After finishing the 1984 season second only to the Chicago Cubs in the NL East, the Mets front office felt that a veteran catcher who could hit as well as he performed behind the plate was in order. That’s where Carter stepped in. Frank Cashen, the general manager of the Mets at the time, was convinced that Carter would be the missing piece for a franchise anxious to return to the glory days of the late nineteen-sixties and early seventies. In Cashen’s mind, acquiring an All-Star catcher with a million-dollar smile would be the solution that would knock some of the rust off his team caused by a near-decade of irrelevance.

In Carter’s first game as a Met, on April 9, 1985, he hit a tenth inning walk-off home run on Opening Day against, none other than, Neil Allen. Maybe Cashen and the Mets were on to something, I thought. Frankly, as a young Mets fan, I probably didn’t even realize the ramifications of what Carter had just accomplished. At nine, the only thing I’d check the newspaper for was the box score not what had actually gone on during the game. Understanding the dramatics of baseball had not quite sunken in for me yet. Really, I passed out during Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Don’t worry I was lucky enough to wake up in time to see the ball go through Bill Buckner’s legs.

Oh, those were the days when Carter’s bushy red-orange locks would be bouncing up-and-down as he rumbled into second base standing up, clapping his hands after smacking an RBI double. “Great days, indeed,” if you don’t mind me stealing a line from John Lennon. And I was just a bright-eyed little kid back then in Queens, NY, who was proud to call the Mets, his team to beat. I thought these guys would live forever. Carter as well as other players during that amazing World Series run of 1986 will always be immortalized in the minds of Mets fans. There’s no denying that. Carter was definitely an integral part if not the catalyst for the team’s success that year. However, believing that now pains me to read of the unfortunate turn that Carter’s health has taken of late. Being such a well-liked player in his day, then as a coach, it does not seem fair.

I’ve been reading Kimmy Carter’s blog, Gary’s daughter. The situation has gone from bad to worse. I’m hoping for the best for him. But however her father comes out of this, as Mets fans, we will always remember those fond memories of the mid-eighties. How her father’s enthusiasm and passion not only led his team into baseball’s record books but ignited a city in the process. There has been a lot of debate among Mets fans on whether the Mets organization should retire Carter’s uniform number eight. If they do decide to go for it, they’d better get cracking. I believe they should. It’s the least they could do to appease what has become a very disgusted fan base. I think it may bring Mets fans together in a positive light.

Here’s to you Gary, the Expos’ greatest Met. Wish you well and hope you get better soon.

AC – Mets Public Record

The greatness and prestige begins with Cornelius McGillicuddy, Sr, who after spending more than a decade as a player in the National League,  managed the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers for four seasons. With the advent of the American League in 1901, “Connie Mack” became manager, treasurer, and part owner of the new Philadelphia Athletics. He would go on to win – and lose – more games than any manager in major league history. Mack would also build, break down, and rebuild World Series-winning teams before settling into a nearly two-decade long routine of losing games and cashing dividend checks. A team that got off to a good start, but finished fourth, he once said, would be the best kind of team to have.

“A team like that will draw well enough during the first part of the season to show a profit for the year, and you don’t have to give the players raises when they don’t win.” – Connie Mack

Still, Mack won. From 1901-1914, the A’s won three World Series, six pennants, posted two second place finishes and had just one losing season. After getting swept 4-0 in the 1914 World Series, by the “Miracle” Boston Braves, an angry Mack dealt or sold away all of his best players. After a decade of losing, the franchise enjoyed another remarkable stretch from 1925-1933, including two World Series titles, three AL pennants and four second place finishes.

Sadly, the Mack club would never again rise to prominence after 1933, and would only post two seasons with winning records (1949-50) before the club was sold to Arnold Johnson in 1954 and he moved it to Kansas City.

The team’s shift from Philadelphia is long forgotten for most of today’s baseball fans, and predated the Dodgers and Giants shift from New York to the West Coast by three years. There have been no songs, books or poetry written to mourn the loss of the Philadelphia A’s, so we won’t attempt to do so here. However, despite all of the years that they occupied the second division of the AL, Connie Mack’s White Elephants also fielded some of the best nines ever to play the game.

Despite efforts to keep the club in the City of Brother Love, the Mack heirs finally sold the club to Arnold Johnson who would move the A’s to Kansas City to serve as a glorified farm team to the New York Yankees. It would be an insurance salesman named Charlie O’ Finley who would move the franchise to Oakland, change the A’s forever.

As defacto GM, O’Finley would build baseball’s last “real” dynasty. He would also open the door to a baseball future that would drive him from the game.  Finley finally got out in August of 1980, selling the club to Walter J. Haas, who controlled the Levi-Strauss empire. The club had finished 54-108 in 1979, so Finley had hired Billy Martin to run the whole operation. At first, the move was genius. Martin, the Oakland native, was 83-79 in his initial season, and followed it up by winning a share of the division title in the strike-shortened 1981 season. But the winning came with a price, because as the returning hero, Martin filled his front office and scouting department with cronies rather then the best people he could find. The result was chaos, and the new ownership group started giving more and more responsibility to young executive Sandy Alderson, a Dartmouth grad and ex-Marine.

When the bubble burst after a 68-94 season in 1982, Alderson would take over in 1983. It had been a three-year roller-coaster ride with Martin, who was also the club’s GM for the 1981 and 1982 seasons, but there was more to come.

Alderson would preside over four straight losing seasons while he rebuilt the A’s, finish at exactly .500 in 1987, and would win three pennants and one World Series during 1988-1990. Five losing seasons would follow before he gave way to his young assistant, who would become of the most talked about GMs in baseball history.

Billy Beane’s “Moneyball” fame has led to a change in the game of baseball we see being played today, surely, but for all of the praise, Hollywood treatment and near-Messiah status among the new baseball intelligencia, the pennants and World Series titles are non-existent. The franchise may eventually move to San Jose, a move that many feel would create the kind of revenue streams that would allow Beane to finally build a winner. But until that happens, to mention Beane in the same sentence as Connie Mack, Charlie Finley – or even Sandy Alderson – isn’t remotely fair.

And now, here are the All-Time Athletics:

Franchise Player – Rickey Henderson

“The only thing I wish I could figure out is how I got misunderstood regarding the type of person I really am and what I accomplished … Just because I believed in what I was doing on the field and dedicated myself to playing the game, does that mean I’m cocky? Does that mean I’m arrogant? People who played against me called me cocky, but my teammates didn’t.  I brought attention, fear.” — Rickey Henderson, Baseball Digest (Feb. 2003)

Let’s put a couple of things in perspective in regards to Rickey Henderson. Yes, he could be churlish and indifferent, a showboat whose “snatch catches” drove managers and teammates insane. But he was the best leadoff hitter in baseball history and a lethal weapon for nearly every one of the 3081 career games he played in. He was the last of Finley’s great players, signed as a high schooler from the Oakland streets, and made his debut in 1979. From 1979-1984, he stole over 100 bases three times, scored more than 100 runs four times, and did not have a an OBP lower than .398 in any of those seasons, save for his rookie year. He would return after a stint for the Yankees, where would score almost 300 runs in his first two seasons there, and arrived back in Oakland in time to help them win the 1989 World Series against the Giants. Of his 25 seasons, Henderson would play 14 of them in an Oakland uniform. He is the franchise leader in walks, runs scored and stolen bases. Only Bert Campaneris has more hits and games played in team history.

1B – Jimmy Foxx

Like Henderson, economics caused the exile of this homegrown HOFer to Boston in 1934, but before he left, “Double-X” proved he was the best first sacker in A’s history. He played 11 years for the Philadelphia A’s, in a town where the Phillies were an afterthought. From 1925-27, he would have three unremarkable cups of coffee with the big club, if you consider getting big-league at-bats at the ages of 17, 18, 19 unremarkable. As a 20-year old in 1928, he hit .328 with 13 Home runs and 79 RBIs with a .416 OBP in a little over 400 at-bats. The next year, he would hit at least 30 homers, drive in at least 130 runs and hit over .300 every year except 1931. Some of the seasons contained within that stretch are some of the most incredible years ever put together by a single player.

2B – Eddie Collins

As a GM, Eddie Collins helped delay the breaking of baseball’s color barrier in Boston. As a player with the 1919 “Black Sox”, he is best-known among today’s fans as they player who “ratted” out the eight men who would ultimately be banned for life by Judge Landis. But in 13 years as an Athletic, Collins would hit .337 with a .423 OBP. Though he made more than his fair share of errors, he also posted impressive fielding numbers during his career, and is considered more than just a passbale defensive player. Comparatively, when the Oakland A’s website decided to put together it’s All-Time “Oakland A’s” team, the best 2B they could come up with was Mark Ellis, who hit .265 with a .331 OBP in his A’s career.

3B – Sal Bando

Carney Lansford (10 seasons, .288/.343/.404 with 201 HRs and 548 RBIs) is a popular pick among many contemporary A’s fans, and if we cared about being contemporary, we might have picked him over Bando. But Bando (.259/.359/.418 with 212 HRs and 796 RBIs) was the captain of the team that won three straight World Series. Arguably, As far as the postseason goes, Bando’s numbers are remarkably similar to his career numbers, as are Lansford’s, with the former hitting more postseason home runs and the latter hiting for a higher average. Still, while Lansford was a very good player, and often underestimated, there are no ties in baseball, our pick is Bando.

SS- Bert Campenaris

“Dagoberto” is the all-time franchise leader in games played and hits. Bruce Markusen writes an excellent quick bio here. In an era where we judge players by their size and/or by the numbers that they post, “Campy” might not even get a chance to play at the minor league level, least of all the bigs. Traditional scouts would probably look at the 150-160 pound frame he carried throught his career as far too frail, but he stole a lot of bases, and scored a lot of runs and played on three straight World Series winners. Miguel Tejada will get some votes here as well, but like Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, Tejada’s Oakland career — while worth discussing — can’t truly be considered as “All-Time” player until evidence of PEDs can be truly measured. Outside of Tejada, Mike Bordick had some decent years in Oakland, and Chick Galloway did as well in Philadelphia from 1919-1927, but we’ll take Bert.

C- Mickey Cochrane

When people talk about the best catchers of all time, Yogi Berra, Roy Campenella and Johnny Bench are often the most mentioned, and rightfully so. All three are Hall of Famers, World Series champions and won multiple MVPs. Mickey Cochrane is as well known for being the player that Mutt Mantle named his son for as he is for winning the AL MVP in 1934 for Detroit in 1934. Yet when you look at his nine seasons in Philadelphia, wjere he hit .321/.412/.490 with an OPS of .902, he has to be in the conversation.  Terry Steinbach, despite a few good offensive years in Oakland, is just not the player Cochrane was.

LF- See Henderson, Rickey

CF- Dwayne Murphy

Unlike many of our picks here, Murphy did not play for a winner. His lone appearance in the postseason was 1981, and he subsequently played for losing teams thereafter. For his A’s career, spanning 10 seasons, he hit .247 with 153 homers, 563 RBIs and played a very good defensive CF as well. In 1984 he hit 33 homers with 88 RBI, his best season ever.

RF – Reggie Jackson

Most fans think of Reggie Jackson as “Mr. October” of the “Bronx is Burning” Yankees and his wars with Billy Martin. But Reggie was another of Charlie Finley’s HOFers who played nine seasons for the A’s before playing his five-year stints at New York and California. During those nine-years, he fought with hks teammates, won three World Series, including winning both the AL MVP and World Series MVP in 1973. That year, he hit .310 with six RBIs against the Mets, who should have selected him in the 1966 MLB draft, but according to rumors, declined to pick him because he was dating a white woman. Instead, Charlie Finley picked him, and a Hall of Fame career started. His A’s totals are 269 HRs and 776 RBIs over 10 seasons. His final season, fittingly, was played in Oakland, in which he still managed to hit 13 homers and 43 RBIs.

RHSP – Chief Bender

Tim Hudson has pitched longer for the Atlanta Braves now then he did for the Oakland A’s, and as much as we’d like to put him or Catfish Hunter into this spot, it’s hard to argue that anyone but Bender would be the top right-handed starter for any All-Time A’s club. His 38.1 WAR is higher than either Hudson or Hunter, and while Eddie Rommell and Rube Waddell’s WAR numbers are higher than Bender’s, he was a more valuable pitcher to the A’s during his career than Rommell. Waddell only pitched six years in an A’s uniform, and Bender — who was the right-handed complement to Eddie Plank — ranks only behind Plank and Lefty Grove in all-timer wins by an A’s pitcher.

LHSP – Lefty Grove

This is perhaps the hardest decision on the list; Eddie Plank or Lefty Grove? Plank is the franchise leader in WAR, post a 63.9 mark over 3860.2 innings and posting a 284-162 record with a 2.39 ERA. Grove (195-79, 2.88 ERA) is second all-time in WAR among A’s starters, a 59.6 mark over 2401 IP. Each won a pair of World Series with the A’s, and each was sent packing by Connie Mack once their prices went up. Ultimately, the decison comes down to this; Grove, in our opinion, was more dominant during his career. He didn’t pitch as long, but had better individual seasons against his peers than Plank.

Closer – Dennis Eckersley

“Eck”  is in the Hall of Fame because he revolutionized the closer position, aided and abetted of course by Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan. His ridiculous numbers are evidence alone. In 1989 he threw 57.7 innings, struck out 55, walked only 3.  The next year, he posts a 0.60 ERA over 73.3 innings, 72 strikeouts ant issues just 4 walks.  Sure, Rollie Fingers pitched more innings in his A’s career, and won three World Series with the “Swingin’ A’s” and gets major points for that, but Eck was more than just dominant, he was virtually unhittable for a few years.

Manager – Connie Mack

For of his faults, and he had many, Mack simply was better at his job than any other A’s manager. He beat Yankees teams that had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and he beat Red Sox teams that had dominated the AL for years. Had he been a tad more visionary, could have begun another dynasty that would have saved AL baseball in Philadelphia, but that reality doen’t obscure his accomplishments. Dick Williams was incredible, but couldn’t work for Finley. Perhaps if he had stayed, maybe the A’s win four straight titles instead of three. As impressive as La Russa’s run as A’s manager was, his teams should have won more. Losing to the 1988 Dodgers and the 1990 Reds while boasting the array of talent he had at his disposal hurts his case.

I was the first player drug-tested in baseball, and I am the one who asked for it.” – Babe Dahlgren

The recent news that 2011 MVP Ryan Braun is appealing a failed “banned substance” test wasn’t expected, but after hundreds of failed tests for recreatiional or performance-enhancing drugs for baseball players, even the fact that a reigning MVP not thought to be the strerotypical behemnoth wasn’t all that’s shocking.

Let’s face it, we live in an era where its hard to imagine people choosing integrity over the millions that can be made with the popping og a pill or the injecting of a needle. Ryan Braun may indeed be innocent, and if he is, he will have the power, resources and platform to defend himself.

Some other players never got that opportunity.

There was another player who once took a drug test, the first one in known baseball history. It was paid for by then-MLB Commisioner Judge Kenesaw Moutian Landis, and it came back clean. For some reason, Landis and several of the commisioners that followed him, refused to make the results public, or provide ther player with some level of justice.

Instead, Babe Dahlgren, once considered the best fielding first baseman in baseball, was sentenced to a life as a baseball vagabond,  and even after his playing days, plagued with the inaction of a baseball industry that turned it back on him a long time ago.

The whole story is chronicled in the book, Rumor In Town: A Grandson’s Promise to Right a Wrong, written by Dahlgren’s grandson, Matt Dahlgren.

Sadly, two of the most respected figures in baseball history played a large role in Dahglren’s misery, and it is perhaps that reality which is responsible for the lack of coverage and discussion of these events.

From Gotham Baseball’s Spring 2011 Issue, “Going Nine: The Other Babe”

“The guy can do everything, and I have a hunch that he invents plays as he goes along. If an old-timer were to swear to me on a stack of testaments that there was every a greater defensive first baseman than Ellsworth ‘Babe’ Dahlgren of the Yankees I wouldn’t believe him.” John Lardner, The New Yorker, June 13, 1940

According to Matt Dahlgren, Babe was also the victim of a vicious rumor, that he was a marijuana smoker. Mike Lynch of Seamheads.com summarized it best, stating that the rumor was “started by a Hall Of Fame manager, perpetuated by a Hall of Fame executive, and buried by a Hall Of Fame Commissioner.”

Dahlgren started his career in the Boston Red Sox system and was poised to become the team’s first baseman until the Bosox got Philadelphia A’s slugger Jimmie Foxx. Babe hoped for a trade and got one, to the Yankees, where Lou Gehrig was entrenched. Determined to prove that he belonged, Dahlgren took his game to the Yankees’ top farm team in Newark in 1937, where he hit. 340 for the Bears, one of the greatest minor league champions in baseball history.

He would make the Yankees in 1938 as a utilityman, but played in just 27 games, mostly as a pinch-hitter. In 1939, he would make the most of an opportunity he desperately wanted, he just hated the way it happened.

Replacing Gehrig, Dahlgren hit a home run, a double off the top of the fence and two drives that were caught against the fence in a 22-2 rout over Detroit. “I especially admired Gehrig because he was a first baseman like me,” Dahlgren told Newsday’s Joe Gergen in 1988. “I never dreamed one day I’d be in New York to take the man’s place.”

He would hit only .235 that year for the Yanks, but he would hit 15 home runs and drive in 89 runs batting seventh or eighth in a powerful lineup. In the World Series that year, Dahlgren would hit his only World Series home run, helping the Yankees sweep the Reds. The future looked bright for the 27-year old Dahlgren. Then he went home to San Francisco, and his life would never be the same.

Local legend Lefty O’Doul hated the fact the Joe McCarthy, and not he was the manager of the New York Yankees, telling anyone who would listen that “Ol’ Marse Joe” was a bush-button manager and that anyone could manage the Yankees. An Associated Press photographer took a picture of Dahlgren receiving batting tips from O’Doul at a off-season (the reality was that they barely talked that day). Combine the cracks that O’Doul made that day, “The Yankees have to send me their players to learn how to it.” a thin-skinned heavy drinker in McCarthy, and a now-veteran first baseman who was well-liked by his teammates and the local press, and you had the makings of a very bad situation.

Dahlgren had another solid year in 1940, hitting .263 / 12/ 73, and played a brilliant first base, but when the Yankees did not win the pennant. McCarthy seemed to blame Dahlgren, citing a key error down the stretch that cost the Yankees a ball game.

