .288 22 84 1 125 Yankees
CAR 1795 .474 .690 1.164 .852 13.14 .342 714 2210 123 2503
LG AVG 0 .356 .404 .760 .500 5.27 .288 92 1005 143
POS AVG 204 .371 .444 .815 .572 6.19 .299 152 1141 147

this really isn't a baseball birthday more of an aniversary. yesterday (feb 6) was the aniversary of the Plea Bargain, the very first one was handed out in 1881 i believe it was. It kind of has to do with sports since so many professional atheletes end up utilizing them.