My Football Picks So Far

Photo: Russell Wilson throwing against the Packers, from nfl.com.

6-3 so far with my football picks, including the Patriots loss that I felt was coming, but refused to admit to myself. Today, the surprise of the day for me was the Jaguars, who beat the Texans by 22. (I should've considered the Harvey factor there; dumb on my part.) But I still wouldn't have picked them by 22. The last one I swung and missed on was Cardinals/Lions, which I thought would be a toss-up, but that Detroit won by 12. And though I was right about the Browns losing, Cleveland actually super-impressed, losing just by 3.

And the best tackle of the weekend still is the Friday night play by the security guard at Fenway who obliterated a drunken fan before both his feet touched the outfield grass. I'm watching the players jog into the dugout when suddenly I see a guard running full-tilt into a fan just barely touching the right field dirt with one of his toes. The guard was a blur and the fan didn't know what hit him.

UPDATE: Finished 10-5 for the week. I'll do better.

Cult Baseball Players edited by Danny Peary

Interesting book that I'd hoped would be as good as The Glory of their Times.  It wasn't, through no fault of its own, exactly.
 
Glory was told to Lawrence Ritter by the ballplayers themselves (and then edited by Ritter). This book is written by professionals in other endeavors, like yours and mine, about their favorite ballplayers.  Because of this, and because the writers are usually writers themselves, this comes across as maybe better-written, but not as interesting, as it's not from the ballplayers' POV.

But there's a certain coolness in that as well.  It made you think of your own associations with ballplayers, if you've had any.  I have: Wade Boggs nonchalantly picked up and returned my baseball to me--without signing it; Matsuzaka ignored me so rudely that people around me openly wondered what his problem was; Jason Bay blanched and stammered in front of me at Fenway Park.  Not because of me, but...Well, you'll have to buy the thing that publishes it.  And that's what I mean about this book's coolness: It made me want to write about my own memorable experience with a ballplayer.  And then sell it to be published, of course, cuz that's what I try and do.

So here are pieces written by Elmore Leonard, without his iconic dialogue and violence; by Tim McCarver, who's as long-winded in print as he was on the Fox telecasts, and many others.

I recommend reading it in the winter, as I have, because it reminds you that there is in fact a summer, when games like baseball are played.  But also because the book is only sometimes about baseball; at times it is more about the players, the times they played in, and those who they played with.  It reminds you that there is more to life than what is currently going on in front of you, which in my case has been days and days of snow-blowing, followed by today's 40s, which will be followed by tonight's single-digits and Wednesday's 5"-8" of snow.

But that's okay.  Baseball is right around the corner.  Spring training is happening right now.  And the lives of those who play it go on and on, even off of the field.  It's important to remember this.

Having said that, my first game this season is April 14th, at Fenway.

About 53 days away.  And yes, I'm keeping track.  There's more to the ballplayers than what happens on the field, but the field is where we see them, and--right or wrong--is often all we care to know about them.

Derek Jeter

I know I'm a little behind on my HOF posts, and on my posts in general for this site.  Having said that, a few words about Derek Jeter, after his last game today at Fenway Park:

--Obvious HOF because of his lifetime stats, most obvious his 3,464 hits, 6th most all-time.

--Also top-10 all-time in ABs, PAs, Runs Scored and Singles.  Considering he batted 1st or 2nd the vast majority of the time, these are excellent things for him to be amongst the greatest of all-time.  Probably the greatest second-in-the-order hitter ever.

--Some surprises (all this is courtesy of baseball-reference.com):

-12th all-time in Times-on-Base.  If you consider the all-time greats of Ted Williams (okay, shorter career), Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, etc., all those you'd think of as all-time super-stars, the fact that Jeter got on base via a hit, walk or HBP 12th amongst all these guys is very impressive.

-His Offensive Winning % is 45th-best, ever.  That includes everybody--pitchers and position players.  That's Clemens, Grove, Cy Young, Pete Rose, people better defensively than he was...everyone.  This is very high.

-His 1,909 Runs Created is 27th-best, all-time.  This is runs scored, runs batted in and everything in between.

-13th-most strikeouts ever.  I know he batted a ton of times, but this is still surprising to me.

-21st-most total bases, ever.  Again, considering all the big boys--Williams, Ruth, Gehrig, Aaron, Mays, Mantle, etc.--being 21st is very high.  Especially when you consider that those guys hit homers and Jeter hit singles and doubles.  That's a lot of singles and doubles to party with those guys in TBs.

-Player of the Week just 3 times--and Player of the Month just once!

-Never won MVP, though he did finish 2nd and 3rd a few times.  But, Pedroia excepted, American League MVPs usually go to the home run guys.

-5 Gold Gloves.  Granted, GGs are given just as much for offensive performance as it is for defensive excellence (though of course it shouldn't be that way), but, still, 5 Gold Gloves is a lot for a guy who's often ridiculed for his defense.

-Having said that, baseball-reference says he owes the Yanks 9.7 games over his career for his defense.