He was sent to the Boston Braves in 1941, and was dealt midway in the season to the Cubs, where he really played well, hitting .263 / 23/ 89 for the season. While he was having the best year of his career to date, McCarthy was telling the New York sportswriters – who all liked Dahlgren, thought he was a superb first baseman, and were watching Johnny Sturm hit just .235 with no power and nowhere near the glove – that Dahlgren’s arms were too short to play first base.

Really.

The longer the season wore on, the longer it looked like McCarthy had had a personal beef with Dahlgren, and the writers pressed McCarthy on the trade. Now, remember, it was the 1941 season, and Joe DiMaggio was setting his magical streak and Ted Williams was hitting .406 for the Red Sox. Dahlgren was happy in Chicago, playing well and finally getting the accolades he deserved.

Then, almost instantly, Dahlgren would spent the rest of his career, from 1942, getting traded from Chicago to St. Louis to Brooklyn (where Branch Rickey would accuse him of smoking marijuana, the first time Dahlgren would hear of the rumor) to Philadelphia (where he became an All-Star) to Pittsburgh (where he would drive in 101 runs and hit .289 in 1944) and finally back to St. Louis, where he would finally be discarded.

In the midst of the incredulous rumor, Dahlgren informed then-Commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis of the rumor, and the Judge, according to the book, paid all the expenses for what would prove to be a “clean” drug test for Dahlgren. But Landis and every subsequent Commissioner – up until his death in 1996 – failed to address Babe’s cause.

Dahlgren also died not going who had started the rumor. He had always assumed that it was Rickey, because of the way the situation had played out. It wasn’t until his grandson Matt, who wanted to write the manuscript that would become “Rumor in Town” (Babe’s original manuscript, as well as a letter from Landis proving the rumor existed, were lost in a fire at Babe’s home in 1980), that the origin of the rumor surfaced.

Dahlgren was doing research for his book when someone suggested the aforementioned Marty Appel, arguably the preeminent Yankees historian, for stories about his father.

Appel told him about a conversation he had with New York Times sportswriter John Drebinger in 1973, recalling McCarthy talking to a small group of baseball insiders at the end of the 1940 season. McCarthy, Appel remembered Drebinger telling him, noted that the Yankees would have won the pennant in 1940 had it not been for an error that Dahlgren made in a late-season game against Cleveland. “Dahlgren doesn’t screw up that play if he wasn’t a marijuana smoker.”

Tired of being made a fool for suggesting that the obviously proportionally-limbed Dahlgren’s arms were more than long enough, McCarthy decided to spread a rumor so incredible, so scandalous that few would ever repeat it. But the ones that did cost a good man his career.

“Rumor in Town” might be a promise by a grandson to his grandfather to right a terrible wrong, but one would hope that it also motivate Major League Baseball to right a terrible injustice. To date, the case is one that MLB doesn’t feel needs to be reopened.. And that is a big a tragedy as was the rumor that cost Babe Dahlgren his career.

Every now and again, you come across something truly special.

When you work for Baseball Digest, it doesn’t take much more than seeing our name to grab my attention.  As Grant Brisbee waxed poetic about growing up and his memories of the magazine, it grabbed my attention.  When he went into detail about what he learned from an old Baseball Digest, it captured me.

Grant writes:

Is there anything that Google can’t do? Now there are old copies of “Baseball Digest” floating around on the internet.

Follow @sbnbaseball on Twitter, and Like Baseball Nation on Facebook.

Nov 11, 2011 - When I was growing up, my dad used to bring home copies of Baseball Digest for me from the newsstand. There was something about the magazine that was appealing. Probably all of the baseball stuff. It was more than that, though — the half-size printings made it feel like a magazine that was made just for me. It’s stillavailable in print form, and when you subscribe you get a link to 67+ years of their back issues. Quite nice.

There are also a couple of issues on Google Books, too. The first one I came across was one from 1974, and it blew my mind. Not because it had nifty articles like an argument against the DH, or a first-person narrative from Willie Mays about his four-homer game, but because there was so much I didn’t realize about 1974 and baseball. Here are some of the things I learned:

It was harder to look up baseball information before there was an internet
Obvious, sure, but it’s easy to take for granted. I can look up Luis Tiant’s home and away splits in five seconds right now. I can do it on my phone if I want. Back then, though, it wasn’t so easy. This is from the “Fans Speak Out” section:

Of all the talked-about ballplayers, you always hear names like Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and Ted Williams, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about Mel Ott.He was an active major leaguer at the age of 17 and played for the New York Giants. I would like to know of any records Mel has made. Please also give me his major league statistics.

If you ever need to know what the world was like before the internet, there it is. This information-seeking strategy doesn’t work quite as well these days. I’ve tried it.

You can read the rest of Grant’s article by clicking here.

Thanks for the shout-out, Grant and thanks for your thoughts, they are much appreciated.

Bill Ivie is the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com and the founder of i70baseball.com, an official Baseball Digest website covering the Cardinals and Royals.

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I am all grown up now and sit in my very own big boy chair to watch the games these days.  Tears have been replaced by held breath and fear of a heart attack.  As game six of the 2011 World Series played out before my eyes, the story I was to write today changed rapidly.

There was a play at first base early on that involved Rangers starter Colby Lewis missing the bag.  At full speed, it almost seemed that the Cardinals received a call very similar to the one that Don Denkinger made in favor of the Royals in 1985.  In fact, Lewis missed the bag and the correct call was made.  The image it created in my mind made the night feel a little more magical already.

As the game came to the end of the ninth inning, I have to admit, I lost faith in my team.  I have never left a game early nor do I turn the television off, but the discussion that I had was centered around whether or not we could bare to watch the Rangers celebrate at Busch Stadium.  I wanted to continue watching, interested to see how Albert Pujols would handle walking off the field for possibly the final time as a Cardinal.  Interested as a baseball fan to see who would be named the World Series Most Valuable Player.  Willing to agonize that it was not my team, because I love this game.

Since the end of August, fans of the Cardinals have learned that this team simply will not die.  However, there has been this consistent uneasy feeling that the wheels could fall off of this thing at any given time.  It simply feels like the team is playing with fire, and the old adage goes, you’re going to get burned.  The Rangers took the lead in the 10th inning and the Cardinals came back to the plate.  More specifically, the Cardinals would send Daniel Descalso, Jon Jay, and the pitcher’s spot to the plate.  The situation was bleak.

But Descalso beat one out in the infield and Jay delivered his first hit in the World Series, allowing Kyle Lohse to approach the plate and bunt the runners over.  A run scoring ground out by Theriot yielded my immediate response “Albert is about to be walked”.  In baseball, if the other team’s best player wins the game, someone got out-managed.  If the guy behind him wins the game, that’s part of the game.

As Lance Berkman came to the plate, I honestly had hope.  At the same time, the discussion in the house turned to comments like “I really can’t say that I hate the Rangers” and “if you were going to lose, I cannot think of a better team to lose to.”  Ranger manager Ron Washington employed a “no doubles defense” for the Berkman at bat ensuring that a bloop single would tie the game.  Berkman delivered just that.  As Joe Buck stated about the Cardinals “they just won’t. Go. Away.”

Jake Westbrook put the Cardinals in line to win the ballgame by holding the Rangers scoreless in the eleventh inning.  It set the stage for David Freese to work his own brand of magic.  A hometown kid that grew up in St. Louis and had once walked away from the game completely stood in front of 50,000+ screaming fans with the opportunity to do something very special.  Then he did.

Magic led to more magic.  As the ball cleared the center field fence, goosebumps coming to surface all over my body, I heard Joe Buck channel his father.  In 1991, Kirby Pucket hit a walk off home run in game six of the World Series in front of the hometown Minnesota crowd.  Jack would make the call that day in an excited but deliberate delivery, “We will see you tomorrow night”.  Twenty years later, one day removed from the anniversary of that call, Joe Buck sat next to the same man who was in the booth for his father’s moment and delivered the exact same line.

As game six came to a close, David Freese touched home plate and was mobbed by his teammates.  I sat on the couch, unable to speak.  The only sound in the house came from the television.  The only words I could mutter for more than a few minutes were “one more game”.  It seemed to be the way most fans felt about the entire 2011 season.  One More Game.

As Joe Buck’s iconic call echoed through my mind, as I realized the historic moment I just witnessed, I sat speechless.

Just like that little kid in 1985, a tear rolled down my cheek.

Bill Ivie is the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com and the founder of i70baseball.com, an official Baseball Digest website covering the Cardinals and Royals.

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Baseball changed the rules in 1969.  After years of two leagues and a World Series being played between the winner of each, the game evolved and adopted two divisions in each league.  At the conclusion of the 1969 season, the leagues would each play the first League Championship Series with the winners advancing to the World Series.

The League Championship Series was a best-of-five series from 1969 until 1984 when baseball would make another adjustment, moving it to a best-of-seven.  That change would remain in effect until 1994 when the current format of playoffs would be introduced.  Under the current format, there are three divisions in each league and the winner of each division, as well as the team with the best record of any of the other teams in that league, advance to the postseason.  The first round is a best-of-five series known as the League Division Series and is followed by the best-of-seven League Championship Series and then the World Series.

The history lesson on the postseason now over, let me examine why all of that was important.

On Friday night, the Cardinals and the Brewers advanced to the National League Championship Series by defeating the Philadelphia Phillies and the Arizona Diamondbacks, respectively.  Both League Division Series would need to go the distance, all five games, before a winner was determined.

Normally, as exciting as it is to see your favorite team advance in the postseason, when they have to go the distance in a series, it tends to handicap them going into the next round of the playoffs.  When a team plays a fifth or seventh deciding game, it can wreak havoc on the pitching rotation, the bullpen and even the bench players.  When the opponent also has to go the distance in their series, the advantage is seemingly erased.

The postseason has had multiple rounds since 1969 (see: history lesson, above).  Over the course of the 42 years in which it was possible to play multiple rounds, how many times have two teams faced off after both of them had to go the full distance in the previous round?  Glad you asked…

1972 World Series
Our first occurrence came just a few years after the expansion of the playoff system.  The Oakland A’s would need the full five games to put the Detroit Tigers on the shelf in the American League.  Meanwhile, in the National League, the Cincinnati Reds would take five games to dispose of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The World Series would offer no rest as it took Oakland the full seven games to emerge victorious, overcoming the Reds home field advantage.

1973 World Series
It would not take long for history to repeat itself as the following season would see the Oakland A’s, this time with home field advantage, defeat the New York Mets in another seven game World Series.  The path to that one was also a long one with the Baltimore Orioles stretching Oakland out for five games and the Cincinnati Reds forcing the Mets to go the distance before they were allowed to advance.

1981 National League Championship Series
This was the strange one on the list.  The league’s first League Division Series was introduced due to a strike-interrupted season in 1981.  Due to the strike, the owners elected to declare a first half and second half division winner and a wild card from each division as well.  The League Division Series would be played prior to the League Championship Series and it produced an addition to our list.  The Montreal Expos would defeat the Philadelphia Phillies in this extra playoff round, though it would take them the full five games to do so.  Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Dodgers would also need the full spectrum to remove the Houston Astros names from contention.  By the time these two teams faced off, it would take the Dodgers a full five games to move past the Expos.  (Coincidentally, after going the full five in both rounds, the Dodgers would go on to defeat the New York Yankees in the World Series).

2001 American League Championship Series
After a twenty year gap in our pigeon-holed statistic, it would reemerge in the American League.  This time, the New York Yankees would need the full five games in the Division Series to dispatch the Oakland A’s while the Seattle Mariners would go the full five against the Cleveland Indians.  This time would see the Yankees victorious and move on to the World Series where they would lose to the Diamondbacks, in seven games.

2003 World Series
It did not take long for the series to be drawn out to full capacity again.  Once again we find the New York Yankees making our list, advancing to the Fall Classic by beating the Boston Red Sox in seven games in the American League Championship Series.  Not to be outdone, the Marlins would take the Senior Circuit Pennant by defeating the Chicago Cubs in seven games as well.  When the dust settled, it was the Marlins who would take the crown in six games over the Bronx Bombers.

2004 World Series
The very next season, the National League’s most victorious club (as measured by World Championships), the St. Louis Cardinals, would find themselves in the World Series after defeating the Houston Astros in the League Championship Series after seven games.  The tables were turned in the American League Championship Series this time as the Boston Red Sox would take the New York Yankees to a seventh and final game and win.  It would be a shame to not mention the fact that the Red Sox lost the first three games of that series before winning the next four, and the first four of the World Series to win a World Title.

So, there you have it.  Six times in history a series has been played by two teams that had to go the distance in the series before it.  What has history taught us that we can take away from all of this?  Not a whole lot, I am afraid.  I suppose you can take away the fact that in half of the series examined, the teams would have to play the entire series against each other as well.  That simply leaves a 50/50 chance of that happening again, however.

Sometimes, we don’t need to learn the future by reading the past.  Sometimes, we just need to know that it has happened before.

Class dismissed.

Bill Ivie is the Assignment Editor for BaseballDigest.com and the founder of i70baseball.com, an official Baseball Digest website covering the Cardinals and Royals.

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I spoke with Bernie Williams about his new book “Rythyms of the Game”, got to know Bellville, NJ Little Leaguer Alex Luna. I also weigh in whqt the new playoff system should look like.

George Kell had an impressive major league career than spanned fifteen seasons with the Philadelphia Athletics, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, and Baltimore Orioles. In addition to being named an All-Star ten times, Kell batted over .300 nine times, including beating out fellow Hall of Famer Ted Williams for the AL batting title in 1949 while striking out just 13 times that season.

In a July 2006 Baseball Digest article, Bill Dow wrote about fan favorite George Kell. Click here to check out the article!

Kell’s 13 strikeouts in 1949 were par for the course during his playing days. In over 7,500 plate appearances, he struck out just 287 times. By contrast, he walked 621 times during his career.  He twice led the league in hits and had 385 career doubles to go along with 50 triples.

After retirement, George Kell began a forty year broadcasting career for the Detroit Tigers that spanned 1957-1996.  In 1983, the Veteran’s Committee inducted Kell into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The beloved announcer passed away in his sleep on March 24th, 2009.

Also Born Today:

Hall of Famer George Davis(1870-1940) was a sensational ballplayer at the turn of the century, leading the league in outfield assists before shifting to the infield and leading the league again at the shortstop position. He was the first player in history to hit a triple and a home run in the same game.

Julio Franco(b. 1958) appeared in 23 MLB seasons between 1982 and 2007, despite spending the 1995 season in Japan and playing in Japan, Mexico and South Korea between 1998 – 2000.  He played one game as a member of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1999.

Mark Bellhorn(b. 1974) played ten seasons in the big leagues, but may be best remembered as a member of the 2004 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox.  Bellhorn homered in Game 6 and Game 7 of the ALCS against the New York Yankees, and became the first second baseman to homer in three straight postseason games when he slugged a two run homer against the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 1 of the World Series.

Michael Maher is a senior writer for BaseballDigest.com.  He can be reached at MinorLeagueSpotlight@Gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter @BD_Maher and check out his blog.

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That being said, Roberto Clemente’s impact on Major League Baseball and the importance being involved in humanitarian  activities has grown tremendously since December 31st, 1972, when Clemente died while escorting supplies to Nicaragua, which had been devastated by an earthquake.  Roberto Clemente, in more ways than one, has established himself as a benchmark for excellence on and off the field for future ballplayers.

Born on August 18th, 1934 in Carolina, Puerto Rico, Clemente reached the major leagues as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates at the age of 20.  For a franchise coming off its third straight eighth place finish Clemente offered a glimpse of potential, even if the team finished in eighth once again during his rookie season.

Bart Ripp of the Daily Iowan wrote about the ‘gifted player and extraordinary man’ that Roberto Clemente was in a March 1973 issue. Click here to check it out!

Over the first five seasons of his career, he solidified himself as the every day right fielder.  During the off seasons, Clemente played in the Puerto Rican Baseball League. However, a major change in his off season regiment had an impact on the rest of his career.  During the off season before the 1959 season, Clemente served with the United States Marine Corps Reserves, which added ten pounds to his frame and contributed to his .296 average during the 1959 season.  The off season change proved beneficial, and he continued as a member of the corps through 1964. Beginning in 1960, Clemente hit above .300 eight times and won four NL batting titles along the way.

As Clemente was arriving on the national stage, he was carrying the Pirates with him.  For the first time since 1927 the Pirates were facing off against the American League in the Fall Classic, and for the first time in 45 years the Pirates became kings of baseball when they defeated the New York Yankees for their third franchise title.  Clemente earned his first of fifteen All-Star nods during the 1960 season, and the first of twelve consecutive Gold Glove Awards.

From 1960 to his final season in 1972, Clemente hit .329 over that span. Over the course of his career, he averaged 200 hits, twice leading the league in that category.  Frankly, the right fielder ranked among the top 10 every year in most offensive and defensive categories throughout his career.  He secured his only MVP Award in 1966, in the midst of a four year span where he hit a robust .335.

In a September 1971 issue of Baseball Digest, Roberto Clemente tells George Voss about the ‘Game He’ll Never Forget’. Click here to read all about it!

With the new decade, the Pirates returned to the postseason in three straight seasons, culminating with a World Series victory over the 101 win Baltimore Orioles in 1971.  Clemente did his part with a .342 season average and a .414 average in the World Series. Though he played in just 102 games during the 1972 season, Clemente showed as a 38 year old that he was far from being finished as a ballplayer at the major league level.  His final at bat came on September 30th, 1972; and he stroked a double to left field. He came around to score the first run in a 2-0 victory over the New York Mets.

On December 23rd, 1972, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua, killing 5,000 people, injuring 20,000 more and leaving a quarter million homeless.  Clemente organized efforts to send supplies to the victims, and encountered a government that was stockpiling foreign aid instead of ensuring the supplies reached victims.  After three failed flights with supplies Roberto Clemente boarded a plane overloaded, bound for Nicaragua, on December 31st, in hopes of ensuring supplies reached their intended destination.  Shortly after takeoff, the plane crashed off the coast of Puerto Rico.

