Posted on 06/03/2010 10:11:26 AM PDT by BluesDuke
Wish him all good things in retirement. To my knowledge, he didn’t do drugs, booze or broads...or for some other reason get his name in the media for anything other than baseball.
His home runs were legit, he didn't shoot steroids like the other bums.
First ballot Hall of Famer!
Maybe some MLB Team will make him a coach or Manager.
My other favorite Junior memory was once when Lou Pinella was throwing a huge tantrum, Junior and Buhner were watching from right field, gloves up to their faces, convulsed. They were like two mischievous kids, eyes twinkling.
To sports, and Seattle baseball, his is iconic like say Kirby Puckett was to Minnesota or Tony Gwynn in San Diego.
Prettiest swing in baseball. I’ll miss his enthusiasm for the game.
Looks Like KC or His old team Seattle need a good Manager.
Loved the way he whipped that bat through the strike zone. A signature swing if there ever was one.
Maybe some MLB Team will make him a coach or Manager.He'd make an excellent coach. His knowledge of the outfield and of hitting is invaluable. I'd imagine he'd need about a year or two to get playing the game out of his system before he might consider it. The word is, as I mentioned in the essay, that he'll have a formal relationship with the Mariners for pretty much the rest of his life. So he has nothing but time to clear his mind and heart and then make whatever move he might make.
I hate when great players become managers. It almost never works out. Think of Ted Williams and the Washington Senators...It worked out so horribly that the Splinter was named Manager of the Year in the American League for 1969.
Williams only had problems in the last couple of years the Senators were in Washington, when owner Bob Short was pretty much turning the club topsy-turvy with insane deals and moves the better, perhaps, to hype his hankering to get the hell out no matter what he was saying publicly.
I can name you a few other great players who became serviceable managers, at least. Gil Hodges, for one. Bill Terry, for another. Yogi Berra was a good manager whose organisations (the 1964 Yankees especially, and shamefully) undermined him when all was said and done. Lou Piniella was an excellent player and became a World Series-winning manager.
The word out of the Cubs organisation (ok, ok, I know) is that Ryne Sandberg, a Hall of Fame player, is proving an excellent manager in their system who just might get to manage the Cubs or elsewhere in the Show in the future. And it's easy to forget that Joe Torre as a player alone is a borderline Hall of Famer; as a player and manager he just might make it after all on a combine entry. Red Schoendienst proved a Hall of Fame player and went on to become a World Series-winning manager. Hall of Famer Frank Robinson was a fine manager who probably deserved better when he did manage. Bob Lemon was a Hall of Fame pitcher and a good manager (he won a World Series managing the Yankees) who likewise deserved better as a manager. (Come to think of it, how many pitchers, period, never mind Hall of Fame pitchers, make useful, never mind winning or great managers?)
What about this one: http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/team/coach_staff_bio.jsp?c_id=ana&coachorstaffid=121919
Loved the way he whipped that bat through the strike zone. A signature swing if there ever was one.If you think about it, Ken Griffey, Jr. became the player everyone once thought Darryl Strawberry might become, before the crush of overheated expectations and the furies of his childhood turned into substance abuse, injuries, and a truckload of might-have-beens for Strawberry. These two had the most picturesque swings I've seen in a lifetime of watching baseball, and I'm old enough to have seen Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Willie McCovey (who had a pretty swing himself), Ernie Banks, Mike Schmidt (who may have been the most underappreciated Hall of Famer of them all and probably should be in the conversation about the greatest all-around player of the post-World War II generations), Willie Stargell (who had one of the ugliest swings I ever saw, but damn if it didn't work wonders), Frank Howard (they didn't call him Capital Punishment for nothing), Eddie Mathews, Dick Allen (who admits today that had he not mishandled the very real racism he faced in his early seasons he just might have been a Hall of Famer), Ron Santo (who does deserve to be in the Hall of Fame), Reggie Jackson, and Billy Williams in their primes.
If you were going to engineer a textbook swing, Ken Griffey, Jr. might be your model.
Of course, people perform rather splendidly even if their swings are the kind that would send a coach to the rye bottle. God only knows how often the story was told how John McGraw was so petrified about some nimrod in the minors possibly ruining Mel Ott's unorthodox swing that he kept Ott next to him on the bench to learn the game for a couple of seasons before turning him loose to become the National League's home run king. I imagine people in the Cardinal organisation had the same fears about someone potentially ruining Stan Musial.
Or, on the other side of the plate, just imagine if someone in the Giants organisation had been fool enough to think that someone needed to teach "legitimate" pitching technique to Juan Marichal . . .
He was a great one and should have the HR record now if it wasn’t for those constantly occurring injuries.
Okay, you can cherry pick items and make excuses. Lets look at bottom line, manager wins and losses:
Ted Williams: 273 W 364 L .429 winning percentage
Frank Robinson: 1065 W 1176 L .475 winning percentage
I agree with you about Lou Pinella and Yogi Berra. Notice I did say it almost never works out. You mention Joe Torre. While I agree that he was a good and above average major leaguer, he was in no way a boderline HOF’er. I think you’re stretching it a little there. However he is an interesting case in managing. Before he became manager of the Yankees he had a below .500 managerial record. Did he all of the sudden become a genious when he managed the Yankees or did being able to spend on anyone he want help out?
Anyways, back to the point. I am not one that believes that a manager has that much of an impact overall. Not as much as a football head coach. I think a lot of guys could manage in the major leagues and be just as successful as the current crop of guys. The reason most of them get their gigs is because of who they know and their reputations, not necessarily because they are so much better than some guy toiling in the minors. The reason I made my statement is not necessarily a reflection on those guys manager skills. It’s that I hate seeing great players being diminished like that. Like watching Willie Mays play centerfield for the Mets.
See my post 15
Remember hearing him being interviewed about five years ago. He said he had never been on the DL.
It seems like baseball swings are taught these days and there is very little personal variation with the swing itself. It’s all pretty formulaic. I would point to Charlie Lau when he was hitting guru for the KC Royals during the George Brett era as the man that standardized hitting.
How many players do we see now with a slightly opened stance; short, or non-existent stride; compact swing; and a top-hand release? Just about everybody does it that way now.
Junior just generated so much bat speed that if he got square on the ball it was going to go a long way. Different kind of power since he was a long skinny kid. And yet you couldn’t really tie him up by pitching inside.
I saw the entire division series with the Yankees...when Seattle won. Wow, that was RAUCUS.
It's a shame this CLASS ACT can no longer play.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.