-But he's won them 95.3 games over his career due to his offense.  Divided by 17 or 18 full years, that's about 5 1/2 games a year, just him.  That's a lot.

-He's had 650 post-season ABs.  That's another full season.

-He had a .308 batting average and a .374 OBP during that "extra season."  Keep in mind, this is the playoffs, so this would be against the better pitching staffs in all of baseball.  The .374 OBP is more impressive than the .308 BA considering this.

-The same website has compared him to the HOF shortstops already enshrined, and had this to say:

JAWS	Shortstop (12th), 71.7 career WAR/42.2 7yr-peak WAR/57.0 JAWS Average HOF SS (out of 21) = 66.7 career WAR/42.8 7yr-peak WAR/54.7 JAWS

In other words, he's a little to quite-a-bit better than the average HOF shortstop.  In short, he's a HOFer.

The two things I'll remember most about Jeter:

1) The infamous 2004 game, weeks before Nomar got traded, in a game that Nomar refused to play, Jeter jumped into the stands to catch a foul ball--and got a bloody chin and cheek for it.  At Fenway.  Later in the game, Nomar refused to pinch-hit--for Cesar Crespo, if I'm not mistaken.  I know Salad will correct me if I am wrong about this.  :-)

The story goes that this so angered Red Sox brass that it was the last straw, and they were intent on trading Nomar after this.  In other words, if Jeter hadn't played all-out that game (as he admittedly did for all his games), then the Sox front office wouldn't have shopped Nomar--and the Sox don't win the 2004 World Series.

2.  In a 2001 playoff game against the A's, a throw gets away from the cut-off man and Jeremy Giambi (surely one of MLB's all-time bad baserunners) tries to score.  Jeter, who was roaming the infield, runs about 100 feet out of his shortstop position, grabs the ball that's trickling on the 1st-base line about 15 feet from home, and throws a shovel-pass to the catcher, Jorge Posada, who tags Giambi out.  (Giambi looks back in shock, though the real surprise is his refusal to slide, as he's tagged on his foot.)

This is ballgame with-it-ness that can't be taught.  Not too many guys have his head in the game so much to make that play.  (I played awhile, and I can honestly say that I would've watched with my mouth agape as the ball rolled away and the run scored.)  The Yanks win this playoff game 1-0, too.  Neither of these two plays show up in Jeter's defensive stats, and he was not a particularly gifted defensive shortstop like Alex Gonzalez or many others.  But Jeter has to be one of the headiest ballplayers of all-time, a player for whom the stats will not do total justice.  This says a lot, since he has Hall-of-Fame stats.

More than anything else, worthy of the Hall for his Hall-of-Fame consistency.  Offensively and defensively.  And for just the intangibles, which is usually a BS word, but not in his case.

And, finally, it's oversaid, but it's not wrong: Jeter's a guy who respected the game and the people in it.  He wouldn't have slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's hand, for example.  Or put pine tar on his wrist, and then on his neck, as did the pitcher who started and won Jeter's last game.  He played the game right, and he has the $600+ million dollars and--soon--the HOF plaque to prove it.

A great player--even if he never made an appearance in my last Fenway game of this season, this past Friday, the day after his You-can't-make-it-up last game at Yankee Stadium.  Still, a great player.

1923 Willard's Chocolates--George H. Burns--20 Fair 1.5

Today I'm starting a new feature that spotlights one of my cards per week.  I'll try to keep the cards and the players as varied as I can.  I'll write about the player first, then the card.  Sometimes the card will be available for sale.  I'll say so at the bottom of the entry.  So look back here for a new entry, on average once per week, about a card and player.  And look back to previous entries about some cards I've already written about.

This one is a 1923 Willard's Chocolates: George H. Burns--in 20 Fair 1.5 condition, which isn't too bad for the age.  I mean, this card is 90 years old, after all.  I hope I look as good at 90, if I even reach that age.

The backs are blank, like the 1887 N182 Old Judges and the 1921 Exhibits.  (Love those, too, but they're very expensive.  The 1887s cost at least $100 each, in authentic, presentable or fair condition, which are the three lowest.  Crazy money, for me, anyway.)  This one has writing on the back, which I'm not crazy about.  Normally I don't buy blankbacks that aren't blank, especially if there's writing on it.  But this card was at a price I couldn't refuse.  It's the only 1921 Willard's Chocolates I own.

The Player

I was interested in the card partly because I was vaguely familiar with the player.  I knew that a George Burns led the league in hits in the 20s for a year, and won an MVP, and was a solid player.  The Hall of Famers' cards cost more, of course, so I had to stay away from those.  But you tire of buying commons of good cards, too--though this card is more a commons than a star card.  Still...So if you look him up on baseball-reference.com, which is the site I always use to get stats, you'd find that there were actually two George Burns playing in the 20s.  There's my guy, at this address, and then there's another guy, who played in the mid-10s to the mid-20s, at this address.  They were both good players, but time being what it is, let's focus on my guy.