Roberto Clemente’s body was never recovered, despite efforts by even his long time friend and teammate Manny Sanguillen, who dove off the coast of Puerto Rico on the day of his funeral services.  Less than four months after his death, the Baseball Writers Association of America held a special election to waive the five year waiting period to induct him into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Since 1973, Roberto Clemente has been posthumously honored  in several ways.  Perhaps the biggest honor Clemente has received(next to the three Presidential Awards) is the renaming of the Commissioner’s Award presented by Major League Baseball each year to a player in his honor that “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team”.  Clemente’s legacy also lives on with his his, Roberto Clemente Jr., who established the Roberto Clemente Foundation in 1993.

Michael Maher is a senior writer for BaseballDigest.com.  He can be reached at MinorLeagueSpotlight@Gmail.com or you can follow him on Twitter @BD_Maher and check out his blog.

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www.norfolktides.com

Baseball Digest.Com: This year marks your fifty-sixth consecutive year you have been associated with a professional club. Is that a record of sorts?

Dave Rosenfield: I do not know if it is a record but fifty years with one team, the Norfolk Tides is a lot. I arrived here in 1962 and have served as General Manager since 1963.

BD.Com: Where else did you work, what team were you GM for?

Rosenfield: I have only worked in three places: five years in Bakersfield, CA,
one year in Topeka Kansas, and the rest in Norfolk. All as General Manager.
Except for my first year here, I did not have the GM title.

BD.Com: What was your first job working in baseball?

Rosenfield: My first job in baseball in 1956 was with the class A Bakersfield Boosters, the worst name in baseball history. It was a brand new ownership and that was their corporate name, that is what they called their team.  I was their GM; I coached third half the time and played a game or two. I was a catcher.

BD.Com: Did you play professional ball?

Rosenfield: I played one year pro ball at Stockton, California and Eugene, Oregon. I never played above Class A. I did not play a lot, and did not play well, I decided I was not going to be a Major League player and went back to school. I always played catcher.

BD.Com: Did you play baseball in high school or college?

Rosenfield: I went to UCLA, played there and got my degree in language arts and that was my seventh or eighth major. I changed majors every ten minutes.

BD.Com: Do you speak a foreign language now?

Rosenfield: I took a year and half of Spanish; I can understand but cannot speak it.

Rosenfield: I went to UCLA for a year and a half and played one year at Los Angeles City College. LA City College was a Jr. College.

BD.Com: While in college, what career were you considering?

Rosenfield: Ballplayer. I started college at sixteen and played freshman ball there.

BD.Com: While in UCLA, did you study Sports Management?

Rosenfield: No, it had not been invented yet.

BD.Com: What are your responsibilities for the Tides?

Rosenfield: I handle the entire end of the business. Tickets, advertising, stadium management and contract negotiation with sub-contractors.

BD.Com: What is the economy like in Norfolk?

Rosenfield: It is improving a little. It has been a rough two or three years.

BD.Com: Where were you born and raised.

Rosenfield: I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas and moved to Los Angeles when I was five.

BD.Com: Who did you root for as a youngster?

Rosenfield: I was a big Hollywood Stars fan and lived near the Hollywood ballpark. I saw my first professional ballgame in 1939. The Los Angeles Angels won their first nineteen games of the season. They were referred to by the newspapers as the Yankees of the West. The first game I ever saw was their game twenty, and they were beaten by San Diego.

The star of the San Diego team was a little guy who played some in the Big Leagues. His name was Dominic Dellasandro.

BD.Com: What was the first Major League game you saw?

Rosenfield: It was opening day when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958. They played at the LA Coliseum at the time and beat the San Francisco Giants 6-5, before a crowd of 78,000.

BD.Com: What do you love the most about your job with the Tides?

Rosenfield: The fact that it is different at different times of the year. It is never boring. Part of the year you are selling, dealing with the fans, and the players and the press.

Everything has been fun. A TV reporter once asked me, “Do I still get excited on Opening Day?” I told him, “the first time I am not excited on opening day, that would be my last opening day.” I love the game.

BD.Com: When did you first start following the game?

Rosenfield: I started listening to the 1938 World Series when I was seven years old. My dad was listening to the Yankees vs. Cubs while I sat on the floor next to him asking questions, I had no idea what it was about. I saw my first game the next spring and have loved baseball ever since.

BD.Com: What is the most difficult part of the job?

Rosenfield: I never thought any of it was difficult! This has never been like a job. It is fun!

BD.Com: What is the most memorable or outstanding memory you have with the Tides?

Rosenfield: I may be the only person who has ever been involved with building two ballparks in the same city. The first was in 1970, Metropolitan Memorial Stadium in Norfolk. We played there from 1970 to 92. The park was leveled and no longer exists. Our new park is Harbor Park, (a) built and opened in 1993, and is our current park.

When I first arrived here, we played in Portsmouth, Virginia at Portsmouth Stadium and then we renamed it Lawrence Stadium. We moved to Met Park in 1970.

BD.Com: At the Baseball Winter Meeting in Anaheim, CA in 2004, you were named “The King of Baseball”. (b) What is that about?

Rosenfield: They honor somebody who has been around a long time. That was me! If you hang around a long time, you get to be King.

BD.Com: You were a four-time winner International League Executive of the Year. What years were those?

Rosenfield: I won those awards in 1975, 1982, 1987 and 1993.

BD.Com: Do you have a favorite baseball movie?

Rosenfield: Yes, Pride of the Yankees, the Lou Gehrig story. I almost played Lou Gehrig as a kid. I was raised in Los Angeles; a call was put out for kids who played baseball. Over 500 kids showed up. They weeded out about four hundred and fifty and called back about fifty. I was included in the group. We played some ball and they talked to us.

It got down to two kids. My buddy and I went to the same elementary school but he got the job. His name was Douglas Croft. I could have been a star but it was not meant to be.

BD.Com: What do you do to relax at days end?

Rosenfield: I watch TV. I like detective stories, I watch Matlock a lot, Everybody Loves Raymond and Mash. My name once appeared in a Simpson’s episode. One of the writers on the show Ken Levine was a broadcaster for us for a while. He used my name on an episode in which Homer got a job as a mascot for a Major League team and he was terrible,

He got called into the General Managers office and on the door it said, Dave Rosenfield. All you could hear was lots of yelling and screaming. Everytime it runs, I get a long distance call from someone who saw it.

BD.Com: What are your thoughts on instant replay in the Major, not counting ball and strikes?

Rosenfield: I think on certain things, absolutely! It is important to get it right.
It is so easy to review a lot of plays because every game is on television, on air or in house. An official could review close plays. It is important to get it right.

BD.Com: What are your thoughts about aluminum bats as used in college baseball?

Rosenfield: I am not an engineer but the thing I do not understand is how we can send men to the moon in a spacecraft that withstands five million degrees on entry and yet we cannot make metal that has the same properties as wood.

If we could use metal bats that would not kill someone, it would be a huge savings. Good metal bats are up to $300.00 each and you would only need five or six bats. With balls coming back so fast to infielders, you would almost have to give them combat pay!

BD.Com: What GM in either the Majors or Minors do you admire?

Rosenfield: The most capable, versatile, highly qualified GM that has ever been around is Frank Cashen. He was GM of the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Mets in their heyday.

He was an attorney and sports writer; he ran a racetrack and understood the game. He was one of the last true General Managers. GM’s today are not General Managers. They are directors of player personnel. Most GM’s today have little or nothing to do with business. I am referring to Major League GM’s.

They handle player contracts, etc. Television contracts, concession contracts are handled by business people. Frank Cashen could do it all. He is retired now.

BD.Com: What do you do during the off –season?

Rosenfield: I get ready for the next season. Something else I do is make the International League Schedule. I have made league schedules since 1963. It is a complex ordeal.

BD.Com: How did this come about?

Rosenfield: I got started in 1963 while in the Carolina League. I was new in the league and as you know, it is on weekends a team draws the largest crowd. We went to a league meeting and the schedule was handed out. I noticed I had seven weekend dates while the gentleman who made the schedule, his team had twenty-seven.

The president, a Southern gentleman asked if anyone had any comments. I raised my hand and said “sir, this does not seem fair” He asked me if I could do better and I endeared my self to him by saying, “a monkey could do better”

“You got two weeks to make a schedule”, he said so I went home, never having done one and put a schedule together. I had only been in baseball at that time for seven years. I brought it back to the next meeting and it was adopted. I have made one ever since.

BD.Com: Is it true you are in the International League Hall of Fame?

Rosenfield: Yes, I was inducted in 2008 joining Mr. Frank Verdi who managed the Tides for four years. He was a dear friend and I am proud to join him in the Hall of Fame. He played one game in the Major Leagues. Frank played and managed in the Minor Leagues many, many years. He managed five different teams in the International League. I am proud to be in the Hall of Fame with him.

(a) Harbor Park, with its outstanding view and sound design, is one of the finest baseball facilities in existence. The ballpark is located in downtown Norfolk on the Elizabeth River, and was opened in 1993. The Tides christened their new home on April 14th of that year with a 2-0 victory over the Ottawa Lynx.

The Park has a nautical image with shipyard crane-like light towers and arrays of colorful flags with a brick exterior.

The facility is owned by the City of Norfolk and the Tides have a 20-year lease.

(b) The “King of Baseball” is a long-standing tradition in which Minor League Baseball salutes a veteran from the world of professional baseball for long-time dedication and service to the game.

Norm Coleman is a sports writer, actor and photographer. He lives in Half Moon Bay, CA.

While this may cause concern for some Boston Red Sox fans, they only need to look at a slew of ballplayers born on the same day as Carl Crawford to understand that the new left fielder may just need a full season to get himself going in Boston. He may not even need a full season.  There are a number of players born today who made an impact in Boston in just a few key games.

One such player is Eric Hinske, who helped the Red Sox to the 2007 World Series.  His first home run as a member of the Red Sox broke a 2-2 tie game against the Detroit Tigers.  Hinske, born on August 5th, 1977, hit 7 home runs during his brief tenure with the team between 2006-2007.  Hinske went on to join Carl Crawford and the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008 and helped them reach the World Series for the first time by slugging 20 homers during the season.  He had a World Series trifecta when he reached the 2009 World Series with the New York Yankees.

Bernie Carbo is a player to consider when trying to determine whether or not Carl Crawford could possibly turn his season and his career around.  Born on August 5th in 1947, Carbo found himself coming off the 1973 season with a .286 batting average and an OPS of .819 with the St. Louis Cardinals.  After that season, he was traded to Boston, and his first season proved to be a bit underwhelming. For the 1974 season, his average dropped to .249 and his OPS slipped to .778. It wasn’t until the 1975 season that Carbo proved his worth. He slugged 15 homers to go along with a .257 average/.892 OPS, and made his biggest contribution in the World Series against his former team. He cranked a 3 run home run in Game 6 of the World Series, tying the game a 6-6 and set the state for Carlton Fisk’s famous walk-off homer in extra innings.

Jeff Berlinicke wrote an article about Carl Crawford as the cornerstone of the Tampa Bay franchise in a May 2005 issue. Click here to check it out!

Some naysayers may believe that Carl Crawford’s best years are behind him.  If Bobby Kielty(born August 5th, 1976) is any indication, even players seemingly at the end of the line can contribute significantly.  A veteran outfielder with postseason experience with the Minnesota Twins and Oakland Athletics, Kielty split his final season in 2007 between the A’s and the Red Sox.  Though he hit just .218 dring the regular season, he played a huge role in the ALCS and World Series, including slugging a pinch hit home run in the series ending Game 4 against the Colorado Rockies.

One thing is for sure; it is highly unlikely Carl Crawford’s career in Boston will be remembered as fondly(or infamously) as John “Way Back” Wasdin’s Boston tenure. Born on August 5th,  1973, Wasdin  acquired when he was traded for Jose Canseco by the Oakland Athletics. Wasdin allowed 54 home runs during his three plus seasons in a Red Sox uniform. He also allowed 7 runs in 3.1 innings of work between the 1998 and 1999 postseasons. Wasdin did show he was a capable pitcher, however, when he threw a perfect game for the Toronto Blue Jays Triple A affiliate in 2003.

Drafted by the (then) Devil Rays in the second round of the 1999 draft, Crawford need to adjust briefly during his meteoric rise through the minors. He also had an adjustment period during his first two seasons in the big leagues. If Curtis Granderson of the New York Yankees is any indication, there can also be an adjustment to playing in a big market like New York and Boston.  Having played in an ALCS against Boston and in the World Series against the Texas Rangers, there is great potential for Carl Crawford to build his own Red Sox history like the several players he shares a birthday with.

Michael Maher is a senior writer with BaseballDigest.com.  You can follow him on Twitter at @BD_Maher or check out his blog.

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Long before that though, the future Hall of Fame member was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1890. He was a good athlete growing up and quit high school to play for the Kansas City Blues of the American Association. He later played in the Northern Association and the Blue Grass League, but still studied to become a dentist.  Obviously, baseball won out and Stengel was chosen by the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1911 draft. He appeared in 17 games for the Dodgers in 1912, hitting .316 with one home run and 13 RBI.

Stengel hit .284 in six seasons in Brooklyn (who were known as the Dodgers, Superbas, and Robins during that time; they didn’t become the Dodgers full time until 1931.), and helped lead them to the World Series in 1916. He was 4-11 (.364) in the Series, but the Dodgers lost to Babe Ruth and the Boston Red Sox in four games. His final four seasons were in the tutelage of legendary manager Wilbert Robinson.

In 1918, Stengel was dealt to the Pittsburgh Pirates as part of a deal for another future Hall member, pitcher Burleigh Grimes. Stengel was dealt three more times in his career, to the Philadelphia Phillies, New York Giants, and Boston Braves. One of his best seasons with the Giants was in 1922 when he hit .368/.436/.564 with 48 RBI in only 84 games. He also went 2-5 in that year’s World Series when the Giants topped the Yankees. One year later, he was on the losing end to the Yankees, but hit .417.

During his time in Pittsburgh, Stengel’s reputation for nutty/funny behavior was best exemplified when his Pirates team visited his old Brooklyn team. The fans booed Stengel mercilessly until he stepped into the batters’ box, doffed his cap, and a bird flew out.

Learn more about “The Old Perfessor” in Milton Richman’s 1957 profile in Baseball Digest. Click here to read all about it!

Stengel retired early in the 1925 season to become player/manager of the Worcester Panthers of the Eastern League. A year later he began a six year stint at the helm of the Toledo Mud Hens of the America Association. (He saw some playing time as well in five of the six years.) Then it was back to the Major Leagues and Brooklyn as a coach for two years before Stengel was named as the Dodgers manager. Unfortunately for Stengel, the Dodgers lacked talent and didn’t finish higher than 5th place before Stengel was fired after the 1936 season.

Stengel got another chance with the Boston Bees/Braves in 1938, but the talent level was no better than in Brooklyn. Boston had four seventh place finishes in Stengel’s first five seasons, but that may not have hurt as much as the broken leg Stengel suffered when a car hit him in April, 1943.  Casey missed 46 games, but the Braves continued their losing ways when he returned, though the  team moved up a notch to sixth place. With the Braves coming under new ownership prior to the 1944 season, Stengel decided to resign, saying he did not want to “embarrass the new stockholders…”.

Stengel’s best days were ahead of him though, as were many more games to manage. After one season running the minor league Milwaukee Brewers he returned to his roots as the skipper of the Kanas City Blues in 1945. Then it was three years at the helm of the Pacific Coast League’s Oakland Oaks before Stengel got the break of a lifetime. The Yankees and manager Bucky Harris agreed to a mutual departure after the 1948 season and Stengel was hired. He would wear the Yankees’ pinstripes and road greys for 12 seasons (Kind of sounds a little like the Joe Torre story, no?).

Stengel became one of the first managers to heavily utilize platooning. He inherited an aging DiMaggio, a young  Mantle, and stalwarts like Berra and Rizzuto. Though he would sometimes clash with veterans and maybe liked the attention he got a little too much, it’s hard to argue with “The Old Perfessor’s” success. 10 pennants and seven world championships, including five straight titles from 1949-1953. He was nearly fired after losing the 1957 World Series to the Milwaukee Braves and then fell behind three games to one to the Braves in the 1958 series. But the Yankees rallied to win three straight games and the Series. Among his memorable moments as Yankees manager was his 1958 anti-trust testimony in front of Congress, in which he had everyone in stitches with his rambling style.

Yankees ownership decided to go in a new direction after the 1960 season and let Stengel go. He would be out of the Majors for one season before accepting a job across town with the expansion New York Mets. The Mets were short on talent so they knew they needed a charismatic figure to help boost attendance. The 71-yr old Stengel was the perfect fit, it didn’t really matter what the Mets did on the field. Good thing too since they lost 120 games that first year and dropped over 100 in the next two seasons as well.

In July, 1965, the 75-yr old manager broke his hip getting out of a car and, on advice from his doctor, retired in August. A year later, the Veteran’s Committee selected Stengel for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Casey is the only person to wear the uniform of all four 20th century teams in New York and both the Mets (1965) and Yankees (1970) retired Casey’s #37.

The baseball world was saddened on September 29, 1975 when Casey Stengel passed away at age 85. He was married to his beloved Edna for 51 years.

Also Born Today:

Clint Hurdle (Big Rapids, MI 1953): Clint Hurdle was a Sports Illustrated cover boy in 1978 and was predicted to be a star in Major League Baseball. Though his time with the KC Royals and three other organizations never lived up to the hype, Hurdle has made a successful career for himself in post-playing days. He’s currently in his first year as manager of the surprising Pittsburgh Pirates, who are in the running for a division title for the first time in nearly 20 years. Hurdle previously managed the Colorado Rockies from 2002-2009 and took the team to it’s sole World Series appearance in 2008.

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Drew Sarver is a senior writer  for BaseballDigest.com.  You can also read his work at his blog, My Pinstripes. He can be contacted at mypinstripes@gmail.com and can be followed on Twitter at @BD_Sarver and @MyPinstripes.

A future Hall of Famer, a current Hall of Famer and one of the greatest players to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform of all-time.

What do they all have in common? They were all born on today’s date, July 27. What else do they have in common? I decided not to focus today’s feature on any of them.

Those three names are well known. We know about A-Rod and how he quickly reached the 500 mark, and then not long after that, the 600 plateau in home run calculations. We know about the BALCO findings, and that he finally admitted to using substances in the early part of the new millenium. We know that he came up with Seattle, signed the largest contract in MLB with the Texas Rangers at 10 years/$252 million and then topped that with a 10 years/$272 million contract when he joined the New York Yankees. We know about his willingness to play third base because Jeter was already the captain and resident of the shortstop position with the Yankees and of course, we know about the ‘Cameron and the popcorn’ incident. (I like calling it an incident. Makes it seem like a big deal while of course, it was not).

