Sports Then and Now

Gary Carter spent the first 11 years of his career with the Montreal Expos.

It was sad news out of the baseball world this week with the passing of Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter at the age of 57 following a battle with cancer. While many best identify Carter with helping the New York Mets win the 1986 World Series, it was during his initial 11 years as a member of the Montreal Expos that Carter became one of the elite catchers of his era.

Selected by the Expos in the third round of the 1972 amateur draft, it took Carter just two years before he made his Major League debut as a September call-up in 1974.

Carter hit .407 with a home run and six RBI during nine games in 1974 and the next season finished second in the National League Rookie of the Year voting and made his first All-Star appearance while hitting .270 with 17 home runs and 68 RBI. Though he struggled the next year with a .219 average, by 1977 it was obvious that he would be one of the key lynch-pins of future success for the Expos.

In 1978 Carter blasted 31 home runs and drove home 84 runs while hitting .284. Two years later, Carter began a string of 10 straight All-Star appearances as the Expos posted the first winning season in team history while winning what still remains a franchise record 95 games. Unfortunately, in an era before the wild card, the Expos were unable to earn a postseason bid as they finished two games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Carter finished second in the National League MVP race in 1980 as he hit 29 home runs with 101 RBI. The Expos nearly won the NL East, but dropped two of three games to the Philadelphia Phillies on the final weekend of the season. Read the rest of this entry →

It appears that the prayers of baseball fans will not be answered as Bud Selig is sticking around for at least another three years.

Like a veteran player who doesn’t know when to hang up his jersey, looks like Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is determined to stick around as long as possible. Though it was originally announced that 2012 would be his final season as commissioner, Selig has now changed his mind and will remain in his role until at least the end of the 2014 season.

Shockingly (or maybe not), major league owners voted 29-1 to extend Selig’s contract for two additional years to ensure that Selig will be commissioner at least past his 80th birthday at a reported salary of $22 million per year.

Given his hubris, it seems very likely that Selig will do everything he can to remain in control of the league at least through the 2016 season as that would ensure he passes Kenesaw “Mountain” Landis for the longest tenure as commissioner in league history.

What seems strange is that while ownership considers Selig to be a great commissioner, many outside the owner’s boxes look as Selig as the epitome of all things bad about baseball.

While football had already started to eclipse baseball as “America’s Pastime”  when Selig took over as interim commissioner in 1992, he seemingly has spent the last 20 years doing everything he can to ensure that baseball never gets close to retaking that title.

At the time, Selig was the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers and like the other owners in the game had tired of a commissioner whose focus was on the integrity of the sport, rather than supporting the owners and their desires.

When the owners fired Commissioner Fay Vincent, they installed Selig on an interim basis and within two years he was spearheading a battle with the players union that would eventually ensure that the World Series would be missed for the first time in 90 years.

While both sides can certainly take some of the blame for missing the World Series and the subsequent agreement that ensured that teams willing to over-spend would have a significant advantage over other teams moving forward, the fact that Selig was running the show for the owners makes him culpable for that disaster.

Between 1950 and 1994, only four teams (two of which were expansion squads) registered 10 or more consecutive losing seasons (1953-1962 Chicago Cubs, 1953-1967 Kansas City Athletics, 1969-78 Montreal Expos and the 1977-1990 Seattle Mariners). Since 1994, five teams have reached that dubious plateau (1993-2011 Pittsburgh Pirates, 1993-2004 Milwaukee Brewers, 1994-2005 Detroit Tigers, 1998-2007 Tampa Bay Rays and the 1998-2011 Baltimore Orioles). In addition, the Kansas City Royals have been below .500 in 16 of 17 seasons (2003 being their only exception), the Cincinnati Reds have been below .500 in 10 of the last 11 seasons (2010 being their only winning season when they won the NL Central) and the Colorado Rockies have had a losing record in 10 of the last 13 seasons.

Yes, there have been small market teams like the Minnesota Twins and Oakland A’s that have enjoyed occasional success, but the A’s have not had a winning record since 2006 and the Twins lost 99 games last season to illustrate that even small market teams that are able to build winning programs do not have the same ability to reload that is afforded to teams with greater revenue streams. Read the rest of this entry →

Jorge Posada is going to retire after 17 seasons with the New York Yankees.

It appears that another key component of the great New York Yankees teams from the last two decades is hanging up his pinstripes with word that Jorge Posada will be announcing his retirement.

After his struggles during the 2011 season it isn’t a complete surprise that Posada is calling it a career, but his retirement is another nail into the coffin of the great group of former Yankees farm hands that helped build the team into a juggernaut in the late 1990s with four titles in five years.

While the Yankees are historically known for building their success through signing free agents and trading for the best players from other teams, their championship teams from the 1990s included a core of home-grown players that proved to be vital to their success.

In addition to Posada, shortstop Derek Jeter, centerfielder Bernie Williams, starting pitcher Andy Pettitte and reliever Mariano Rivera all came up through the minor league system with the Yankees and each spent were key cornerstones of the Yankees’ success.

However, of those five, it seems that only Jeter and Rivera are sure-fire to receive a plaque in Cooperstown.

