Obscure sports trivia

Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Musial started his career in 1941 and had 177 triples. Led the league five times in eight seasons (including two seasons with 20) but never had more than nine stole bases in any season.
Probably not one you'd ever think of because he's sort of forgotten, and most people probably think of him as a power hitter. It surprised me to see him that high on the triples list.

 

I know, I know. My apologies.
Vin's long, strange trip to a Grateful Dead concert is on the agenda. Just been totally swamped with work the past couple of weeks. Had to produce a football magazine and cover a vacation for one of the news deskers, and haven't had the time to properly devote to it.

 

Him and Eddie Collins might be the most underrated pantheon-level HOFers. Musial's stats are ridiculous. But he didn't have the bombast of a Ted Williams or the charisma of a Mickey Mantle, so he gets overlooked. A 3-time MVP winner who finished 2nd four times. That was back when MVPs weren't tainted by the likes of Barry the Bobblehead.

Musial had 1599 career walks to 696 walks. Just look at this.




Hall of Fame monitor: 1.

 

Some time in the early 90's with Marino, Kelly, Elway, Young, Montana, and the beginning of Farve's and Aikman's career. Still four short, but I cannot think of another time it would be probable.

 

Not the era, but that was a good place to start because you had warren moon in that time frame as well.

 

Musial was crazy great, a peer with all of the New York greats. Pantheon, indeed.

The most amazing (to me) Musial statistic: He had exactly the same number of hits on the road as at home, 1,815 each for 3,630 overall.

 

What is the highest retired number of any player in MLB?

 

Probably like 1970 or 71, when Bradshaw, Namath, Jurgenson, Griese, Stabler, Unitas (he still around then?), Staubach, Dawson, Tarkenton, Blanda and...who am I forgetting? Bart Starr?

Anyway, that does make 11

 

I will start with the highest I can think of: Hank Aaron with 44.

 

this seems like too low of a number to guess, but I'm going with 45 for Bob Gibson, only bc I can't think of any all-timers with numbers higher than that.

 

Don Drysdale was 53

 

Give the man a prize: it was those 11 in those two years. Starr retired in 1972 and it dipped to 10. Dan Fouts entered the league in 73, but Blanca didn’t throw a pass. Never got that high again.