Durocher? We know that he was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1994 by the veterans committee, won at least 500 games with three different teams, is listed tenth all-time in victories by a manager and finally put an end to the horrible ‘College of Coaches‘ idea that existed with P.K. Wrigley’s Chicago Cubs.

Speaking of the Chicago Cubs, baseball historians and poetry fans alike are well-versed in the likes of Joe Tinker. The man that leads off in the ‘Tinker to Evers to Chance’ poem helped lead the Chicago Cubs through their greatest decade and their last world championship in the early 1900′s.

The three of them have been celebrated time and time again. I have decided they’ve had their birthday cake and eaten, too. (In the case of Rodriguez, it may have even been fed to him by Cameron Diaz, Kate Hudson or some other Hollywood startlet). To truly celebrate a birthday in this space and recognize a player few know anything about and some know very little, we need to highlight the career of the deserving, yet relatively unknown.

I present to you: Elliot Taylor ‘Bump’ Wills.

Bump Wills deserves not only an article on BaseballDigest.com celebrating his birth and career, his name alone should be commemorated in stone some way, some how. Whether it be a baseball award, a legal term, a dirty joke or a dance move, to have the name Bump Wills out there and no one making use of it (aside from Bump Wills) is just a shame. I will change that here and now. The legendary, Bump Wills.

Baseball Digest selected Bump Wills as the second baseman of their 1977 All-Rookie team. Andre Dawson, Jack Clark were also selected as members of the team. You can see the entire line-up here.

Bump Wills was born in Washington D.C. on this day in 1952 and turns 59 today. Those who relish in the minutiae of the game may take great pride in knowing that Wills, along with Moises Alou and David Bell,  are the only major league ballplayers to suit up and play a game against their respective fathers.

Wills played college ball at Arizona State University and was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the first round of the amateur draft in 1975 (January secondary). His career spanned the years of 1977-1982, including five seasons with the Texas Rangers before closing out his time in major league baseball with the 1982 season with the Chicago Cubs.

A career .266 hitter, Wills had his highlights as well as his not-so-proud moments in the game like any other ballplayer. His time with the Rangers was highlighted by stealing 52 bases in the 1978 season. On August 27, 1977, Wills and teammate, Toby Harrah, combined to lead the Rangers to an 8-2 win over the Yankees by hitting back-to-back inside-the-park home runs on consecutive pitches. It tied the MLB mark for consecutive inside-the-park home runs and I’m guessing are the two most memorable pitches of Ken Clay’s career.

On the list of moments Wills would probably rather forget, in a game against the Yankees nearly a year later on May 6, 1978, second baseman Willie Randolph of the Yankees pulled the hidden ball trick on Mills. It doesn’t just happen in the movies. However, I’m assuming it is much more embarrassing when it happens in real life.

While you won’t find him in historic baseball prose, honored with his likeness on a plaque in Cooperstown or on the front cover of People Magazine, Wills did maintain integrity and respect on the baseball diamond when it came to the family name. His father, Maury, also played in the major leagues. Bump represented the family well by playing a quality second base (career .979 fielding percentage), stealing bases at a career mark of a 75% success rate and leading the AL twice in putouts and assists. His team was generally in a better position with him in the line up with his ability to steal a base and work his way around to score. In 1980, he scored a career-high 102 runs for the Texas Rangers.

In his one season with the Chicago Cubs, Wills hit six home runs, had thirty-eight RBIs, thirty-five stolen bases and a batting average of .272. It explains why there isn’t a banner with his name hanging anywhere at Wrigley. No statue in front of the stadium. No banner hanging in the corridors and no flag flying high above. Wills is certainly remembered more so by Texas Rangers fans. Perhaps after reading this article, you too will remember the name Bump Wills.

A baseball player who put it all out there for baseball fans in his time in the majors being remembered by baseball fans from all over. Is there a better birthday gift to be had? (If you discount having popcorn thrown into your mouth by Cameron Diaz, I would have to go with ‘absolutely not’).

Also Born Today:

Shea Hillenbrand turns 36 today. A career .284 hitter, Hillenbrand spent time with the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, Giants, Angels and Dodgers. The two time All-Star appeared in more games at third base than any one else in 2002 and led the league in HBP in 2005.

Shane Bowers turns 40 today. A star at Loyola Marymount University, the right-handed pitcher was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in 1993 and made his major league debut in 1997. In five games with the Twins, he posted an 0-3 record with an 8.05 ERA.

Ryan Maloney is a Staff Writer for BaseballDigest.com, the author of popular Chicago Cubs blog Prose and Ivy and contributing writer to MLB.com/Entertainment.

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These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double –
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

July 21 is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Evers, the tall, thin middle infielder whose scrappy play earned him the nickname “Crab”. It was that style that helped Evers make his debut at age 19 for the Chicago Orphans. (The Orphans became the Chicago Cubs two years later.)

Evers was not only famous as part of the most famous double play combination, but he is also the player who pointed out  the play that became known as “Merkle’s Boner” during the 1908 season. New York Giants rookie Fred Merkle failed to advance to second base on what would have been a game winning hit for the Giants. Instead the play turned into a force out and ended up a tie game. The Cubs later won the make up game and topped the Giants by one game for the NL Pennant. They went on to  capture the World Series as well, defeating the Detroit Tigers.

As for Evers’ career, he was known much for his defense than his offense, but he did win the NL MVP Award as a member of the 1914 Boston Braves.  After playing 12 seasons with the Cubs, Evers was dealt to Boston prior to the ’14 season and ended up winning a second World Series title. Evers hit .279 with one home run, 40 RBI, 87 walks, 87 runs, and 12 steals in his MVP year. Just as offensive numbers were lower in those days,  errors were a lot higher,primarily due to poor mitts and field conditions. Evers committed 17 errors in his MVP season, one of the lowest totals of his career and finished with a lifetime .955 fielding percentage.

Johnny Evers had a big hit in the 1914 World Series. The Boston Herald’s Arthur Sampson recounted it in a 1950 piece in Baseball Digest. Click here to read all about it.

After four seasons with the Braves, Evers played a final season with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1917. Evers, who was a player/manager for the Cubs in 1913, went on to a brief managerial career after his playing days ended. He managed the Cubs to a 41-55 record in 1921, but was fired in early August. In 1922 Evers joined the Chicago White Sox coaching staff and actually played in a game due to an injury to second baseman Eddie Collins and a shortage of extra infielders. He went 0-3 with two walks. (Evers would repeat the feat while a coach for the Boston Brave in 1929. The then 47-yr old Evers made a defensive appearance in one game.)

In 1924 Evers took over the rival White Sox when manager and former teammate Frank Chance was sidelined with a bronchial infection. Evers would be a bookend manager, going 10-11, before Edd Walsh and Eddie Collins managed the next 30 games. Evers then took over again for the final 102 games (41-61). Later in life, Evers worked as a scout for the Braves and managed in the International League. The Veterans Committee elected Evers to the Hall of Fame in 1946.  He died the following year of a brain hemorrhage and was laid to rest in his hometown of Troy, NY.

Also Born Today

CC Sabathia (Vallejo, CA 1980): Carsten Charles Sabathia is loved by his teammates and fans alike. The 6’7″ southpaw, whose weight has fluctuated above 300 lbs at times, is one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball. He’ll pitch this evening against the Tampa Bay Rays with a seven game winning streak on the line and a league high 14 wins. Sabathia was the 20th overall pick for the Cleveland Indians in the 1998 amateur draft out of Vallejo HS in his hometown.

His six-plus seasons in Cleveland included a Cy Young Award, but with free agency pending he was dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers at the 2008 trade deadline.  His 11-2, 1.65 record led the Brewers to the playoffs for the first time since 1982. Sabathia signed a seven year, $161MM contract with the New York Yankees and was an integral part of the their 2009 World Series championship.

Moe Drabowsky (Ozanna, Poland 1935): Born with the given name Myron, Drabowsky signed as a bonus baby with the Chicago Cubs in 1956. He began his career as a starter before switching over to a full time reliever for the final 10 of his 17 big league seasons. He won a career high 13 games with the Cubs in 1957 and also set his career high in losses that season with 15. His career would span three decades and saw him play with eight organizations. He finished with an 88-105, 3.61 record with 33 complete games and 55 saves. He set a record by striking out 11 Dodgers in 6.2 innings in the 1966 World Series. Life a lot of lefties Drabowsky was considered a flake and also was a bit of a prankster. He once even gave a hot-foot to then baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Drabowsky worked as a special pitching instructor for the Orioles for 13 years before he passed away in 2006.

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Drew Sarver is a senior writer  for BaseballDigest.com.  You can also read his work at his blog, My Pinstripes. He can be contacted at mypinstripes@gmail.com and can be followed on Twitter at @BD_Sarver and @MyPinstripes.

The slugger? Rick Ankiel. The occasion? His first game back in the Majors since 2004 – and his first-ever game as an outfielder. The storybook moment capped a journey that had taken Ankiel, who today turns 32, from the pitcher’s mound to the lowest level of the minor leagues and back again.

Richard Alexander Ankiel was born on July 19, 1979, in Fort Pierce, Fla. He attended Port St. Lucie High School and the lefty excelled at pitching. During his senior year, he went 11-1 with a 0.47 ERA, striking out 162 batters in 74.0 innings pitched and was named the 1997 High School Player of the Year by USA Today. Offered a scholarship to the University of Miami, he also was drafted by the Cardinals as the 72nd overall pick. He received a $2.5 million signing bonus upon signing in late August, the fifth-highest bonus at the time.

Ankiel’s time in the minors was brief and successful. In 1998, he was the Cardinals Minor League Pitcher of the Year as well as Baseball America’s first-team Minor League All-Star starting pitcher. He led all minor league hurlers in strikeouts with 222. The next year, he was named the Minor League Player of the Year by Baseball America and USA Today, and again was named the Cards Minor League Pitcher of the Year. On Aug. 23, he made his Major League debut in Montreal. He pitched in nine games that season, posting a record of 0-1 with a 3.27 ERA with 39 strikeouts in 33.0 innings.

In 2000, Ankiel was the second-youngest player in the league. He posted an 11-7 record and 3.50 ERA, with 194 strikeouts in 175.0 innings and finished second in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. He also was named The Sporting News Rookie Pitcher of the Year. However, none of that is what most people remember about his 2000 season – instead it’s his performance in Game One of the National League Division Series against the Braves.

The Cardinals had a 6-0 lead when Ankiel returned to the mound for the third inning. Then he inexplicably fell apart. He faced eight batters that inning, threw 35 pitches, got two outs, allowed two hits, walked four, allowed four earned runs – and threw a major league-record five wild pitches before being removed from the game. (The Cardinals won the game 7-5.)

His next start, in Game Two of the National League Championship Series against the Mets, Ankiel was removed in the first inning after throwing 20 pitches, five of which went past the catcher (with only two official wild pitches). He appeared in relief in Game Five of the NLCS and faced only four hitters, walking two and throwing two wild pitches.

Ankiel began the 2001 season with the Cardinals, but still had issues with control on the mound. He walked 25 batters in 24 innings and threw five wild pitches before being sent to Triple-A Memphis. Yet his troubles there worsened – in only 4.1 innings, he walked 17 batters and threw 12 wild pitches. He was sent to the Cardinals Rookie League team in Johnson City, Tenn., where he was both a starting pitcher and a part-time designated hitter.

A feature in the August 2001 issue of Baseball Digest looked at pitchers who suddenly lose control — including Rick Ankiel. Check it out here.

He sat out the 2002 season with an elbow sprain, then made 10 minor league starts in 2003 before hurting his elbow again and undergoing Tommy John surgery. Healthy later in the 2004 season, he made six minor league starts and only allowed two earned runs. On Sept. 7, 2004, he returned to pitching for the Cardinals with a scoreless inning in relief. He made five relief appearances that season, allowing six earned in 10.0 innings, and earned a win on Oct. 1.

But in spring training 2005, after a game in which he threw only three strikes in 20 pitches, he announced he was done as a pitcher and would become an outfielder. He began the season as a right fielder for Single-A Quad Cities and moved up to Double-A Springfield. During spring training 2006, he hurt his knee and ultimately needed knee surgery that caused him to miss the entire season.

Healthy in 2007, he began the season at Triple-A Memphis. Although his average was only .267, he hit 32 homers and had 89 RBI in 102 games before he was called up to St. Louis for that memorable Aug. 9 debut. Ankiel received a long standing ovation before his first at-bat that game, where he popped out to the shortstop. In 47 games through the rest of the season, he hit .285 with 11 homers and 39 RBI.

He remained with the Cardinals in 2008 and 2009, hitting .264 and .231 respectively. He hit 25 homers in 2008 and 11 in 2009 – while also striking out 100 times and 99 times.

In January 2010, Ankiel signed with the Kansas City Royals and began the season as their starting center fielder. He was on the disabled list from May through late July, then was traded to the Atlanta Braves on July 31. On Oct. 8, in Game Two of the National League Division Series against the Giants, Ankiel hit his first post-season home run – a game-winning 11th-inning shot into McCovey Cove that gave the Braves their only victory in the Division Series.

Last December, Ankiel signed with the Washington Nationals. After battling injuries with two trips to the disabled list, he’s currently hitting .230. In his first trip to St. Louis as a visiting player in April, he remembered the kindness and support of the Cardinals fans throughout his many years with the team – taking out a newspaper ad to thank the fans.

Also born today:

Preston Wilson, born in 1974 in Bamberg, S.C. He is both the nephew and stepson of former N.Y. Mets star Mookie Wilson. The Baseball America 1992 High School Player of the Year, he was drafted by the Mets in the first round that year. He made his Major League debut in May 1998 and, just two weeks later, was traded to the Florida Marlins. He joined the 30-30 club in 2000, hitting 31 homers and stealing 36 bases. His most successful season was with the Rockies in 2003, where he was an All-Star and hit .282 with an NL-leading 141 RBI and 36 homers. He also played for the Nationals, Astros and Cardinals.

Phil Cavarretta, born in 1916 in Chicago, spent nearly his entire career with the Cubs. His 20 seasons playing for the team, 1934 to 1953,  are the second-most in franchise history behind Cap Anson. Cavarretta was the 1945 National League MVP as he led the Cubs to the pennant while winning the batting title with a .355 average. He managed the Cubs in his final three seasons with the team, then played for the White Sox in 1954 and 1955. He was a minor league manager, scout and coach for the Detroit Tigers and Mets organizational hitting instructor. He died Dec. 18, 2010, following complications from a stroke.

Christine Coleman is the senior St. Louis Cardinals reporter for Aaron Miles’ Fastball of the Aerys Sports network. Follow her on Twitter, @CColeman802, or email aaronmilesfastball@gmail.com.

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Born in 1919 in Greensboro, North Carolina, Davis(unlike the movie version) actually went straight from college ball at Duke University to playing infield for the Philadelphia Athletics for three seasons beginning in 1940.  He played 86 games with the 1942 Athletics before being drafted into the United States Navy during World War II. Upon his discharge in 1946, he returned to Duke for further schooling, and began his seven year career throughout the minor leagues.  Aside from Costner’s Crash Davis being a catcher rather than an infielder, another difference between the movie and reality was that Crash Davis didn’t own the all time minor league home run record. In his minor league career, he slugged just 51 homers.

In an August 1981 issue of Baseball Digest, Art Rosenbaum wrote about the great nicknames in Major League Baseball, including “Crash” Davis. Click here to read the full article!

The real Crash Davis had a much more impressive major league career than the Crash Davis in the Bull Durham story, who had spent just 21 days in the big leagues.  Crash Davis’ first big league hit came off Spud Chandler of the New York Yankees, went on to win AL MVP honors three years later, on August 11, 1940.  Though Davis struggled to establish himself as an everyday player, he did manage to slug a few big leagues  home runs near the end.  In 1942, he cranked homers off Yank Terry of the Detroit Tigers and Dizzy Trout of the Boston Red Sox in games where the score was decided by one run.

Upon returning from military service, Davis caught on with the Lawrence Millionaires in Massachusetts for two years before moving on to join the Durham Bulls for the 1948 season.  With the Bulls, Davis led the team with 50 doubles(a league record) and 171 hits overall. He played alongside Babe Birrer, a brief big leaguer who went on to compile 18 years and 139 wins in the minor leagues.  Birrer played eight seasons in the minors after his last big league game; which  evokes the character trait of Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis, who had spent years trying to get back to the big leagues.

Crash Davis played just the one season with the Durham Bulls and moved on to Raleigh Capitals and Reidsville Luckies over the final three seasons of his professional career.  The phrase “Art mirrors life” has an especially strong meaning with the teams that Crash Davis played with, and the teammates who continued on years after their best(and often brief) big league days were behind them.  The fictional Crash Davis could easily represent many of the minor leaguers of the day. Cecil “Turkey” Tyson, for example, played with Davis on the 1949 Raleigh Capitals and had just one at bat with the 1944 Philadelphia Phillies.  His minor league career included 15 seasons, hitting .309 with nearly 2,000 hits. He last played in 1952, eight years after that single at bat in the major leagues. Mike “Iron Man” Kash is another teammate of Davis who logged 20 years in the minors without a whiff of the big leagues.

In retirement, Crash Davis went on to coach high school and legion teams, and he became a minor celebrity in his own right when the movie featuring his namesake hit the big screen. He passed away in August of 2001, but his connection to the great Bull Durham story is retold throughout minor league ballparks where players young and old are trying to get one more shot at the big leagues.

Also Born Today:

Tim Hudson(b.1975), the three time All-Star and four time top 10 Cy Young Award finisher has eight wins on the 2011 season and 173 for his career with the Oakland Athletics and Atlanta Braves. Since having Tommy John Surgery in 2009, he has won 27 games and has had an ERA of 3.14. Despite a 1-3 postseason record, he has a career 3.46 ERA in 10 games over 54+ innings.

Robin Ventura(b.1967), a two time All-Star, six time Gold Glove winner, and owner of 294 career home runs may be best remembered for his 1993 rumble with Texas Rangers icon and Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.  Ventura charged the mound after being plunked by Ryan, and was put pummeled by the Texan upon arrival. The incident is replayed regularly at Rangers home games.

