Ted Simmons is a beast, or, My Baseball Project

Some of you may recall (likely not) a thread I started a long time ago about trying to compile statistics from every baseball game I'd ever been to.

To be truthful, I forgot about it for about a year too. But over the last few weeks, I've tried to revive it. Figure it might make for a good book if I find a creative enough idea to write around it. I stopped at 1985 to compile stats for those who had retired or whom I knew I would not see again based on who they played for. It was a good breaking point as I moved from Milwaukee prior to the '86 season, which is where my game-attending became more disparate and diverse, including NL games.

Anyhow, as I compiled games in chronological order, I came to realize that with me in the house, Ted Simmons was an absolute beast.

I saw him play 15 games from 1982-85. Only once did he fail to get a base hit, and that was in Game 5 of the '82 ALCS where he managed a RBI. Simmons was an absolute machine, he ended his career with a 13-game hitting streak with my butt in a seat. His career average was .358 and he had 11 RBIs.

Meanwhile, HOFers like Rod Carew and Jim Rice utterly sucked for the most part when I was there. It's fascinating to me how random it all is.

Another random note: I saw Moose Haas start four games in a row at one point and five out of six in a stretch from 1983-85. And at the end of that streak, he made a relief appearance.

This project is fun as hell. If you can channel your inner Tim Kurkjian and do the same, I recommend it, just the sheer random shit you run across (the only time I saw Fergie Jenkins was in a relief appearance, I saw Danny Darwin get a 1-hitter and earn a save in the same season, etc.) is fascinating in retrospect.

Here's a taste. All of the HOFers I had seen play and my all-time HR list through '85. To that point, I had not seen a NL game in person. I saw my first in '86.

First game this list covers: Oct. 3, 1976 -- Tigers at Brewers (Hank Aaron's last game and the worst attended game I've been to. Attendance was 6,858, though I was 5 and don't remember much of it.)
Last game this list covers: Sept. 13, 1985 -- Red Sox at Brewers (the Billy Jo Robidoux era)

HOFers
Hank Aaron
Robin Yount
Paul Molitor
Rollie Fingers
Dennis Eckersley (as a SP with Boston)
Goose Gossage
Fergie Jenkins
Tom Seaver (last opening day start)
Don Sutton
Wade Boggs
George Brett
Rod Carew
Carlton Fisk
Reggie Jackson
Eddie Murray
Kirby Puckett
Jim Rice
Cal Ripken Jr.
Dave Winfield
Carl Yastrzemski
Ned Yost

HRs
Robin Yount 6
Gorman Thomas 3
Ben Oglivie 3
Carl Yastrzemski 2
Don Money 2
Eric Soderholm
Larry Hisle
Jerry Remy (really)
Dwight Evans
Rico Carty
Steve Kemp
Carlton Fisk
Sal Bando
Sixto Lezcano
Dan Graham
Bruce Bochte
Willie Horton (with Seattle)
Jim Sundberg
Don Slaught
Ricky Nelson
Cecil Cooper
Cal Ripken Jr.
Mark Brouhard
Amos Otis
Paul Molitor
Ken Phelps
Darryl Motley
Gary Gaetti
Randy Bush
Bill Schroeder
Roy Smalley
Mike Easler

-- To that point, I had attended five games where no HRs had been hit.

 

Get help.

 

That would be a fun project, but the problem is I have no idea what games I've been to. And I have no idea how to figure it out. I do remember -- and somebody on some thread on this site found the game boxes for me once -- that Barry Larkin hit five homers over back-to-back Reds games I went to once.

 

Oh I admit it. I deserve a ...



NERD!

But just so you know, the White Sox were 2-1 to that point in my life's game experiences. That was also the blood alcohol content of the Sox fans who made the trip to County Stadium. In the interest of full disclosure, Brewers fans measured at 2.4.

To that point, the Brewers were 14-13 with me in the house, probably below their winning percentage over that time period, though they did suck massive balls in '84 and '85.

 

I knida wish I would have kept better track of my sports experiences, but there's only so much room in my head.

 

For the most part, anything before '84 or so was guess work for me. I know I missed a few games on my list I can't remember, so its not definitive.

However, it was relatively easy to narrow down many of my pre-'84 games, because I went to tons of Saturday day games and was in the vaunted Pepsi Brewer Fan Club, which were almost all day games. Also, I basically know what teams I did and didn't see over a vague period. I never saw the A's, for example, in this period, and rarely saw the Blue Jays.

I know I'm solid with '85, because I went to a ton of games being old enough to get to the stadium on my own, and from '86 on, I have ticket stubs to verify what games I went to.

 

My list only goes back to 1987, you old goat D), but the HOFers I've seen are:

Ripken, Murray, Puckett, Brett, Ryan, Sandberg, Schmidt, Fisk, Eckersley, Ozzie, Rickey.

As of Sunday, the Braves are 26-32 with me in attendance. Chipper is hitting .326 with 11 home runs in 49 games and Andruw is hitting .276 with 10 home runs in 48 games.

Glavine was 6-11 with a 6.26 ERA in 18 starts. Fucking hell.

 

And yeah, my complete ticket stubs go back to '96, so it's easy to figure out from there. I'm missing maybe a half-dozen or so games from the late '80s when I was little, but those are just impossible to document.

 

I went to probably 30 games at Wrigley Field as a kid in the early 80s (often had my own seat while my dad was working as a beer vendor), but all I can really remember is that I kept losing the giveaway stuff and leaving my coats at various places throughout the park, which annoyed my dad to no end.

 

I saw some kid named Henry Aaron hit a home run at Ebbets Field in 1955.

And Ted Simmons was one of the all-time great post-game interviews in major league history.

 

June 27 and 28, 1991.

I remember looking for those for you.

 

I'm keeping this all on Excel. I decided that any player who had 12 plate appearances "qualifies" for my all-time list for average, etc. Pitchers with 7 IP or 3 games qualify there.

My career leader right now? Not even Ted Simmons can hold a candle to the immortal DH legend Dick Davis, who hit .375 in five games in 1979-80.

Soak in the legend!



The caveat of all that being that I haven't totaled up anyone who's career is active to that point. I know Barry Larkin is eventually going to be prominent on my career lists. He was awesome whenever I saw the Reds play, I know he'll have a 5-for-5 in there against the Padres from '00 or so.

To date, my only five-hit game was a 5-for-6 by that asshole Harold Baines in '85 (Hi YGBFKM!)