Williams (.297 career average, 287 home runs, 1,257 RBI) is on the ballot for the first time this year and while he is not expected to earn selection, it will be interesting to see how close he gets in his initial year.

Pettitte, who retired following the 2010 season, won 240 games during his 16-year career (13 seasons with the Yankees), but his 3.88 career ERA makes it unlikely that he will have smooth sailing into the HOF.

Like Pettitte and Williams, you can make great arguments that Posada belongs in the HOF and equally credible arguments against his selection.

His career statistics (.273 average, 275 home runs, 1,065 RBI) would not be even close to Hall of Fame consideration if Posada were not a catcher. Annually, Posada was among the top catchers in the game in offensive statistics as he topped 20 home runs and 80 RBIs eight times. Read the rest of this entry →

Despite having many of the top stars in Major League Baseballs, the Brooklyn Dodgers won only one World Series title.

Now that the 2011-12 NBA season will happen, sports prognosticators will return to projecting how many championships the Miami Heat will win. Forget about the disappointment of last season — this team has more than enough talent to bring home at least a few Larry O’Brien Trophies, right? That’s what people were saying about the Lakers in the ’60s, Mets in the ’80s, and Mariners in the ’90s (different trophies for the latter two, of course), yet they wound up with just two championships between them when all was said and done. The following would-be dynasties failed to meet expectations for a multitude of reasons — including injuries, team chemistry problems, free agency, drugs, and even a strike — leaving fans wondering what might have been had things gone a little differently.

1940s and ’50s Brooklyn Dodgers
Even if the Dodgers had won multiple World Series titles during this era, the franchise would’ve been more remembered for its role in integrating baseball by signing and promoting Jackie Robinson. More than just an inspiring figure in the Civil Rights Movement, Robinson was an ideal second baseman with tremendous speed, excellent contact ability, and exemplary defense. He played alongside Hall of Famers Roy Campanella, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Don Drysdale, and Sandy Koufax, one of the most talent-rich rosters in baseball history. From 1947 to 1956, the team won six NL pennants and the 1955 World Series, a resume worthy of NL dynasty status, but not MLB dynasty status.

1960s and ’70s Los Angeles Lakers
Before the Buffalo Bills, there were the Lakers. Sure, they had already won four of the first 10 NBA championships, but, with seven Finals losses in nine seasons during the 1960s and ’70s, they were the original poster child for second best. The primary culprit for their failures was the Celtics, who reeled off a remarkable 11 championships in 13 seasons. The Lakers also faced a 76ers team with perhaps the most dominant player off all time, Wilt Chamberlain, and a hungry Knicks team led by Willis Reid and Walt Frazier. When management figured out the mere presence of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor wasn’t enough, it added an older but still effective Chamberlain. The team finally got over the hump in 1973, after Baylor retired and Gail Goodrich had been added to the roster. Read the rest of this entry →

Bobby Valentine is not a great fit as the Boston Red Sox manager.

Bobby Valentine talked about reputation when he was introduced as the new Manager of the Boston Red Sox last Thursday. This is ironic since Valentine’s reputation with his past players and front office personnel are abysmal. While Valentine may win more games than he loses in his stint with the Red Sox, Valentine will ultimately fail in Boston.

Valentine’s position is even more tenuous because the Red Sox players got too comfortable under former manager Terry Francona and they collapsed in September (7-20 record) to finish in third place for the second straight season. Francona was a lame-duck manager in September because the owners failed to pick up his options for the next two seasons. After Francona graciously exited the stage, the owners decided to rip him by addressing his alleged problems with prescription pills and his crumbling marriage as possible black clouds adding to the downward spiral of the Sox during the 2011 season.

Valentine will not win titles in Boston because he will not be afraid to criticize players through the media and berate them publicly. How will the stubborn Josh Beckett pitch after he hears that his manager is willing to call him out in press conferences instead of through personal conversations? While the Red Sox players did this to themselves and they should not be treated as victims, they could still run mutiny on Valentine’s ship just like the New York Mets did in 2002. Valentine will be judged on his record as the manager.

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An improbable season ended with the St. Louis Cardinals as the 2011 World Series Champions.

The 2011 St. Louis Cardinals are a perfect reminder that in sports it isn’t how you start, it is about how you finish.

Considering that they lost their best pitcher to injury before the season even began and with just six weeks left were 10.5 games behind in the Wild Card race, it is quite amazing that last night they claimed the 11th World Series Championship in team history.

Even in the World Series they seemingly had an insurmountable mountain to climb as they were twice down to their final strike before rallying for an improbably extra inning victory in game six.

Then in the decisive seventh game they trailed early, but scored the final six runs to defeat the favored Texas Rangers.

Since Tony Larussa became manager of the Cardinals in 1996, the team has had their greatest success in seasons when they weren’t given much of a chance.

The 90-72 record that St. Louis posted in 2011 was actually the seventh best single season total for the franchise during Larussa’s tenure. Yet, the only other World Series title the team has earned came in 2006 when the team won only 83 games.

The Cardinals finished the 2011 season winning 24 of their final 33 games to sneak into the playoffs on the final day of the season.

They then won the final two games of their first round playoff matchup against the heavily favored Philadelphia Phillies to advance to the NL Championship Series. Read the rest of this entry →