Bob Purkey(b. 1929, d. 2008) was a five time All-Star who spent most of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds. The knuckleballer was a member of the 1961 Reds that lost to the New York Yankees in the World Series.  He won 129 games over 13 seasons, and his best year arguably was in 1962 when he notched 23 wins and finished third in the MLB Cy Young Award voting.

Michael Maher is a senior writer with BaseballDigest.com.  You can follow him on Twitter at @BD_Maher or check out his blog.

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Welcome to Part Four in Baseball Digest’s All-Time team series. Over the course of nearly 25,000 words and thanks to countless hours of research, legends have been marginalized and mediocrities have been elevated. We’ve found it necessary to eschew Mickey Mantle and Cy Young while also delving into the historical merits of Ron Cey and Jason Giambi. As the immortal John Sterling would say, “That’s baseball for you!” Or something like that.

Now, we move onto the St. Louis Cardinals, a franchise whose name is revered, its history lauded and its logo classy. Just like the three teams we have already discussed (the Yanks, Sox and That Team That Frank McCourt Kinda Owns), they have maintained their status as a relevant cornerstone franchise into the second decade of the Aughts. While the Dodgers teeter on the edge of financial and baseball ruin, the Cardinals continue to be as competitive and respected as always, with their recent World Title and present Pennant Race in the NL Central serving as collateral against any potential drama.

That this aura of respect and reverence has always connoted with the Cardinals is no accident. They field what is perhaps the best All-Time team yet, at the very least within striking distance of the Almighty Yanks. And they do that thanks to a first for our All-Time teams feature: the team’s franchise player almost not being chosen as best player at his respective positions.

Confused? The proof is in the plural. Read on.

Franchise Player-Stan Musial

Among franchise players thus far, Stan the Man receives the strongest challenge from fellow All-Timers. That’s what tends to happen when your franchise has seen greatness spanning from the Dead Ball Era and Rogers Hornsby to the Steroids Era and Albert Pujols.

Yet another 40’s star whisked off for war service, Musial was less impacted than some of his not-as-fortunate peers. He missed just one full season of games, unburdened by multiple turns of service and repeated interruptions to ongoing campaigns. And when he returned after not playing in the 1945 season, he was just as impressive and as legendary as before.

Perhaps the most consistent hitter in the history of the sport, Musial comes in at ninth all-time in WAR. He is the proud owner of a .331/.417/.559 line, 475 HR and 3,630 hits. Never once in his first fourteen full seasons was he worth less than five wins. In that 15^th year, he posted a 4.9 mark for WAR.

It always seems surprising to see that Musial—largely considered one of the best pure hitters in the history of the game—never reached 500 home runs. Many would point to that lost ’45 season as proof. In all likelihood, they’d be wrong. From Musial’s first season of 1942 to 1947, he never once topped 20 home runs. He did post a 10.5 WAR, MVP winning campaign in his sophomore campaign, but only managed to drive 13 balls into the grandstand.

Enter the seemingly all-powerful age-28 season, and Musial would quickly evolve into one of the best the game has ever seen. In his prime years and physique, Stan the Man posted a .376/.450/.702 line with 39 HR, 113 R and 95 RBI in 1948. Musial would watch the World Series from his couch yet again in ‘48, but his second of three MVP trophies would be there to keep him company. That’s not to say the Musial-led Cards were losers. They would win three World Series in Musial’s first five seasons while also falling to the all-powerful Yankees in the 1943 Fall Classic.

Yet for all his achievements and lofty statistics, Musial’s Cardinals supremacy is met with strong competition. Rogers Hornsby and his .359 career AVG (second all time) and 95.6 WAR (best ever among 2B) have more than a few words to say. Albert Pujols has already surpassed Musial as the franchise’s premier first baseman, and may one day usurp The Man’s long-tenured throne atop any and all Cardinals, past or present. Nine-digit contract pending, of course.

How can Musial be the franchise’s best player but not its best 1B? While he played more than 3,000 games with St. Louis, he spent only about a third of his career at first base. This wasn’t a familiar example of sticking an aging star at an immobile position—Musial was a legitimate Hall-of-Fame corner infielder and outfielder. He came up as a first baseman and rode into the sunset as a leftfielder, but not before he racked up a sizeable number of innings at both spots in between.

It’s a good thing for him that his career was so lengthy and illustrious, or he would have the somewhat-dubious honor of being the best player in the history of his Franchise without being its best at any singular position. Lou Brock and his 50+ win Cardinals stint gives Stan the Man a strong run for his money in leftfield as well, but the former stolen base champ posted just five four-win seasons with St Louis. Musial, platoon status notwithstanding, topped that figure seventeen times. He would finish above eight wins on nine separate occasions.

Still going strong at 90 years old, Musial is baseball’s third oldest living HOFer, behind fellow All-Time team member Bobby Doerr and Negro League and Giants star Monte Irvin.

1B-Albert Pujols

As Albert Pujols continues his return from a wrist injury, we will soon find out if he can sustain his historically magnificent pace and claim a place on Baseball’s Rushmore.

Yes, no matter what the somewhat muddy future means for Pujols, his first ten Major League seasons have been that legendary and incredible. He is still just 31 years old, and there’s plenty of room for record-setting growth. But as of now, after just ten full seasons, Albert Pujols is a surefire, first-ballot Hall of Famer.

A list of “Nevers” that signify his greatness:

Never in his career has he hit less than 30 homeruns, and he’s already hit at least 40 five times.

He’s never driven in fewer than 100 runs, and has only driven in fewer than 115 once.

He’s never batted under .300 in a full season, and he’s batted over .325 eight times.

He’s never had an OBP under .390, and only once has he finished below .400.

He’s never slugged lower than .560, and has been over .650 five times.

He’s never struck out more than 100 times, and he’s struck out more than 75 times just once—in his rookie year.

He’s never finished outside the top-10 in the MVP voting, and only once did he finish outside the top-five.

Now, that’s consistency, a list of achievements that doesn’t even his include his three MVP awards, his ROY honors, six Silver Sluggers, two Hank Aaron Awards, one batting title, two home run titles, seven straight seasons of at least an 8.0 WAR, nine All-Star selections and one mystifying omission.

Oh, and NLCS MVP award honors, two World Series appearances and one World Series ring.

For all the hitting prowess that runs thick through Pujols’ veins, he doesn’t get enough credit for his commitment to defense. As a supremely gifted hitter who bounced around the diamond early in his career (he played at least 35 games each at 3B, 1B, LF and RF in his rookie year), Pujols could have rested on the fruit of his Marucci and reaped the benefits quite easily. But he has gone from a perennial triple-crown candidate to one of the game’s most respected defenders, regularly posting stellar defensive metrics. For whatever it’s worth, he’s also won multiple gold gloves, a figure that’s probably unnaturally low. Pujols’ defensive capabilities were overlooked by BBWAA writers who had become too enamored of the artificially-inflated reputations of Adrian Gonzalez and Derek Lee. Perhaps they were too busy watching Pujols’ line drives hurtle towards the Busch Stadium grandstands, but Pujols was worth at least one defensive win more than Derek Lee in each of Lee’s three gold glove seasons. In 2008, Gonzalez took the title despite having a dWAR of 0.0. Pujols was worth nearly two wins defensively that season.

Of course, Pujols’ recent wrist injury couldn’t have come at a worse time. As a hitter, wrist injuries can temporarily strip a player of his bat speed, even if the injury fully heals. Ask Nomar Garciaparra what happened when he endured similar misfortune. Pujols may come back as strong as ever in 2012, or perhaps as soon as this week. But even if his production dips solely in the latter half of this year, it’s going to be awfully hard to get that $30 million dollar per-annum contract he appears to deserve.

Almost as soon as Jose Reyes had been anointed Greatest Player Alive–a ridiculous notion that shall be discussed on TheFanManifesto soon enough–his hopes for maintaining that tile, compiling an MVP season, and securing a nine-digit contract went out the window with a hamstring injury.

Assuming a return to form, there is no longer a debate as to whether Pujols is the game’s best player. With the relative downturn in the performance of Alex Rodriguez and a dearth of true five-tool players in today’s offensively-hamstrung game, Albert Pujols has proved himself to be the decade’s most intimidating and powerful offensive presence. If that wrist heals nicely and he gets the contract that his Olympian statistics clearly warrant, that reverence could very well carry on for the better part of the next 10 years.

As we ready ourselves for A-Rod’s seemingly inevitable flirtation with the home run record, we also ready ourselves for the apathy that involves the second time a tarnished athlete makes a run at what used to be American sports’ most hallowed record. Barry Bonds’ name may be at the top of the list, and A-Rod’s may be there one day as well. But Hank Aaron’s record has yet to be truly broken in the mind of the average baseball fan. If and when Pujols make a similar run at history, perhaps we will once again find ourselves engrossed in the currently diminished entertainment of a home run chase, hoping against hope that a sweet-swinging Prince can simultaneously shatter and restore history. Albert Pujols is the home run record’s last shot at widespread redemption, with an opportunity to reinstate integrity into our record books by signing his name on its numerous dotted lines.

Let’s just hope that wrist heals.

2B-Rogers Hornsby

Rogers Hornsby posted a .359/.427/.568 career line with the Cardinals while also being worth more than 95 wins—a figure that puts him ahead of all Cardinals second basemen and would be good for fourth all-time. That is, if Hornsby himself wasn’t the all-time leader, with a 134.9 career WAR compiled over a career that lasted into his early 40’s.

We focus on the Cardinals here, so Hornsby’s achievements with the Giants, Braves, Cubs and Browns (or in their sorry case, the lack thereof), are immaterial. And since he’s the unanimous champion of the Second Baseman Belt, we’re not even going to honor Frankie Frisch and Rod Schoendienst with a detailed comparison, Hall of Famers though they may be.

Hornsby’s career spanned 22 years and three decades, from the heart of the Dead Ball Era to the time of Murderers’ Row, culminating as Joe D broke into the big leagues and incepted the stigma that gave athlete’s their celebrity.

But his first 12 seasons were in St. Louis, and that was where he made his name. His literal moniker, the strangely plural “Rogers,” was derived from his mother’s maiden name.

Hornsby began his career under future Yankees great Miller Higgins. When Huggins left to manage in New York, he was replaced by Jack Hendricks, whom Hornsby believed was incompetent. In 1919, Hornsby refused to play another game for his misbegotten manager, and Hendricks was summarily fired. Branch Rickey would replace him, and moved Hornsby from shortstop to second base, where he would spend the remainder of his career.

As a Cardinal, Hornsby batted .400 three times and hit .397, .384 and .370 on three other occasions. His .424 mark (which was coupled with a 25 HR, 121 R, 94 RBI and a .507 SLG) in 1924 remains the Major League record to this day.

Hornsby’s prowess was not just in batting average. Grover Cleveland Alexander called him the “greatest hitter” he had ever faced, thanks to his unique combination of power, patience and conventional gap hitting. Despite playing a significant portion of his career in the Dead Ball Era, Hornsby had 301 career HR, 193 with the Cardinals. He would hit 42 HR and drive in 152 runs in 1922, while also clubbing 39 jacks and knocking home 143 runners in 1925.

Hornsby’s legacy as a person is marred by his blatantly racist principles and his supposed status as a KKK member. But as a ballplayer, his career average of .358—second only to Ty Cobb—will endure regardless of bigotry or hate.

3B-Ken Boyer

As Scott Rolen’s corpse continues to rot in Cincinnati and Joe Torre sits firmly at the right hand of commissioner Selig, Ken Boyer rises far above them as St. Louis’ best third baseman.

There is no denying that Rolen and Torre both put up excellent seasons while playing under the Arch. But their Cardinal peaks, while comparable to Boyer’s, were nowhere as long. To be fair, that’s not entirely their fault. Rolen moved on after five years to have some success elsewhere, while Torre was also gone after six years. Combined, they appeared in 1578 games as Cardinals, about a half-season of games short of Boyer’s mark of 1667.

But Boyer’s success was not all about longevity and quantity. He was a very solid Major League ballplayer, winning the 1964 NL MVP award after hitting .295 with 24 HR and 119 RBI. His .293/.356/.475 Cards line is quite impressive, but it doesn’t do justice to a string of quite credible seasons.

In six out of ten seasons with the team, Boyer was worth six wins, with a peak of 7.7 (.329/.397/.533) in 1961. He had two additional five win seasons. Only his final year with the team was a disappointment, as Boyer finished with a  .260 average and 1.6 WAR as his career began to flame out.

SS-Ozzie Smith

Ozzie Smith may be best remembered for his wizardry with the glove and his on-field acrobatics, but one doesn’t become one of the most legendary shortstops in the history of the sport without having a few other tricks in the bag.

To be fair, Smith was probably overrated by his contemporaries. His line stats (.262/.337/.328) are around contemporary replacement level. With 28 home runs in 16 major league seasons, he had little, if any pop. He finished with more than 55 RBIs once, knocking in 75 with an uncharacteristic .303/.392/.383 line in a six-win 1987 season. Despite winning a Silver Slugger award that season, Ozzie still failed to hit a single homerun.

Amazingly, Smith just once batted over .300. On only two four other occasions would he bat .280. Just twice did he post OBPs higher than .380. He never slugged over .400.

So at first glance, Smith appears more than a little overrated. Of course, with the immortal Marty Marion as his closest Cardinals competition, that’s not going to stop him from taking home this crown. But its still worth touting his achievements, because he’s not quite as overappreciated as initially appears.

Despite a complete lack of power or any apparent offensive prowess, Smith’s peak was entirely impressive. He could always be counted on to be penciled into the lineup, never appearing in less than 120 games in his first 16 seasons. In seven of eight seasons with the Cards through the early 90’s, the “Wizard” was worth at least five wins. This is easily attributed to his defensive wizardry, although only once did Smith post a defensive WAR above 2.0—in a 3.1 dWAR 1989 when he was worth 6.3 wins total.

The most reasonable explanation for this is thievery. Smith was an entirely underrated base stealer, swiping at least 30 bases in 10 separate seasons, and twice snagging 57 bags. Even in some of his lesser seasons—a .242/.321/.335 1983 campaign, for example—his prolific base stealing helped to balance out paltry offensive numbers.

Another is the offensive ineptitude of the 1980’s shortstop, although that’s a different discussion entirely.

In a great case of “What if?” Smith almost never became a Cardinal. After learning of his trade from the Padres to St. Louis following his fourth Major League season, he invoked his brand-new no trade clause. Cardinals management eventually convinced him to make the transition, and Smith never looked back.

Unfortunately, Smith’s relationship with the Cardinals would eventually sour. After being a staple at Busch Stadium for more than a decade, he has become estranged from his former team thanks to a feud with Tony La Russa. Smith took offense to being benched in favor of Royce Clayton, and he has never reconciled his relationship with the still-kicking Cardinals skipper.

Said Smith of the situation, “My relationship with Tony isn’t going to be mended. There’s no way. The club understands I have no interest in being part of it as long as he’s there. Once that situation is over with and they resolve it, I’ll be more than willing to go back and find my place in Cardinal history.”

To which La Russa would respond: “When my time is up, they can welcome him with open arms, but I don’t want to be anywhere that he is. I won’t ever be around when he’s around. Cardinals fans can embrace him all they want to, and it won’t be uncomfortable because I won’t be there. I won’t be in the area. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror.”

C-Ted Simmons

There’s not too much competition here. Second and third in Cards history would likely be Yadier “The Good” Molina and Tim “Mouth Agape” McCarver. But Ted Simmons was an outstanding backstop in his own right, and one of the forgotten gems of 70’s baseball. From Simmons’ breakthrough into a full-time role in 1971 until he was jettisoned to Milwaukee in 1980, he was the Majors’ second most valuable catcher—behind none other than Johnny Bench. Bench was worth less than one win more than Simmons, per year, over that time span.

While Simmons is well known for coming to blows with born-again battery mate John Denny, his career was defined by much more than just a scuffle. Perhaps the defining moment came in 1972, when Simmons elected to play without a contract following a breakout campaign and a subsequent lowball offer from the Cardinals in the winter. Today, the MLBPA would put a price on the head of any player who chose such a path. But Simmons was rewarded with a contract in the middle of what was one of his best seasons—a 5.8 win ’72 with a .303 AVG, 16 HR and 96 RBI.

With the ’72 season and contract disputes in his rearview, Simmons went on to post similar numbers for the rest of the decade. Only once would he finish with an under 4.0 WAR over that span, with a 3.9 mark coming in his penultimate season with the team. His .298/.366/.459 line with the Cards speaks enough words for any offensive player, let alone one who manned the offense-starved catching position. He would also hit at least 20 HR five times in St. Louis while driving in at least 90 runs on six occasions.

Some consider him one of the best offensive catchers of all-time. Some don’t know his name.

LF-See Musial, Stan

CF-Jim Edmonds

While Curt Flood might have made the greatest contribution to the Professional Sports industry since Babe Ruth proved sports could be exhilarating, Jim Edmonds is one of the most underrated players of the last decade and the undisputed king of Cards centerfielders.

Flood is within two wins of Edmonds’ pace-setting Cards WAR mark, but the free agency revolutionary played in St. Louis for a just dozen years. Edmonds moved on from his early years roaming the outfield of Edison International to post a string of (to be precise, six) remarkable seasons.

In perhaps the most lopsided trade of the first decade of the Aughts, Edmonds was dealt from Anaheim to the Cards in exchange for the perpetually mediocre Adam Kennedy and Christian rocker Kent Bottenfield. Although his legacy was somewhat tarnished by his stubbornness in the face of retirement, Edmonds’ Cardinals tenure was one of the most impressive stretches by a centerfielder in the last two decades.

Edmonds was worth at least six wins in each of his first six years in St. Louis. No centerfielder since 1980 can match that statistic. Not Junior Griffey. Not Kenny Lofton, Robin Yount, Carlos Beltran, Andre Dawson or Kirby Puckett. Not even pre-cheeseburger binge Andruw Jones.

While both those WAR numbers and his contemporary perception were aided by his mastering of the Web Gem, Edmonds was an intimidating offensive presence for the majority of the last decade. In those first six Cards seasons, he never hit less than 28 HRs, jacked 30 four times and finished with over 40 bombs twice. He knocked in 100 RBIs thrice, batted .300 another three times, and finished with a stellar—even for the steroids era—.285/.393/.555 Cardinals line.

RF-Enos Slaughter

Unless J.D. Drew somehow manages to convince us he’s worthy of bestowment—a possibility considering the Jedi mind tricks it must have taken to secure a $70 million contact—there’s no point in spending too much time here. Enos Slaughter was an outstanding rightfielder and every other Cardinal was not. In terms of cause for his selection, there’s your case in point.

