RIP Bill Mazeroski

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Yes well at least that was 50 years ago and now we're a smarter, better, more educated country.

 

[mpcincal]

It still amazes me that they were afraid those kids wanted to kill Aaron just because he was black. (Wasn’t the slander out there that Ruth was part black? White supremacists aren’t known for logical thinking I suppose.) What a trash fire of a country we live in.

Well, it wasn't just that he was black, it was mainly because (unbeknownst to the general public at the time IIRC) he had been getting hate mail and death threats on his way to breaking the record. I'm sure Aaron and the bodyguard of his who carried around a gun inside an empty camera case were pretty nervous initially when those guys showed up alongside him.

 

[wicked]

Yeah, that was my point. If it was a white guy that hate wouldn’t have existed.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Yeah, that was my point. If it was a white guy that hate wouldn’t have existed.

If he were still alive, Roger Maris might disagree.

 

[dixiehack]

Last championship court storming I remember was the Celtics in 1986.

Court-storming/field-rushing is awesome when it’s a pro championship or March Madness, but storming the court when you beat 18th-ranked Podunk is becoming more common. And it’s dumb. Act like you’ve been there before.

They’re college kids. Most of them haven’t been there before.

My theory is pro sports got religion about ending it about the time millionaire athletes became a widespread thing and suddenly they needed to really protect that investment.

 

[Dog8Cats]

MLB Network replayed 1960 Game 7 on Sunday night. Amazing play in top of the ninth that I didn't know about and I don't believe has been mentioned above.

With the Yankees down by one and one out, McDougald at third and Mantle at first, Berra smashes a ball to first base. The first baseman steps on first for the second out. Mantle had begun to go to second but changed his mind after maybe two or three steps and returns to first. Somehow, he evades the tag of the first baseman as McDougald scores for the tying run. If that's a double play, there's no B9.

I watched the play a few times ... and can't believe Mantle didn't get put out.

 

[micropolitan guy]

MLB Network replayed 1960 Game 7 on Sunday night. Amazing play in top of the ninth that I didn't know about and I don't believe has been mentioned above.

With the Yankees down by one and one out, McDougald at third and Mantle at first, Berra smashes a ball to first base. The first baseman steps on first for the second out. Mantle had begun to go to second but changed his mind after maybe two or three steps and returns to first. Somehow, he evades the tag of the first baseman as McDougald scores for the tying run. If that's a double play, there's no B9.

I watched the play a few times ... and can't believe Mantle didn't get put out.

I've seen that before, and taped the show to rewatch it.

Mantle was an incredible player. His drinking and playboy antics, which surfaced after he had retired, have really altered how people perceive him as a player. From 1955-64 he had an OPS of 1.000 or more eight time in ten years. Won three MVPs and probably should have won two more, certainly should have won in 1964 instead of Brooks Robinson.

 

[cyclingwriter2]

I've seen that before, and taped the show to rewatch it.

Mantle was an incredible player. His drinking and playboy antics, which surfaced after he had retired, have really altered how people perceive him as a player. From 1955-64 he had an OPS of 1.000 or more eight time in ten years. Won three MVPs and probably should have won two more, certainly should have won in 1964 instead of Brooks Robinson.

This made me curious to go look at Mantle’s number again. He led position players in WAR six times. In one of those seasons, he finished 17th in MVP voting, Two more times, he was fifth.

A quick scan of other players who are among the super elites, I found Ted Williams finished 13th while leading in WAR.

 

[Della9250]

This made me curious to go look at Mantle’s number again. He led position players in WAR six times. In one of those seasons, he finished 17th in MVP voting, Two more times, he was fifth.

A quick scan of other players who are among the super elites, I found Ted Williams finished 13th while leading in WAR.

The problem is you are looking through the lens of 2026 at a time when shortstops were viewed as the top players, that defense was view just as, if not more important than offense, and the team(s) with the best records were rewarded with the MVP.

That particular season the Yankees finished third, four games over .500 and 15 games in back of the White Sox, who ended New York's run of four straight pennants.

 

[Della9250]

Won three MVPs and probably should have won two more, certainly should have won in 1964 instead of Brooks Robinson.

The funny thing about this MVP race is that it is almost entirely tied into defense, because the advanced metrics don't make any sense when looking at their batting. Yet at the time the voters were just going off eye test and somehow maybe got it right?

 

[micropolitan guy]

The funny thing about this MVP race is that it is almost entirely tied into defense, because the advanced metrics don't make any sense when looking at their batting. Yet at the time the voters were just going off eye test and somehow maybe got it right?

Baltimore was a fun story in 1964, they overachieved and Robinson was a very popular player. Writers are human, and very few, if any, of them did a deep dive into the numbers. Plus Mantle could be surly, and by that point there probably was some Yankee fatigue.

(Pedro Ramos won the pennant for NYY that year, anyway. Would have been a different series had he been eligible.)

Looking at the numbers, there's no comparison. Mantle destroyed Robinson offensively, and even at that point of his career Mantle was a serviceable CF, even if his arm was toast. And his team won the AL pennant, and darn near won the World Series with a bunch of old guys on their last legs. Mantle's last great year.

 

[Huggy]

Maz lent his name to a fantastic baseball preview magazine in the 1980s. They were beyond detailed in their previews of teams by position.

I still have many of them in a box in the crawlspace. They were great, pretty sure they were the ones with actual scouting reports, stuff like guys' strengths and weakness early in the count or with off-speed stuff, what a pitcher might use against a righty with a man on and a 2-2 count.

 

[BTExpress]

Yeah, that was the gold standard for those early fantasy leagues.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

Handful of them for sale on eBay for anyone interested.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

I've seen that before, and taped the show to rewatch it.

Mantle was an incredible player. His drinking and playboy antics, which surfaced after he had retired, have really altered how people perceive him as a player. From 1955-64 he had an OPS of 1.000 or more eight time in ten years. Won three MVPs and probably should have won two more, certainly should have won in 1964 instead of Brooks Robinson.

The story that stays with me from Ball Four is Mantle hitting a pinch homer after getting **** faced the night before. After circling the bases he looked out from the dugout and said: “Those people have no idea how tough that really was.”

 

[UNCGrad]

Also always loved the story from Ball Four of Mantle laying down the final towel in a red carpet-style of them at Jim's locker after his first win.

But also remember the Jane Leavy reporting of him, especially his later years.

Still, seeing my dad, a Boomer at 75, stand quietly in front of Mantle's monument at Yankee Stadium last spring when I took him to a game during his granddaughter's college graduation week, was pretty emotional.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

The story that stays with me from Ball Four is Mantle hitting a pinch homer after getting **** faced the night before. After circling the bases he looked out from the dugout and said: “Those people have no idea how tough that really was.”

I love the story of how Mantle did a raffle for a ham. Bouton put in a dollar and won, but there wasn’t any ham. Mantle replied that’s what happens in a game of chance.

 

[UNCGrad]

And then Bouton bought the fish.

Man, could do this all day. How I love that book.