This photo has been re-posted. Please right click view if you wish to see it larger.
It was running way off the page.
Posted on 03/01/2019 12:56:05 PM PST by Rummyfan
1956 was my first season as a baseball fan. That year Mickey Mantle had one of the best seasons ever by a hitter. He won the Triple Crown with a batting average of .353, 52 home runs, and 130 RBIs. His on-base average plus slugging percentage was 1.169.
I resisted the temptation to become a New York Yankees fan, opting instead for the hometown Washington Senators. Their star, Roy Sievers, became my favorite player. But I always wondered what it would be like to root for a team with a star having a season like Mantle’s.
In 2015, I found out. Playing for the Washington Nationals, Bryce Harper batted .330, hit a league-leading 42 home runs, and drove in 99 runs. His on-base average plus slugging percentage was 1.109.
Okay, this wasn’t quite Mantle in 1956, and not in terms of fancier stats either. But it was close enough.
And yes, unlike the 1956 Yankees, the 2015 Nationals were a .500ish team. But Harper’s Nats won four division titles in his seven seasons here. The Nats never had a winning season before he arrived.
Today, Harper signed with the Philadelphia Phillies. The deal is 13 years for $330 million. Months ago, the Nats offered him $300 million for 10 years. Harper made out marginally better by rejecting that offer and testing the market.
(Excerpt) Read more at powerlineblog.com ...
The Dodgers still get 3 million fans every year.
Arte Moreno had the theory that renaming the Anaheim Angels the Los Angeles Angels would result in taking fans away from the Dodgers. Proving only that Moreno didn’t have a lick of sense and doesn’t understand SoCal culture. Orange County wants nothing to do with Los Angeles, including their name.
Good comments. I agree with your logic there.
When I first heard the term, “Los Angeles Angels”, I thought someone had made a mistake.
When I found out it was a marketing scheme from the Angels’ front office, it actually annoyed me. It still does.
The Dodgers have worked to create the fan friendly relationship they have, and I think they have represented the city as well as they could have.
For the Angels to horn in on that, it just seemed bush-league to me.
Your observation about Orange County not wanting to have anything to do with Los Angeles seemed spot on, and I can’t believe they weren’t tweaked themselves as if being Orange County fans wasn’t something the team could respect/honor.
If they pulled that on me, I’d have never set foot in their stadium again.
What I mean by winning is winning the World Series which is really what all of them or after.
He ate a lot of chicken and he hit a lot of singles.
Arte’s “LA Angels” still sticks in the craw of local fans.
Arte From Phoenix could have changed the name to the Orange County Angels. Or he could have changed the name back to the California Angels.
But he should have left the team with the same name that they won the World Series with, the Anaheim Angels. They play in Anaheim after all, not in Los Angeles.
There is of course no group on Earth more superstitious than baseball players, unless it’s baseball fans; and they all know that Billboard Arte jinxed the team when he stole the Dodgers city name and plastered it on Orange County’s home team. It’s hard enough to win another World Series without Arte handicapping the team with his Name Jinx.
Pujols is still productive. A little. But Hamilton.... what a waste.
The big market teams have their own cable deals, even their own networks, the Yankees YES Network being a prime example. Small market teams like the As, KC, struggle with respect to payroll to keep up. And then the Yankees Dodgers et al draw almost four million fans a year on top of TV revenue.
The Dodgers were Number 1 in attendance last season in MLB, almost four million.
The jinx thing is enmeshed with the sport. No doubt about it.
Did you see that, video going around about fifteen/twenty years ago, “I put a spell on you!” It really captured the spirit of the superstitious nature of baseball.
Tried to find it just now, but couldn’t. Too dated.
Baseball has some amazing folklore, and as many games as I have watched, it seems like a lot of games have something just a little out of the ordinary.
It’s an amazing sport to me.
Yeah, that name thing, what a mess. You just don’t screw with your name. All the marketing that had been done with that identity, out the window.
Yes, you touched on some good additional information there.
You can go out there in shirt sleeves many times.
My wife and I used to get dressed up and go to the Stadium Club, get seats by the window and eat dinner.
I wouldn’t want to do that all the time, because you’re seriously detached from the game, bit it did give us an amazing bird’s eye view of the field.
I’ll never forget those times.
That was a great book! I still have the copy I bought in 1972! (I rate it just behind ‘The Glory of Their Times’ in my large MLB book collection). Kahn was a ‘beat’ writer covering the Dodgers during their 1952 and 1953 seasons and along with their World Series losses after both of those seasons to the Bombers. He got very close to a lot of those players and it was reflected in his writing in the book. I just finished re-reading an old SPORT magazine issue from the 1957 and the ‘SPORT Special’ story that month was on Pee Wee by Roger Kahn. Good stuff.
“$300 over ten years is better than $330 over 13”
Not when you get all the money in 13 years. Harpers contract has no deferred payments
” Pujols and Hamilton are still stealing from the Angels”
Angels were purely stupid on those deals. Pujols had given ten great years in St Louis and was already on the decline
This photo has been re-posted. Please right click view if you wish to see it larger.
It was running way off the page.
Pity me, I’m a Nats fan, but I am not sorry to see him leave. I agree with the article 100%. Bryce played for himself at all times and never for the team. When he was up in the 9th with men on base, and all we needed was any hit out of the infield, Bryce would screw himself into the dirt trying to hit a five-run homer. It happened time and time again. He is so predictable that no Washington pitcher will have any difficulty with him. Pitch him low and away, he’ll swing every time any never take the walk. Not for nothing did Papelbon want to strangle him.
The tax benefit of deferred income over the span the Nats offered to Harper would be more than offset by the loss of present value.
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.