But let’s qualify the former. Slaughter was an outstanding contact hitter with a fair amount of pop. With 2,383 career hits and three years lost to soldiering, he very well might have approached or surpassed 3,000 had he had the fortune of a full career unhindered by the wear and tear inevitably associated with being in the service.

Delayed induction notwithstanding (unconfirmed rumors abound of his rejection of Jackie Robinson, therefore giving BBWAA members cause to leave him off 20 years of ballots), Slaughter’s stats remain wholly impressive and hall-worthy. A career .300 hitter who hit .305 in 13 Cardinals seasons, Slaughter also owned a .382 OBP and six seasons of at least 90 RBIs.

Unfortunately for the man referred to as “Country,” war service came at a particularly inopportune time. Slaughter lost his age 27, 28, and 29 seasons to the war, and thus may have lost the bulk of his potential achievements in the process. The preceding and subsequent seasons might have been his best: a .318/.412/.494, seven win, pre-war 1942 and 18 HRs, 130 RBI and a .300/.374/.465 line upon his return in ’46.

RHSP-Bob Gibson

Let’s get this out of the way so we don’t waste and words or time. Bob Gibson is the end-all-be-all of Cardinals pitchers. No starter, righthanded or (especially) southpawed, can even insert their name into the conversation. His all-time mark of 251 Cardinals wins is 88 wins higher than the next closest live-ball competitor. His 3117 career strikeouts top runner-up Dizzy Dean by more than two thousand strike-threes. This wasn’t merely a means of quantitative success; his 7.22 K/9 rate is also the highest in team history.

Gibson’s career is a rare beast. For almost it’s entirety, he was one of the game’s best pitchers, failing to post an ERA over 3.40 until his final full season. But at certain points over an illustrious 17-year career spent entirely in St. Louis, Gibson elevated his game to, well, Gibsonian levels.

That seems to be the correct term because no pitcher in the history of the sport accomplished what Gibson did at his peak. That otherworldly success may have been short-lived, but that doesn’t make his eye-popping statistics any easier on the corneas.

In 1968, Bob Gibson was the best pitcher who ever set foot on a pitcher’s mound. The Cardinals hurler had showed he was a true ace over the previous two seasons, posting ERAs of 2.98 and 2.44 and leading the Cardinals to a World Title in 1967. But as the title-defending 1968 campaign began, Gibson embarked on a journey to make history.

Over 304.2 history and physics-defying innings, Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 ERA—the lowest in the live ball era and perhaps baseball’s most unbreakable record. He posted a 0.85 WHIP and allowed just 5.8 hits per nine innings. Gibson would whiff 268 batters and walk just 62, commensurate with a 4.32 SO/BB ratio that’s only more impressive when broken down.

For two summer months, Bob Gibson was especially untouchable. From early June to the end of July, he allowed just two earned runs in 92 IP. That’s good for a 0.20 ERA, a number that would have made John Kruk and Bobby Valentine’s heads simultaneously explode on live TV. Opposing batters batted .230—on balls in play—and .184 overall. Opponents rounded out their anemic line with a .233 OBP and .236 SLG, as Gibson allowed just 11 homeruns and 33 XBH over the entire season. The prodigious righty would post 13 shutouts, falling short of Grover Cleveland Alexander’s 1916 all-time shutout record by three remarkable starts. Alexander appeared in 14 more games in ’16 than Gibson did in ’68. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, they were unable to defend their title as they fell to the Tigers in the World Series. But Gibson did his part, striking out 17 Tigers in Game One of the series.

No one—not Koufax at his short-lived peak or Pedro in his best Fenway-electrifying years—can match such dominance. As a result of his supremacy, the league decided to lower the pitching mound in 1969, but that did little to deter Gibson. It would have been unreasonable to expect him to continue his pace. But a 2.18 ERA and 20 wins isn’t too shabby for an encore performance. Neither is 23 wins, 274 Ks and a Cy Young Award in 1970. Or a 2.46 ERA and 19 wins in 1972.

For whatever reason, Gibson doesn’t get his proper due. His name may tend to appear in most “Greatest Pitcher of All-Time” discussions, but it doesn’t carry the same god-like reverence and household worship that other—perhaps less impressive—greats seem to experience. Gibson, like Ruth, Ryan, Mays and Seaver, is the type of player whose name deserves to be part of the universal baseball lexicon. But the only time you seem to hear about him is when Tim McCarver brags about catching him. Memo to Mr. McCarver: a Rookie Leaguer could have caught Gibson in 1968 and he would have had as much success. And by the way, most of us could also perform just as well as you in the broadcast booth.

LHSP-Harry Brecheen

In the history of the St. Louis Cardinals organization, 13 pitchers have won 100 games. Just four of those pitchers were southpaws, and not a single one of them won more than 160 times. Two of those lefties started their careers in the Dead Ball Era. The other two were out of baseball by the time the Korean War had ended. Here’s the cringe-worthy field that Harry “The Cat” Brecheen beat out for this honor:

Slim Sallee; lefty hurler born during the Gilded Age. Career World Series record of 1-3, despite pitching two games against the Black Sox in the 1919 World Series.

Wee Willie Sherdel; 5’10, 160 pound hurler and Cardinals’ all-time wins leader among lefties. Accomplished the difficult feat of posting multiple 4.50 plus ERAs in the 20’s and 30’s.

Max Lanier; massive 5’10, 187 pound southpaw and owner of a remarkable 1943 season (15-7, 1.90 ERA). Fled to the Mexican League in 1946. Realized there was a reason no one was going to play in Mexico. Barred by Commissioner Chandler from returning to the Majors. Filed anti-trust lawsuit in an effort to return from south of the border. After suit was dropped, never again won 11 games in the Majors.

Yikes. This might be the most depressing selection we’ve had to make yet. Not because Harry Brecheen wasn’t a solid Major League pitcher, but because there isn’t anyone else worth considering. Unlike the relatively young closer and DH positions, the starting pitching position has existed since baseball’s inception. The Cardinals have been around since before Slim Sallee was born. And it’s not like southpaw hurlers are a recent trend.

So meet Harry Brecheen, a name I have to keep looking up because I can’t seem to remember how to spell it. I’ve never heard of him, and unless you’re of a certain septuagenarian age, you probably haven’t either. But for a stretch of time in the 40’s, he was the extremely solid, if not unspectacular ace of the Cardinals. Winning at least 15 games in five straight seasons from ’44-’48, he never posted a single season ERA over 3.80 and finished under 3.00 four times. Brecheen was “luckily” exempted from military service thanks to a spinal malformation and an ankle injury. And thank god he was, or we probably would have had to choose this guy.

Closer-Jason Isringhausen

The apathy of these “closer” sections is becoming an increasingly common theme. The position is a relatively recent creation and its status as a role of emphasis is even younger.  That’s not an issue when you’re deciding between Mariano Rivera and Goose Gossage. But it’s slightly depressing to see Eric Gagne’s name just beneath Sandy Koufax’s.

Here we go again. Jason Isringhausen takes the title from a fairly competitive field that includes former all-time saves leader Lee Smith (just two full seasons with St. Louis), the surprisingly effective Todd Worrell and Bruce “I-Still-Can’t-Believe-He’s-a-Hall-of-Famer” Sutter. Isringhausen also receives a second, albeit slightly dubious, honor: he joins Jason Giambi as the only active BD All-Timers who now find themselves playing with other clubs.

Yes, Isringhausen has found himself in a bit of a “renaissance” this year, if that’s the right term for a 39-year old putting up average numbers for a non-contender in a massive ballpark. Izzy has hung on to his career for dear life and he’s done so through fits of mediocrity, often of the minor league variety. It’s getting increasingly difficult to remember the real Jason Isringhausen, the one who was one of the most intimidating closers in the game for the better part of five years.

After being swapped from Oakland to St. Louis following the 2001 season, Isringhausen would save at least 30 games in five of his six Cards campaigns, dropping to 22 saves in an injury-shortened 2003. Over the time span, he posted an ERA under 2.50 four times, including an exemplary 2.14 mark in a still steroids-infested ’05. His high water mark came in a horrid ’07 season. In that final Cards season, Isringhausen would post a -1.1 WAR and a 3.55 ERA that probably should have been a run and a half higher when taking luck into consideration.

But Isringhausen, for those first five years, was a legitimate star. He wasn’t even one of the fraudulent, heart attack-inducing, media-created closing stars of the last decade. An Isringhausen appearance might not have been in line with the terror of watching Rivera or Hoffman emerge from the bullpen, but he certainly wasn’t BJ Ryan or Danys Baez either. Multiple sub-1.00 WHIPs back that notion up.

Manager-Tony La Russa

Just like any long-tenured manager, Tony La Russa has worn out his welcome among some of Cardinals faithful. As they say, familiarity breeds contempt; spend too much time around someone and you’re bound to become increasingly aware of their faults. Spend too much time watching Cardinals games, and you’ll begin to see trends of antiquated strategy and bullpen mismanagement.

Tony La Russa may have his weaknesses—namely old-fashioned managerial techniques and intoxicated vehicle operation—but this is hardly reason for a trip to the unemployment line. Nobody is perfect, but manager and coaches are decidedly less so. Ask a Patriot fan about Bill Bellichick and they might find fault with how he handled the Randy Moss situation. Joe Torre oversaw a dynasty in the Bronx, but he was hardly immune to criticism.

Tony La Russa is the best manager in Cardinals history. This part is simple. It’s possible one could make the case for Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog and his two Pennants and one ring. But Herzog’s teams finished in first place just three times in 12 years. On only one other occasion did they finish higher than third place over Herzog’s tenure.

If you wanted to get particularly creative and La Russa-derisive, you might make a case for Billy Southworth, who managed the Cards for six years during the forties. Southworth won two World Series and one pennant and never finished lower than third place. His .642 winning percentage is quite impressive, but then again so were Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter. His tenure was also distressingly short, and he was a benefactor of a top-heavy National League and a balanced schedule.

Devoid of any other candidates, that brings us to La Russa. While Tony’s Cardinals teams failed to win the pennant until his seventh year at the helm, they have always been relevant. Even in the uber-competitive and topsy-turvy specter of the contemporary Major Leagues, La Russa’s teams have gone 1365-1150 over his tenure, good for a .543 winning percentage and eight division titles in 16 years. They have never finished in last place, only once finished second-to-last (before the Brewers migrated and made the NL Central baseball’s only six team division) and have survived into October nine times. Amazingly, their only championship celebration came amid a distinctly mediocre season by recent standards, as they won just 83 games but finished atop the then-weak NL Central. La Russa’s teams have won more than 83 games eight times, including in seasons when the team finished in third or fourth place.

Jesse Golomb writes for Baseball Digest and is its All-Time Teams Guru. He is the creator and writer of The Fan Manifesto, a website for the educated sports fan. He can be followed on Twitter @TheFanManifesto or contacted by email at JesseGolomb@TheFanManifesto.com.

Drafted out of high school by the Astros in 1973, Puhl spent just four seasons in the minor leagues before joining the big league club. He hit .296 in the minors, and didn’t miss a beat when he hit .301 in 60 games with the Astros in 1977.

Michael Janofsky of the Miami Herald wrote about the potential for four players to break out in the 1980′s, including Terry Puhl, in a July 1981 issue of Baseball Digest. Click here to check it out!

Puhl’s immediate impact on the lineup was evident, as he earned his first and only All-Star nod in his first full season in 1978. By 1980, Puhl helped the Astros to their first franchise trip to the postseason, hitting .526 in a losing effort to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS.  His .526 average was, at that time, a record for a single series batting average.  The Astros reached the postseason in 1981, but fell to the Los Angeles Dodgers; Puhl hit just .190 in the five game series.

Puhl rebounded to provide a solid offense for the Astros over the course of the early to mid 1980′s.  By 1985, Puhl was hampered by injuries and transitioned to a part time player over the next few seasons.  The Astros returned to the NLCS in 1986 against the New York Mets, and the opportunity provided Puhl another chance to show flashes of his early years. In just three at bats, he had two singles and a stolen base.

In the late 1980′s, the outfielder has a resurgence, first as a pinch hitter(.303 batting average in 1988). When he earned more playing time in 1989 than he had in the previous five years, he responded with a .271 average on the season. It essentially became the swan song for Terry Puhl, as injuries shortened his 1990 season, at least in Houston.

Following the 1990 season,  he was signed by and subsequently released by the New York Mets prior to the start of the 1991 season and the Kansas City Royals scooped him up. He played just 15 games with the Royals before being released in early June of that year. He retired with a .280 batting average, and an OPS of 112 over 15 seasons.  He also ranks first all-time with a .994 fielding percentage for right fielders since 1954.

Since retirement, Puhl has been inducted into the Saskachewan Sports Hall of Fame, the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame.  He has since become a manager, first with the Canadian National Olympic team, and most recently as the head coach of the University of Houston at Victoria.  His collegiate managing record stands at 96-44 over three seasons.

Also Born Today:

Alan Ashby(b.1951), logged 17 seasons in the big leagues as a catcher and may be best remembered for catching three no hitters in his career. His career in Houston overlapped with Terry Puhl’s, and both were a member of the team during their several postseason appearances.

Ivey Wingo(b.1890), played 17 seasons, mostly with the Cincinnati Reds.  He was a member of the 1919 World Series Champion Reds, the winner of the infamous Black Sox Scandal. Wingo was not known for his defense, as he led the league in errors by a catcher on seven different occasions.

Michael Maher is a senior writer with BaseballDigest.com.  You can follow him on Twitter at @BD_Maher or check out his blog.

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Richard Michael Gossage was born in 1951 in Colorado Springs, CO where he still makes his home today. After a stellar career at Wasson High School, Gossage was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the 9th round of the 1970 amateur draft. He appeared in 13 games combined that year for the Gulf Coast rookie White Sox and low level ‘A’ Appleton Foxes with mixed results, but a year later as a starter he made everyone in the organization stand up and take notice.

24 of Gossage’s 25 appearances for Appleton in 1971 were indeed as a starting pitcher and he excelled. An 18-2 record, 1.83 ERA and 149 strikeouts in 187 innings jumped off the page at everyone. He also allowed just 141 hits and 50 base on balls. His performance earned the 20-yr old an invitation to the big league spring training in 1972. He then continued to open eyes that spring and went north will the ball club.

Manager Chuck Tanner, who later became Gossage’s manager with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the front office decided to move Gossage to the bullpen despite his prior year’s performance. It was felt that his electric stuff would work even better out of the pen. He made 36 appearances his rookie season, but despite a 7-1 record, his other numbers weren’t up to his minor league standards. He walked five batters per nine innings, allowed 72 hits in 80 innings, and posted a 4.28 earned run average. Control issues would be the reason was Gossage shuttled back and forth between the Majors and minors the next two seasons.

Bob Rubin of the Miami Herald profiled Gossage after the reliever saved 33 games in 1980. Click here to read all about it.

It wasn’t until 1975 that the player nicknamed “Goose”, by teammate Tom Bradley, (because of the way he stuck his neck out when looking for the sign from the catcher) started to put it all together at the Major League level. He led the American League that year with 26 saves, struck out 130 batters in 141.2 innings pitched, and allowed 99 hits (just three of which were home runs). His play earned him the first of his nine All-Star appearances, and he finished sixth in the 1975 AL CY Young voting.

Despite his fabulous year, the White Sox decided to move Gossage back to the starting rotation for the 1976 season. The results were semi-disastrous. Goose lost 17 games, struck out just 130 in 224 innings, and allowed 214 hits. The team led by Paul Richards also lost 97 games, so that winter owner Bill Veeck decided to make some changes. In December, Gossage along with lefty Terry Forster were shipped to Pittsburgh for outfielder Richie Zisk and pitcher Silvio Martinez. Zisk hit 30 home runs and produced 101 RBI in his one and only year in Chicago and never approached those numbers again. Meanwhile Gossage’s best days were ahead of him.

Back in the bullpen in 1977, Gossage saved 26 games and combined with Kent Tekulve and Grant Jackson for one of those dominant relief corp in baseball. But free agency loomed for Gossage and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, despite having the reigning AL CY Young winner Spark Lyle on his team, was greatly intrigued.  And whatever George wanted, George generally got. He landed Gossage with a six year deal on November 22, 1977. It was a move that eventually led to third baseman Graig Nettles’ famous quote on Lyle, “He went from CY Young to sayonara.”

Gossage’s intro to New York was a rough one. He lost the first game of the season when he gave up a 9th inning home run to none other than Texas’ Richie Zisk. His next appearance was a blown save to Milwaukee and another loss. After mop up duty in his third appearance, Gossage lost another ninth inning game, this time to Toronto. His 0-3 record led to boos when the Yankees returned home. Gossage loves to retell the story today of when center fielder Mickey Rivers jumped on the hood of the bullpen car, yelling “NO”, to stop Gossage from entering a game.

Though he also had a blown save in the ’78 All-Star game, Gossage turned things around (a league leading 27 saves) and helped the Yankees come back from a 14.5 game deficit to Boston in the AL East. He then protected a one run lead in a one game playoff between the two teams, getting Carl Yastrzemski to pop up to Graig Nettles to end the game. Gossage went on to make four All-Star appearances while with New York, led the league in saves twice and finished third in the AL CY Young voting in 1980. But Gossage began to clash with owner George Steinbrenner as the 1980′s marched on and he decided to depart as a free agent after the 1983 season. He signed with San Diego and helped them to their first World Series with 25 saves.

After four years on the left coast, Gossage spent time with the Chicago Cubs, had a second tour with the Yankees before rounding out his career with the Texas Rangers, Oakland A’s, and Seattle Mariners. He also pitched in Japan during the 1990 campaign. In 22 big league seasons, Gossage finished with 310 saves and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008. Today, the Goose is active in youth sports and serves as a Spring Training instructor for the Yankees.

Also Born Today:

Gary Matthews Sr. (San Fernando, CA 1950): “Sarge” was a star baseball player at San Fernando High and was selected as the 17th overall pick in the 1968 amateur draft by the San Francisco Giants. The southern California native made his MLB debut in northern California for the Giants in 1972, hitting .290 with four home runs in 20 games. He then won the NL Rookie of the Year award a year later when he hit .300 with 12 HR and 58 RBI. After five years by the Bay, Matthews signed with Atlanta as a free agent. He spent four years there and made his first All-Star team before being dealt to the Phllies prior to the 1981 season. He was a member of the 1983 NL pennant winning team and also reached the playoffs with the Phillies in 1981 and the Chicago Cubs in 1984. Matthews retired after splitting the 1987 season with the Cubs and Seattle Mariners.

