TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Friday, October 29, 2004

THANKS, CURT!! (Now you can shut up!)

Some wrap-up musings on the Red Sox victory and the aftermath.

• Once upon a time, discussion of religion and politics at the dinner table was considered impolite. Insofar as actors, singers, and athletes seem compelled to share their religious and spiritual motivations with us within the field of play, I suppose there's a point, although there's a breed of player that would have us believe that their successes on the field are due to their particular beliefs. I never question the motivation of a player, and brazen self-confidence that you are the Annointed One seems to me like a confident advantage on the field of sports. But God Help Us All when singers, athletes, and actors hit the hustings, and we pay attention to what they have to say more than people who have spent their lives in public service. Trust me, I'd be telling Bruce Springsteen and Bono to shut up, too, if this were a blog about music. Since it's a blog about baseball, I'll just say thanks for helping with the Championship, Curt, now please exercise some comity and restraint. That's not entirely fair: we all have our first amendment rights. Just count me among those who, while seriously impressed by his courage on the diamond, have gotten more than his fill of Curt Schilling interviews for the next 86 years or so.
  
  
• I found it an interesting footnote that the managers Terry Francona bested along the way to the crown are all past winners themselves: Mike Sioscia of the Angels (2002), Joe Torre of the Yankees (too many to mention here), Tony LaRussa of the Cards (sadly, still but the 1989 A's). I hope we never hear again the concept that "post-season experience" has much to do with a manager's marginal contributions to the post-season success or failure of his club.
  
  
• The 2004 Sox have their case to make based on the tough LCS comeback from 0-3 as one of the greatest post-season runs of all time. The Sox post-season record was 11-3, and of course included a record eight straight wins. The 2004 Sox share the distinction with the 1999 Yankees for having two series sweeps, in the LDS and World Series. The '98 Yankees went 11-2 in the post-season, although they were behind the Cleveland club two games to one in the LCS. The most impressively dominating post-season run since the institution of the three-round format in 1995, though, has to be the '99 Yanks: they went 11-1, losing only one game in the LCS to the Red Sox (Pedro Martinez cruised while Roger Clemens got rocked), and never trailed any of the three series at any one time. The only team in the playoff era to win all of its post-season games was the 1976 Reds, which brushed aside the Phillies 3-0 in the LCS and swept the Yankees 4-0 inn the World Series. Of course, that may have been the most boring post-season in history as well.
  
  
• So how does the 2004 post-season stack up among the greats? With a sloppy, albeit usually entertaining, World Series of only four games, 2004 drops down a few notches overall. The four Series games, we hope history remembers, were in fact all close: 11-9, 6-2, 4-1, 3-0. But close does not mean, necessarily, closely contested. We'll perhaps leave a detailed analysis for the Hot Stove League. One is inclined, at least, to rank the two seven-game LCS as among the best pair of play-off series since 1969, with only 1986 perhaps edging it out.
  
  
• I neglected to mention one Red Sox in my article yesterday: Ellis Burks. Burks is retiring, and will stay with the Red Sox in a coaching or instructional role next year. Burks didn't do much for the team this year, playing in only 11 games and getting but one homer in a meaningless game situation. But he was by all accounts a great presence on the bench this year, and the team's one remaining playing link to the late-1980s Red Sox teams, appearing in the swept-away-by-the-A's 1988 and 1990 teams. Burks suffered in his early Red Sox years from the usual over-high expectations, where his power and speed combinations were hailed as being hall-of-fame stuff. He left the Red Sox as a free agent in 1993 for the White Sox
  
  His final career ended up paralleling another similarly-touted Red Soc centerfielder, Freddy Lynn, with whom Burks has a similarity score of 88.8%. Burks had a stop and start early career, which was marred by major injuries; only twice did he play in as many as 150 games, and he averaged but 111 over his career (ending with a nice round total of exactly 2000 games played). He had a near-MVP year in 1996, albeit in Colorado. He was a two-time All-Star, in '90 and '96, and won a single gold-glove, in 1990. He ended his career with 352 homers, good for 68th all-time. I haven't seen the numbers recently, but my recollection is he has homered in more ballparks than any player in history save Fred McGriff, thanks to the circumstances of switching leagues and overlapping the wave of new ballpark construction in the 1990s. He finished with a .291 batting average, a nice .363 OBP, and a .510 SLG (70th all-time). This puts his OPS for his career at season's end at .8773, which is good enough for exactly 100th all-time. Ellis will no doubt be pushed off the top-100 almost immediately, but it's not a bad career when you can claim that when you retired you were in the top 100 hitters who ever played the game. Ellis also appeared in the post-season with five different clubs in six years (not counting this year, when he wasn't on the post-season roster), but didn't get a single ring (through little fault of his own -- he hit a respectable .800 OPS in 103 post-season plate appearances) -- until now. Burks will get even bigger cheers than Manny, Papi, Schilling, Lowe, and Petey on the post-season parade route, I believe I can safely predict.
  
  What a way to end a career. If Burks had been made up with better knees, and we extrapolate his 162-game averages to a healthy 18-year career, he ends up with 522 homers, 1764 RBI, and 3078 hits. That's a big what-if on Burks, but he should be an easy qualifier for "Stars in Their Time" when his time on the ballot comes up.
  
  Here are Burks' final top ten most-similar players: Luis Gonzalez, Reggie Smith, Bob Johnson (the late-arriving AL outfielder of the 30s and 40s, not the scrubby 1960s utility man), Duke Snider, Larry Walker, Dick Allen, Lynn, Bernie Williams, Jim Rice, and Will Clark. Not bad company.
  

posted by The Crank 8:26 AM