He had an odd career, if you look at the stats.  In 1918 he led the league in games, hits and total bases, while batting .352 and with an almost-.400 on-base percentage.  Despite this, he only scored 61 runs, which tells me that he either didn't bat leadoff (or even in the top-5 in the order) or that the Philadelphia Athletics of 1918 was a bad team.  Or both.  Anyway, in spite of his good play, he was a part-time player in 1920 and in 1921--two prime years, when he was 26 and 27, peak years for many ballplayers.  He apparently got stuck in the depth chart behind another first baseman, and he was flat-out bought by the Cleveland Indians (for whom he was playing in 1923, the year of my card).  He was a part-time player for them, before being traded to the Boston Red Sox for Stuffy McInnis, an extremely good player.  He played very well for Boston, which traded him back to Cleveland in a huge trade you can read about at the bottom, beneath all the stats.

He played great in Cleveland, batting .306, .328, .310, .336, .358 and .319.  While averages across the league were up between 1921 and 1939, this is still very good.  In 1926 he was the MVP, with 216 hits and 64 doubles, a record until Earl Webb hit 67 for the Red Sox a few years later.  (Webb's record still stands today, so Burns' 64 is still in the top-5 or so.)  He had 3 triples, 4 homers and 115 RBIs, which means those doubles drove in a ton of runs, plus whatever singles he hit.  (This also means Cleveland was a good team, with lots of runners on base, and that Burns hit between 2nd and 5th in the lineup.)

But something happened, because two years later he was flat-out bought by the New York Yankees, who barely used him for a couple of seasons, before selling him back to the Philadelphia Athletics, who rarely played him.  And that's it.  He played twice for two different teams, and he seemed to be wanted, yet easily sold or traded, at the same time.

A very strange career for a very good player.  He led the league in hits twice, eight years apart, which is hard to do in general, but especially if you're playing in the same league as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby and all those guys.  He finished second in hits and average one year; finished second to Babe Ruth in RBIs during his MVP year, and constantly was among the league-leaders in hits, average and defensive statistics, including consecutive games played and fielding percentage.  He snagged an MVP from them as well, when he was 33.  He had over 2,000 hits and hit over .300 for his career.  A quick glance at his defensive stats shows that he was good, maybe a little better than average.  Not a Gold Glove winner, but solid enough not to make a jerk of himself there, and he once made an unassisted triple play, which is very rare. Burns also played in two World Series, and won both of them, nine years apart.

I went to his Wikipedia page to see why he was traded or sold so often, and why he was made a part-time player in the middle of his career after very good seasons, and at the end, just a year after winning the MVP.  It didn't tell me a thing, except that there might not be anything to say, and that he became a good minor-league player and manager, and then a sheriff of a small town.  I guess injuries could explain the part-time status and the trades, but I would've thought Wikipedia would show that.  Maybe he had Rogers Hornsby disease: despite a HOF career and being a world-class hitter as the National League's Babe Ruth (and a second basemen!), Hornsby was also an uncontested jerk who teams couldn't wait to get rid of, and which actually became better after getting rid of him, despite replacing him with a worse player.  (A-rod is a present-day example.)  But, again, I would guess that the Wikipedia page would've mentioned that he was hard to get along with.  Instead, this article's writer seemed to be obsessed with Burns' greatness as a right-handed hitter, and with right-handers in general.

I suspect that there's more here to know.  If you feel like it, please investigate and leave a comment.

The Card

As stated by PSAcardfacts.com (click this link and look at the beautiful Babe Ruth card):

"The 1923 Willards Chocolate set consists of 180 cards, each measuring about 2” x 3-1/4”. Produced by a Canadian firm, the Willards Chocolate Company, the unnumbered cards feature a sepia-tone player photo with a white border. A facsimile autograph is printed across the image. The back of every card is blank. The key cards belong to Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson and of course, Babe Ruth. This set is also anchored by Grover Cleveland Alexander, Stan Coveleski, Hugh Duffy, Johnny Evers, Frank Frisch, Kid Gleason, Burleigh Grimes, Harry Hooper, Rogers Hornsby, Miller Huggins, Connie Mack, Branch Rickey, and Tris Speaker. The company inserted one card into packages of their products. The set’s unique imagery has kept the Willards Chocolate issue extremely popular with collectors, and partly as the result of coming from a Canadian manufacturer is seen as being relatively rare."

Apparently they're commonly found trimmed, with the white border cut away, leaving just the picture.  (Some of the T206s I've seen were trimmed, too, like we do today with a copy that has too much black ink.  I don't get the point of doing this to baseball cards, but whatever.  Who knew in 1922 that they'd be worth so much?)  Anyway, they're worth less, obviously, if they're trimmed.  Mine isn't.  A graded set of 6.+ sold in 2010 for $71,700.  The Babe Ruth was $35,000 in Mint condition, and $315 in poor condition, which is a worse state than mine's in.  The Ty Cobb was $18,000 in Mint condition, and $155 in poor condition.  I don't own those, of course.  I make it a point not to buy cards for more than $15 to $25, and for even less, when I can.  I did so for this card, and it's not for sale.