Jesse Crain (Toronto, ON 1981): The Canadian born Crain attended the University of Houston and was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the second round of the 2002 draft. Crain debuted with the Twins in 2004 and finished eighth in the ROY voting in 2005 when the reliever went 12-5, 2.71 with one save. Crain had his ups and downs for the next several seasons, but in 2010 he put up strong numbers with 60 strikeouts in 68 innings. The timing couldn’t have been better as the free agent to be signed a three year deal with the Chicago White Sox during this past off-season.

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Drew Sarver is a senior writer  for BaseballDigest.com.  You can also read his work at his blog, My Pinstripes. He can be contacted at mypinstripes@gmail.com and can be followed on Twitter at @BD_Sarver and @MyPinstripes.

On to part three of this series…

You can love the Yankees or hate ‘em, but you can’t deny their standing in baseball lore. So to a degree, choosing the Yankees All-Team was an exercise in futility. In order to create a compelling argument, it was necessary to outline marginal “discrepancies” between players who were far too legendary to be deserved of such diminished praise. And if that meant Mickey Mantle had to be left off the roster, that Joe Torre’s supremacy over Casey Stengel needed to be justified, or even if Jason Giambi needed to be separated from the rest of the cringe-worthy field—well, that’s how it was going to have to be.

It was an entirely different story with the Dodgers. For a team considered to be one of the true cornerstone Major League franchises, you wouldn’t think Ron Cey would make the All-Time team. Or Dixie Walker. Or Zack Wheat. But alas, they did. And perhaps even more than their own impressive careers, they have the dearth of competition to thank for that.

Now we move onto the Red Sox, a franchise which needs no introduction to any generation. For all the fluctuations in talent and success over the last eleven decades, they have remained a prominent mainstay in the baseball lexicon. From the early 20^th century era of World(Series)-Domination, to 86 years of pain and back again, the Sox have entertained a century’s worth of baseball fans. Along the way, Fenway Park has been host to various superstars who achieved that lofty level of reverence in vastly different fashions. You’ve had Yaz’s impeccable consistency and seriousness and Manny doing whatever it is that he did. There was Cy Young accomplishing things you’d expect from a man who is the namesake of an award. Then you had Roger Clemens and his “legendary” workout program.

And guess what? None of those guys will make this list. Not even Cy Young.

Despite 86 years as the doormat as the rest of the league, the Sox have perpetually rolled out a steady stream of legitimate Hall-of-Famers and superstars. Yet despite a few noticeable omissions and difficult decisions, it really isn’t close at most of the positions.

Maybe that will make this job easier than the prior two. Who am I kidding? I just spent 400 words on an intro. Moving on…

Franchise Player-Ted Williams

For a moment, forget all that jargon about the suite of All-Timers who populate the Red Sox illustriously fickle history. Ted Williams is far and away the greatest great player in a field full of them.

Despite a host of stunning statistical accomplishments, Williams is best known for being a hitting savant, a man who had a scouting department operating directly out of his cranium. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t get enough credit for putting together some of the most incredible seasons in the history of the sport.

Just for a moment, put aside his supposed cerebral superiority (which has become the stuff of some pretty dubitable legends), and look at his incorruptibly incredible statistics.

A career .344/.482/.634 hitter, Williams also is credited with 521 career home runs and 2,654 hits despite losing five seasons of his prime to military service. He jacked 30 homers in eight separate seasons, drove in at least 100 runs in each of his first nine full seasons and never batted under .300 in a full-season. His lone “down” year came in his injury shortened penultimate ’59 campaign.

It’s somewhat of a disservice to Teddy Ballgame’s legacy to discuss his career in whole instead of breaking it down into its well-oiled parts. As impressive as his career figures were, some of Williams’ individual seasons were even more so. Particularly, three consecutive ones early in his career stand out:

1941: 37 HR, 120 RBI, .406/.553/.735, 11.9 WAR

1942: 36 HR, 141 R, 137 RBI, .356/.499/.648, 12.2 WAR

1946: 38 HR, 142 R, 123 RBI, .342/.497/.667 12.4 WAR

As you probably guessed, those three seasons constitute Williams’ final two pre-War seasons and his first one when he returned from duty. And it only serves as an indicator of how one of history’s most feared and respected hitters might have garnered even more acclaim had he not had the misfortune of playing in the wartorn 1940s and 50s.

Two things are at play here. Most historians salivate over Williams’ lofty batting averages. But in today’s context, his OBP is even more praise-worthy. Nine times in his career, Williams had an OBP over .490. He topped .500 thrice. Today, sabermetricians wax poetic about Jack Cust’s ability to get on base 36 percent of the time. If Billy Beane had managed to acquire Williams in his prime, the A’s General Manager might have had an aneurysm.

The secondary—and much more crucial—factor is Williams’ war service. His 139.8 WAR ranks first in Red Sox history and is 30 wins higher than second place Yaz and double that of fourth place Dwight Evans. That same WAR puts him in eight place all-time, 37.9 wins short of the Babe for the top mark.

Now let’s do some pretty conservative extrapolation. From 1939 to 1949, Williams posted WARs over 7. From ’41-’49, he posted WARs of 11.9, 12.2, 12.4, 10.8, 9.2 and 10.6. Of course, this excludes the three seasons he lost to military service.

Over those six remarkable seasons, Williams averaged a roughly 11.2 WAR. For the sake of argument, let’s round that number down to a much more sustainable 10.0 WAR.

There’s no reason to think that Williams would not have maintained such a clip over those seasons, in which he would have been only 25, 26 and 27 years old, respectively. Assuming health and reasonable production, let’s give him a 10.0 WAR for the ’43, ’44 and ’45 seasons. Adding 30.0 wins to his career WAR puts him ahead of Barry Bonds, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and any other player whose name wasn’t Babe Bleeping Ruth. Even the Babe was a player whose eye-popping WAR became particularly cushy thanks to the uselessness of the 1920’s replacement player. In 1920, he hit more homeruns than all but one Major League team. The Philadelphia Phillies played half of their games in the Baker Bowl, where the rightfield fence was just 272 feet from home plate. Nevertheless, Philly’s roster mustered just ten more home runs than Ruth.

But none of this takes into account Williams ’52 and ’53 seasons, in which he missed all but 43 games at the hands of another turn of service, this time in Korea. He had hit a bit of a lull at that point in his career, so let’s give him a 7.0 WAR for both of those seasons. Add 14 wins to his career total, and he surpasses the Babe.

Of course, this is all (a sizeable amount of) guesswork, but it serves to create a portrayal of just how incredible Williams was. Between five seasons lost to two wars and any potential subsequent wear and tear, Williams played just five full seasons over the final 11 years of his career. If he stayed healthy and productive for the majority of that time, it seems fair to suspect he would have surpassed the Babe’s all-time mark. But we can play “What if?” all day and not get any closer to answering any questions of concrete nature.

Nevertheless, Williams didn’t face watered-down competition, sustain an uninterrupted career or have the benefit of being able to let himself go and still be a world-class hitter. But the Splendid Splinter distinguishes himself as a cerebrally superior, stick proficient slugger whose legacy will endure regardless of What Could Have Been.

1B-Jimmie Foxx

On to the realm of the obvious now. Meet Jimmie Foxx, possibly history’s most underrated slugger and—despite his relatively brief stint with the Sox—definitively the best first baseman in the history of the franchise.

Per a handful of extremely impressive seasons, Mo Vaughn gives Foxx a decent-enough challenge. If only because he spent the majority of his career with the Athletics, Foxx may also be surpassed one day by Kevin Youkilis.  Don’t count on it though. Youkilis is already 32 and has spent much of his career at third, so he will need to string together more than a few top-notch seasons in Fenway to pass the man once referred to as “The Beast.”

Foxx came up to the big league club in Philadelphia as a backstop, but his path was blocked by Hall of Fame catcher Mickey Cochrane. As he found himself a spot in the starting lineup at first base, Foxx was instantly one of the league’s great sluggers in an era devoid of them. Somewhat of a disciple of Babe Ruth and the power-hitting obsession that he incited, Jimmie Foxx had as much to do with perpetuating the subsequent homerun craze as anybody.

From the time he became a regular in 1928 to when he lost that privilege in ’41, nobody in the majors hit more homeruns or was more valuable in terms of WAR. Just ten players had a higher batting average and only Ruth, Gehrig and Williams had a better OPS.

Ravaged by the fallout from the Great Depression, Philadelphia and famed manager Connie Mack were forced to sell Foxx to the Red Sox in 1936 for a then-staggering $150,000. Remember that Harry Frazee sold the Babe to the Yanks for just $100,000.

Foxx wasn’t as productive with the Sox as he was with Philly but that’s more of a testament to his play with the A’s than it is an indictment of his Boston career. Under Mack’s tutelage, he topped 40 homeruns in three seasons (including one 58-tater campaign), drove in more than 150 runs twice and only once batter under .320. His stint with the A’s also included two seasons of a 12.1 and 11.0 WAR, respectively.

After his sale to the Sox, Foxx would never again post a 10-win season. But he still was an extremely valuable star, most notably evidenced by his ’38 season. In his third year under the non-existent lights of Fenway, Foxx had an exemplary.349/.462/.704 line that was complimented by 50 home runs and—wait for it—175 RBI.

Following the ’41 season, Foxx fell off considerably. The contemporary tabloids attributed it to a drinking problem, although the veracity of that claim is unclear. Teammates did, however, attest he would use the bottle to make sinus pains subside. He appeared in just 15 games with the equally titled-starved Sox and Cubs in 1942, before sitting out the entire ’43 season. The subsequent year, he returned for 89 games with the Phillies, only to ride out into the baseball sunset with 534 homers and a .344 career average in his—and everyone else’s—rearview mirror.

2B-Bobby Doerr

Doerr’s name might not be familiar to the casual baseball fan, but its appearance is another foregone conclusion in this forum.

Bobby Doerr spent the entirety of his remarkably monotonous career with the Red Sox. He was an analyst’s (or a bettor’s) prognosticative dream and a casino manager’s financial nightmare, with performance peaks reminiscent of sand dunes and career valleys analogous to rabbit holes.

Excluding his rookie year and his shortened final season, Doerr never played in less than 125 games. He always hit at least 12 home runs, but only topped 20 jacks three times. Despite just once scoring 100 runs, he rounded the bases at least 70 times in 12 straight seasons. He drove in at least 90 runs in eight of those years, but just twice dropped below 80 RBI. Only three times in his career did his batting average deviate by more than 20 points from his career mark of .288.

In terms of this honor, Doerr’s 60.9 WAR is nearly 40 wins higher than every other second baseman in the history of the franchise and 15 wins greater than any middle infielder. His career mark is fourth in Red Sox history, behind Williams, Wade Boggs and Dwight Evans. His era-specific WAR was second only to rival Yankee Joe Gordon among 40’s second baseman.

Yet Doerr was best known by his peers as being the league’s premier defensive second baseman. In 1948, he set an AL record with 414 consecutive fielding chances without an error. Although it seems reasonable to suspect that the streak was upheld by more than a few history-wary scorekeepers, Doerr received far more acclaim for that mark then he would for any of his offensive achievements. If defensive prowess was the emphasis of the era, then Bobby Doerr was the poster child for its ignorance.

The Sox second baseman had a host of misperceptions working against him, least of which was his war-consumed 1945 season. Most of the media viewed him as an anachronistic archetype of the middle infielder, a slick fielder for whom any potential offensive contribution would be deemed a bonus.

Doerr’s hitting prowess was lost amongst the juggernaut lineups of the 40’s Sox. Instead of being grouped in with Foxx, Williams, Joe Cronin and Dom DiMaggio, his talents were marginalized. A walking baseball cliché, he was billed as a “Sparkplug” and praised for  “playing the game the right way.” Besides his selection as the AL’s Most Valuable Player by The Sporting News (he finished seventh in official balloting), Doerr’s “solid” career never received the acclaim it needed to be elevated to greatness. It took 35 years and the Veteran Committee’s assistance before he could find his plaque in Cooperstown.

SS-Nomar Garciaparra

The Red Sox have had no true great shortstops, but the competition atop the positional leaderboards is stiff nonetheless. The top seven shortstops in career Boston WAR are separated by just 20 wins, while fifth-ranked John Valentin finds himself just 13.2 wins short of leader Rico Petrocelli. Numbers 2-5 (Garciaparra, Joe Cronin, Johnny Pesky and Valentin) are all within seven wins of their semi-esteemed counterparts. Of the 27 Major League shortstops who have posted career WARs above 50, not a single one ever captained the infield at Fenway.

So here we are to settle a debate based on one of this feature’s favorite topics: differentiating players with similar career statistics by focusing on era analysis and length and extent of dominance. We’re going to wean this down to a manageable scope systematically. After all, it doesn’t seem worth spending 3,000 words on Johnny Pesky’s supremacy over John Valentin and then having to inevitably eliminate both of them from contention.

In fact, let’s get Valentin out of the discussion immediately. He had three solid seasons for the Sox and one great one, but he played far too many games at the hot corner to be considered as an All-Time shortstop.

Of those remaining in the top five, the top three hit at least 119 homeruns, and none of them hit more than 210. The odd man out is Pesky, but he also owns the highest OBP of the group. Unfortunately for him, his 13 career jacks contribute to an anemic .393 career SLG percentage which undermines his candidacy—and his .401 OBP. Despite a nice rookie and sophomoric season peak of 6.6 and 7.6 wins, respectively, the rest of Pesky’s prime was not impressive or long enough to catapult him over the rest of this group.  His pole-perpetuated legacy will endure, but his consideration for this honor ends here.

We now jump to the top of the leaderboard to Rico Petrocelli and his career 45.7 WAR. Considering Petrocelli was a player whose best trait was his power, it’s hard to be praiseful of his career given that he only once topped 100 RBIs and “boasted” a career SLG of .420. He did post a stellar ’69 with 40 HR, 92 R, 97 RBI and a .297/.403/.589 line, but nothing in the rest of his career could approach those gaudy statistics.

That leaves us with Boston player-manager Joe Cronin and disgraced golden boy and current ESPNer Nomar Garciaparra. If you had asked Sox fans in the late 90s whether Nomar would go on to be the greatest shortstop in franchise history, they would have responded, without hesitation, in the affirmative. They also would be wrong, if only because the words “go on to” were distinctly inappropriate. Nomar did little post-Y2K to distinguish himself for that honor; it had already been achieved well before the world was supposed to explode into anarchy due to a minor programming glitch.

Had Joe Cronin played the entirety of his career with the BoSox, he would be the unquestioned leader of this category. But Cronin’s impressive seven-win peak occurred in the early 30’s with Washington (the pre-Twins Senators—not the pre-Rangers Senators, and definitely not the dreadful Nationals). From 1930 through 1933, Cronin posted WARs of 8.0, 7.5, 6.7 and 8.5, including a 13 HR, 127 R, 126 RBI, 17 SB .346/.422/.513 line for the 1930 campaign. As was too often the case over the better part of a century, the Sox acquired a star past his prime, and only once thereafter would Cronin post a WAR above 6.0.

Enter Jesus Garciaparra as the Bostonian messiah, the first player—along with Pedro—who ushered the Red Sox towards their current monolithic status and away from decades of peasantry. After Derek Jeter’s 1996 rookie season took the world (and particularly the greater Tri-State area) by storm, Boston’s scouting and development departments were able to respond with a triumph of their own. Garciaparra won the ’97 Rookie of the Year award, finished eighth in the MVP balloting and secured Silver Slugger and All-Star recognition, all while posting an impressive 6.6 win campaign that only seemed a precursor of things to come. And for a stretch, it was.

After hitting 30 HR, driving in 98 runs and posting a .306/.342/.534 in ’97, Nomar bested all those figures the following season. A 35 HR, 122 RBI, .323/.362/.584 left him with a 7.5 WAR and a second-place finish in the MVP balloting. The next two seasons saw WARs of 6.3 and 7.7, and the young shortstop seemed destined for legendary status in Boston, if not the in all of baseball history. Then a wrist injury stripped him of his defining attribute—bat speed—and he was never quite the same. Despite never being definitively linked to steroid use (outside of this picture), the steroid era blurred his crystal clear stat sheet. An ugly, acrimony-infested exit from Boston tarnished his reputation as an unselfish star. Banished to Chicago and devoid of a devoted fan base to cushion his fall, Nomar’s legacy collapsed under the weight of scrutiny and poor play.

But the only thing that matters is his Boston tenure, and those first four years (and to a lesser extent, the last two) were outstanding. His final two peak years of ’98 and ’99 saw decreased power numbers but a .357 and a .372 AVG, respectively. Nomar was a terror on opposing pitchers for four straight chock-full-of-line-drive seasons. The BBWAA took notice, and he never finished lower than 9^th in the MVP voting over that time frame. He would add an eleventh and seventh place to his resume in his final two complete seasons with the team. Despite never again being a three win player, Nomar’s status as the All-Time Boston shortstop is unimpeded both by inferior competition and his own short-lived greatness.

3B-Wade Boggs

Wade Boggs rode out of New York on a pinstriped horse, providing what might be the lasting snapshot of both the Yankees dynasty and his own career. Before his legacy was temporarily tarnished by a Hall-of-Fame bribery scandal, he went on from the Bronx to finish his career with the pre-exorcism Devil Rays. As a result, interviewers introduce him as “former Yankee, Wade Boggs.” If Boggs had had his alleged way, he would have been inducted as Cooperstown’s lone Devil Ray. But saying Boggs is a Yankee at heart is like remembering Sean Connery as Indiana Jones’ father and not James Bond. For a certain generation, Boggs’ Yankeedom seems obvious. For anyone who resembles a baseball buff, it’s revisionist history.

People forget about the real, decidedly Bostonian Wade Boggs. He contributed some memorable seasons for the two latter teams, but his tenures in New York and St. Petersburg could not shine the proverbial shoes of his Boston career. After becoming a free agent following a career-worst 1992 season (.259 AVG, a Shea Hillenbrand-esque 1.9 WAR), Boggs signed with the Yankees when they offered—surprise!—a year more than the competing Dodgers. Never with the Devil Rays or the Yankees would Boggs post a five-win season, a figure he had bested in eight of his 1- years manning the Fenway hot corner.

