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There are only ten third
basemen in the baseball Hall of Fame, by far the least of any position.
There are guys in there like Fred Lindstrom and Pie Traynor and George
Kell, and well-known greats like Frank "Home Run" Baker, Brooks
Robinson, Eddie Matthews, George Brett, and Mike Schmidt. Graig Nettles is
clearly in the company of the players there. I'm sorry but who'd you
rather have on your team -- Fred "Who?" Lindstrom or Graig
Nettles? Like Brooks Robinson, Nettles was one of the great defensive
third basemen of all time. Incredibly, he only won two gold gloves (the
same amount that Wade Boggs won as a Yankee) -- they used to give it to
Buddy Bell every year in the late seventies and early eighties even though
Nettles was at least his equal. Like Robinson, Nettles won a World Series
with his defense, although to much less fanfare. Robinson became a
household name in 1970 for his defensive heroics in the World Series.
Nettles' heroics came in 1978, when he speared line drive after line drive
with acrobatic, ballet dives to his left, or behind him to his right down
the third base line, and then would come the perfect lob throw to first to
always just nab the runner.
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You
always felt that Nettles could gun the ball to first to beat any
runner by a mile, but was so good he'd toy with everyone -- runners,
fans, and George Steinbrenner alike -- in casually launching his
semi-arc to first, perfectly timed to just beat the runner by a
stride, every time. |
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At the plate, Nettles had
league leading power -- he led the league once in homers (32 in '76) and
just missed once (37 in '77), and perennially was amongst the top 5 to 7
in the league in homers, even though that number was generally in the
twenties. His average was usually around .250. Now before you dismiss
those numbers, remember that the ball was dead -- D E A D -- dead in the
seventies. It was so dead, they invented the designated hitter. It was so
dead, they seriously thought about introducing orange baseballs at night
games so the hitters could see the ball. So Nettles' .250 would probably
be a .280 average today. And his 20-something homeruns would be
40-something every year today. And if he did that, how many career home
runs would he have hit? As it was, he approached 400, finishing with 390.
That's a lot of homeruns for a player who played in the dead-ball 70's.
There are only two third basemen in history who finished with more
homeruns than Nettles -- Mike Schmidt and Eddie Matthews. Nettles holds
the American League record for homeruns by a third baseman (319)! He's also
currently 24th all-time in games played with 2700. Think about that -- of
all the players to ever play major league baseball, only 23 have played
more games than Nettles -- and he played most of them at freakin' third
base, the hot corner, playing great defense there to boot. |
Murcer
Trivia
Murcer
once hit a homerun (or maybe it was two doubles) for a kid in the
hospital. The stupid announcer said that the kid was dieing. The kid was
watching/listening to the game on TV/radio and it was news to him
that he was dieing. The mom said it turned out to be a bad night.
The good news is the kid didn't die. -- submitted by John Letizia
Murcer's
uniform number was #1 during much of his first stay with the
Yankees. When he was traded back to them in the late seventies, he
took #2 because Billy Martin had #1 at that point. |
What About Bobby Murcer?
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Which
brings us to Bobby Murcer... if Graig Nettles belongs in the hall of
fame, as I've surely proven, what do you do with Bobby Murcer?
Murcer was the star of the Yankees throughout the early seventies --
not Nettles. Murcer was the straw that stirred the Yankees'
fourth-place drink; Munson was number 2 star, and Nettles was number
3. Murcer was the next Mickey Mantle, the hope of the future for a
baseball franchise that was mired in mediocrity and was being
mismanaged by middle management at CBS. None other then Ted Williams
described Murcer in 1972 as baseball's best chance for a triple
crown (leading the league in homers, rbis, and average). |
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People talk about Bernie
Williams as the consummate star these days; the current-day DiMaggio,
combining centerfield defense with hitting for average with hitting for
power. I don't deny that -- remember, DiMaggio played in the lively-ball
30's and 40's, so Williams lively-ball-90's statistics compare well to
DiMaggio's. Williams won the batting title in 1998, hitting .334 with
26 homers and 96 RBI, his best overall season until this year. Ironically,
those were almost identical numbers to Murcer's 1971 campaign, when he hit .331
with 25 homers and 94 RBI. But those were the dead-ball 70's remember.
Murcer nearly led the league in all categories, sparking Ted Williams'
comments. Those numbers projected in today's
lively- ball era might equate to like 45-50 homers and 140 RBI and a .355
batting average. Do you think a Yankee centerfielder putting up those numbers
today would be the talk of baseball?
Murcer has been quoted as
saying if he hadn't been traded by the Yankees, and played his whole
career at Yankee Stadium, he would have made the Hall of Fame. Sounds
insane, but you know what, he's not far off, especially if he didn't play
ball in the dead-ball '70's. Still, those are big 'ifs'. Murcer was
traded, a bunch of times. He didn't play in the '90's. He finished
with 252 homers and a .277 lifetime average. Tough luck Bobby.
Why Tony Perez?
So now Tony Perez has been
inducted into the Hall of Fame. This galls me. Why Tony Perez? Was
Perez better than Murcer? No. Was he better than Nettles? No way. And yet
Nettles never comes close to getting one tenth the votes necessary for
induction. What gives? Tony Perez was a nice first basemen. No
defensive responsibilities there. His job was to hit. He hit 379 homeruns
to Nettles' 390. Perez was mostly known as a big RBI man. He drove in
1,652 RBI on the big Red machine; Nettles 1,314. Perez hit .279; Nettles
.248. But Nettles played third, an important defensive position, and
played it with style. No contest.
Hey, you want to know who the
Yankees recently named as greatest all time third baseman in the history
of their illustrious team? Graig Nettles. 'Nough said.
--LouV
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