Say what you want about his affinity for boiled chicken and his propensity to superstition, Wade Boggs was one of the league’s best hitters for a full decade. From his first full season in 1983 to 1991, his penultimate season with the Red Sox, he posted just one year with a WAR under 6.5. In that 3.5-win 1990 season, Boggs still hit .302 and was still among the top ten third basemen in the game.

Third base is a power heavy position, one where 20 homers and 90 RBIs are much more common than lofty batting averages and on-base percentages. To that effect, Boggs’ impact was a bit of a conundrum. The edict called for him to hit like Ron Santo, but he was doing a better Rod Carew impression than Rod Carew.

Over his entire Red Sox career (save for that final 1992 season and the aforementioned 1990 campaign), Boggs never hit lower than .325. In fact, he only hit lower than .330 once and lower than .350 three times. He posted OBP’s over .400 in every one of those seasons and was over .440 on five separate occasions.

Boggs was one of the few hitters of the last 20 years who was feared despite a general lack of power. He only topped 10 home runs once with the Sox, in an ’87 campaign in which he put up an outlandish 24 HRs and a .363/.461/.588.  Nevertheless, he was a terror on opposing pitchers due to his ability to grind out at-bats and find his way on base. His 7.6 K percentage was the lowest among 80’s third basemen and sixth behind all contemporary Major Leaguers—behind Tony Gwynn, Don Mattingly, Ozzie Smith, Johnny Ray and Pete Rose. His .428 period-specific OBP was second only to Frank Thomas and blew all other third basemen away by more than 40 points.

Of the top seven “third basemen” in Red Sox history, Boggs and Larry Gardner are the only ones who spent the majority of their career playing exclusively third base. Boggs left Boston with a 75.0 WAR. When Larry Gardner moved onto Philadelphia in 1918, he left a 32.6 WAR in his wake. As they say so eloquently, ‘nuff said.

C-Carlton Fisk

Unless you’re going to give Jason Varitek credit for hanging around for six useless years while his knees turn to dust, then there’s absolutely no contest here. Even with Varitek’s longevity, it would take some pretty contorted logic (he won two titles!) to give him the nod over Fisk.

I don’t want to spend too much time here, because the stats speak for themselves. Fisk’s 40.4 WAR is unsurpassed among Sox backstops. Varitek is second at 24.8 wins, or 12.4 for each of the two hard hit balls he’s had thus far in 2011. Third among Sox backstops (with a 15.9 WAR) is Rich Gedman. Coming in at fourth is the immortal Rick Ferrell, who played three seasons for Boston in the 1930s before being traded to Washington for someone named Bobo Newsom. In your antiquated baseball analysis anecdote of the day, Ferrell made the Hall-of-Fame despite hitting 28 career homeruns and (according to Baseball-Reference’s Similar Players feature) being a kindred-spirit with Brad Ausmus.

Fisk spent a little less than half of his career with Boston before moving onto Chicago, but the Sox effectively got the larger chunk of his career. The discrepancy between Fisk’s careers with the Red Sox and the Sox of the less scarlet variety was enough to incite envy amongst South Side Chicagoans, and for good reason. His .284/.356/.481 Boston line didn’t just blow away his .269/.341/.451 with the White Sox; his three best seasons (by far) were posted while playing at Fenway. In 1972, 1977 and 1978, Fisk posted WARs of 7.1, 7.7 and 6.1, respectively. That ’77 season saw Fisk put up 26 HR, 102 RBI and a golithian .315/.402/.521 line while finishing eighth in the MVP voting. He would finish as a top-10 MVP candidate three times in Boston. But in Chicago, he would never post another six-win season and the BBWAA never honored him with such a distinction.

LF-See Williams, Ted

CF-Tris Speaker

The availability of defensive statistics from the first two decades of the 20^th century is limited, so Tris Speaker is usually listed as a generic “Outfielder.” But we’re going to take a marginal leap of faith and call him a great centerfielder, for which he has been remembered for more than a century.

Speaker spent eight years of his 20-year career with Boston, but it would be remiss to give this title to anyone else. Speaker leads all Boston CFs with a 57.9 WAR, followed by Dom DiMaggio, Reggie Smith and Fred Lynn. The distinguished career totals of the lesser DiMaggio and Smith are largely results of longevity instead of dominance, so we’re certainly not going to catapult them over Speaker. Lynn spent just six seasons with the team, and put up two incredible years (including a ROY and MVP winning ’75 year and a 1979 campaign where he posted a 39 HR, 116 R, 122 RBI, .333/.423/.637), but his Bostonian achievements have no business sharing the same sentence as Mr. Speaker’s. Well, except that last one.

Speaker’s stat lines and power numbers reek of the Dead Ball Era. One of the few pre-20’s offensive players whose legacy and name remain prevalent today, Speaker was the era’s best centerfielder. His career .345 batting average is third all-time, while his .337 Sox mark ironically also ranks third in franchise history, behind Boggs and Ted Williams. In eight seasons with the team, he finished in the top 12 of the MVP voting four separate times, including a trophy-winning 11-win 1912 season. In that defining season, Speaker knocked 222 hits, 10 of which left the yard. He also scored 136 runs, drove in 90, thieved 52 bags and found himself with a nice little .383/.464/.567—all while playing an elite defensive centerfield. How’s that for five tools?

Most of Speaker’s Sox seasons sported similar numbers, as evidenced by his six 7.0-plus WAR seasons in seven full seasons with the team. That seventh and excluded year saw a mere 6.3 win mark and .344 batting average.

Following a 1915 season in which Speaker’s AVG plummeted to .322, Sox president JJ Lannin demanded he take a pay cut to a meager—even for the time—$9,000. Speaker refused, and then pulled off a feat that would make many of today’s NFL primadonnas jealous. The Sox dealt him to the Indians for Sad Sam Jones, Fred Thomas and $50,000. After holding out, he ended up grabbing $10,000 of Boston’s bounty for himself. He then secured a $50,000 dollar contract with Cleveland—baseball’s richest deal at the time.

RF-Dwight Evans

Evans’ name might not seem commensurate with an All-Timer, but this spot is his to lose. In many cases (especially with more than a few Dodgers), I would tell you about how a lack of competition helps his not-so-compelling case. But Evans is wholly deserving of this recognition.

Evans’ career has been lost in the shuffle of baseball history. Granted, it’s not every day that a three-time All-Star receives legendary status. A somewhat forgotten fan favorite, Dwight Evans won eight gold gloves while guarding the Pesky Pole in all but one of his 19 Major League seasons.

Evans was always quite good, but rarely truly great. Only once in his 19 Boston seasons was he a seven-win player. On the flip side, he was under 2.0 WAR in just three of those years. Two of those down years were his first and last full seasons with the club. In between, he finished in the top 12 of the MVP voting five times despite only being an All-Star in two of those campaigns.

Continuing with the theme of spectacularly unspectacular consistency, Evans was proficient but not elite in almost every offensive category. A .272 career hitter, he averaged a little over 21 home runs per season and around 75 RBIs. His strength, unlike many on this list, was in his career as a whole as opposed to its parts. By staying healthy, consistent and productive over 18 Boston seasons, Evans takes hold of the title for best rightfielder in team history.

DH-David Ortiz

Let’s get this out of the way. For all his heroic antics and home run prowess, Papi would still take this title even if he pumped his body full amphetamines and HGH and proceeded to spit in the face of every umpire in the league. Not because we don’t value morality, but because giving the title to anyone else would be an even bigger crime.

Use the explanation of your choosing to rationalize Papi’s Bostonian transformation from Scott Hatteberg into the Latino Babe Ruth. It doesn’t matter. Yes, he went from a one-win player in the Triple H Dome to one of the most feared hitters of the generation in Boston, but that doesn’t change the fact that Mike Stanley is his closest challenger.  You know, the same Mike Stanley who played 39 games in the DH hole for the Sox. Coming in behind Mike is the immortal Jose Canseco. Or it could be Jose’s twin, Ozzie—it’s getting pretty hard to tell these days.

People have attributed Ortiz’s inexplicable mutation to anything from steroid use to Tom Kelly’s idiocy to the magical powers of his unique half mutton chop/half chinstrap beard. Regardless, as any Yankee fan—myself included—can attest, an in-his-prime Ortiz was one of the most intimidating hitters of the last two decades. Seeing his face on the “Due Up” graphic between innings was enough to get your heart racing, especially in a big moment.

Of course, these emotions are backed up by hard stats. He hit at least 30 homeruns in each of his first five Fenway seasons, including a 54-home run ’06 and a .332/.445/.621, 35 home run ’07. His upshot career took a downturn the following two seasons (23 HR, .264 AVG in ’08 and a .238 average in 2009), but he looks like he might be approaching top form again. After a 32 home run, 102 RBI, .270/.370/.529 campaign a year ago, Ortiz already has 17 home runs and a .320 average thus far in 2011.

No discussion of Ortiz’s career can be without his postseason fireworks, and this one is no different. Just take a look at this, this and this, and that should suffice. For the record, I just found the links without watching the video. Doing so would be too painful; it’s like reliving the death of a family member.

If you really need statistical evidence, he batted .400 and .370 in each of the postseasons leading up to the two Sox world titles. Now that I wrote this segment, please give me a moment to remove my sunglasses. Proceed.

RHSP-Pedro Martinez

This race could be the most competitive of any team thus far. With three All-Time greats in the running, there may be no true correct answer. But I’ll do my best to convince you of mine.

Our three principle competitors are Pedro, Cy Young and Rawjah Clemens. All have their verifiable strengths. All of them—especially Clemens—have unattractive blemishes on their Sox record.

Let’s not even mention steroid use. There’s no knowing how early Clemens was using PEDs, so there’s no way we can know if he was juicing while pitching with the Green Monster as a backdrop. His tarnished reputation certainly doesn’t help his legacy, but it’s not the deciding factor.

Clemens is tied with Young for the Sox career wins lead at 192. He had an impressive 8.40 K:9 ratio, posted a 3.06 ERA and won three Cy Young awards and one MVP in 13 Boston years. But his record is too suspect and too inconsistent to be warranted of this title. He had three Boston seasons with an ERA over 4.00, including a final free agency year where he all but tanked before turning it on down the stretch. While three poor seasons isn’t horrible, especially for the steroids era, beating out the competitive field requires a near perfect record. And if there’s anyone who isn’t perfect, it’s the Rocket.

The easy and seemingly logical choice would be Cy Young, the man after whom our pitching award for excellence is named. Young posted a near-identical record to Clemens, winning the same amount of games but losing just one more. His consistent performance and his legend vault him over Roger, but he still falls short of Pedro due to a few contributing factors.

First, Young played just one season for a team actually named the Red Sox. While the Hall-of-Famer played in Boston from 1901 though 1908, the local team wasn’t officially called the Sox until that final ‘08 season. The team had been previously known as the “Americans.” It would be a bit hard to swallow to give this honor to someone who never really played for the Red Sox. Although we’re not going to let nomenclature disallow the supposed Best Pitcher of All-Time from being the Best Pitcher of the All-Time Red Sox.

What is more alarming is that Cy Young never pitched a single inning in Fenway Park. This isn’t an issue of a necessary sentimental connection to the Red Sox defining home park, but a notion of the time period. Young played half of his career prior to the turn of the century, and was out of baseball at the end of 1911—just a few months before Fenway Park would open its doors. As such, it’s hard to be particularly glowing of his achievements considering they were accrued in an era where baseball had yet to become mainstream fare. Cy Young wasn’t facing America’s best talent, or at least nothing near the level of competition his successors would, so even his 2.00 Boston ERA needs to be taken with one very large measure of salt.

Also worth taking into account is that just 192 of his 511 career wins were posted in Boston.

So that brings us to Pedro and his incredible late-90’s Red Sox surge. The Expos dealt him to Boston after the ’96 season, reason number 147 why the city of Montreal no longer has a professional baseball franchise. Reason Number 148: that they got the horrid Carl Pavano and Tony Armas Jr. as a return on their investment.

Pedro was then given a seven-year contract extension worth over $90,000,000, and he would never look back. Over the length of the agreement, Pedro won 20 games twice,  six times posted an ERA under 3.00, was under 2.40 on four occasions and posted a 1.74 ERA in Y2K. In that defining 2000 season, Pedro finished 18-6 with 11.78 K and 1.33 BB per 9 innings. Opposing batters hit just .236—on balls in play. He would end the seasons with a pitching WAR of 10.1 and a Cy Young award on his mantle.

Of course, that was hardly the extent of his dominance. He had posted a 12.1 pitching WAR in the preceding season, and would top 7.5 twice more with the Sox. In ’99, he struck out a mind-bending 13.20 batters per nine innings, commensurate with 313 K’s in 213 innings. In the same season, he won 23 games and an additional Cy Young award. He also finished second in the overall MVP voting.

In three other seasons in Boston, Pedro finished in the top three of the Cy Young and the top-25 of MVP balloting. In his final season in Boston, he finished fourth for the Cy despite posting a (to that point) career high ERA of 3.90.

LHSP-Mel Parnell

Given the competitive field for starting righties, the relatively weak group of southpaws is quite surprising. Mel Parnell emerges from the sparse crowd, carrying his 123 career Sox wins with him.

Parnell had an extremely short career, although he spent the entirety of it with the Red Sox. He pitched in only six complete seasons from 1948-1953, winning at least 18 games four times and 20 games twice. In a career year of 1949, Parnell won 25 games and posted a 2.77 ERA while finishing fourth in the MVP race.

With Lefty Grove as the only other Sox lefty to reach the century mark in the win column, Parnell wins this title almost by default. But he did put together those few remarkable seasons before succumbing to injury. He may be most famous, however, for coining the term ‘Pesky Pole” when light-hitting Johnny Pesky won a game by hitting a homerun down the line. Following his retirement, Parnell would go on to be the manager of the Tulane Baseball team and a Red Sox broadcaster.

Closer-Jonathan Papelbon

Consider these three statements:

“Jonathan Papelbon is certifiably obnoxious, the kind of player whose bravado pisses off every fan of the opposing team and even some of those of his own.”

“Jonathan Papelbon is one of the game’s most overrated players, a solid but unspectacular closer who has ridden the coattails of his own self-promotion and a few great seasons to being falsely credited with a few more.”

“Jonathan Papelbon is the best closer in the history of one of the game’s most storied franchises.”

All of the aforementioned quotes represent varying degrees of truth. However, each represents an opinion that needs to be backed by evidence and persuasion. Quickly running through them, this picture gives the first quote a measure of credence. The following thought can be summed up by Papelbon’s burgeoning ERA and WHIP over last two seasons. The third? Well, that’s while we’re here.

As with many of these examinations (especially those of closers and DH’s, relatively young positions in the scope of baseball history), Papelbon gets this honor because no one else deserves it. Not that he really does either, but he certainly has been effective enough to make me feel better than I did when I chose Jason Giambi for the Yankees’ all-time team.

Papelbon was converted to a full-time closer in his second season in the bigs. Unlike a certain other fist-pumping reliever, never again was he forced to change roles. As a result, he hasn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Frankenstein.

For four seasons, from 2006 until 2009, Papelbon lived up to his superstar billing. His intense personality may have still added to his legend, but make no mistake about it: he was one of the game’s most dominant closers over that stretch. With ERAs of 0.92, 1.85, 2.34 and 1.85, respectively, Papelbon was a nightmare for the rest of the league. Three sub-1.00 WHIPs (and a fourth possibly inflated by an unlucky BABIP) suggest that his peak was not a fluke.

To this day, Papelbon has never saved fewer than 30 games in a season, and his K rate this season is the highest of his career. But somewhere along the way, Papelbon lost his touch. While his absurdly high .375 BABIP this year may suggest some further supernatural intervention, his combined ’10-’11 ERA is hovering around four.

Papelbon is now approaching the 100-inning mark over that time frame, so it’s getting increasingly different to explain away his poor performance with notions of bad luck. Although he can consider himself lucky that his two closest competitors for this “best closer” honor weren’t even closers.

Manager-Terry Francona

Terry Francona has helmed nearly 30 percent of the Sox title-winners. He turned a decrepit franchise around within 10 months of taking the wheel. And he’s done—and continues to do—so in perhaps the most competitive era in baseball history, when both parity and talent are at an all-time high.

But like so many others, Francona is a flawed candidate. And he largely has decades of Bostonian ineptitude to thank for his selection for this honor.

Of course, the Sox came away titleless in 86 consecutive Octobers. So that dearth of managerial excellence isn’t particularly shocking. Joe Cronin is the franchise wins leader at 1,071, but his candidacy sports an unspectacular .539 winning percentage and just one World Series appearance.

The Red Sox have had just four World Series winning managers other than Francona, all of whom quite obviously managed in the uncompetitive, 16-team Dead Ball Era. If you need further reason to exclude them, these are your candidates:

Jimmy Collins, manager from the 1901 inception of the Boston Americans. Cy Young won him one World Series title. Out of a job by 1906.

Jake Stahl, Red Sox skipper during the entirety of the 1912 World Series-winning season. Canned halfway through the 1913 campaign.

Bill Carrigan, took over for Stahl and led the team to two World Series titles. That and Babe Ruth’s testimonial that he was “The best skipper I ever played for,” probably makes him the runner up behind Tito. He managed in a much more easily-navigable era, when bullpens and platoons and the media were not concerns. He was also (like all of the aforementioned candidates), a player-manager, so it’s hard to compare him to Francona.

Ed Barrow, the only true manager of the pre-depression World Series winning Sox, and thus he gets some kudos for that. Won just two titles. Had just a .512 career Sox winning percentage. Resigned when Harry Frazee began to sell-off his players and his future.

The bottom line is this: Terry Francona has managed eight seasons in the ultra-competitive 2000’s American League and the same amount in the even more arduous AL East. He’s compiled 648 wins, a .579 winning percentage, two world titles and one exorcism. He slew the Vengeful Ghost of Heartbreak Past and—despite his sometimes noticeable managerial shortcomings—has managed a former doormat into an age of supremacy and empire. And he’s done so with enough grace and composure to handle the hungry contemporary Boston media and his suite of headcase players.

And he had to manage Manny for four seasons. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?

Jesse Golomb writes for BaseballDigest.com. He is the creator of TheFanManifesto, the website for the educated sports fan. He can be followed on Twitter @TheFanManifesto, or contacted at JesseGolomb@TheFanManifesto.com