Sports Then and Now

Duke Snider was a key part of the Boys of Summer.

One of the few remaining ties to the glory days of the Brooklyn Dodgers is gone with the death on Sunday of Hall of Fame outfielder Duke Snider at the age of 84.

Snider made his major league debut two days after his famous teammate Jackie Robinson on April 17, 1947  and over the next decade teamed with Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Roy Campanella and others to form the famous “Boys of Summer.”

The Dodgers made six World Series appearances between 1947 and 1956 and in 1955 finally claimed the World Series title with a seven game series win over their regular nemesis the New York Yankees.

It was during that 1955 season that Snider reached his plateau as the leading slugger for the Dodgers. He finished second in the MVP voting while hitting .309 with 42 home runs and a career-high 136 RBI.

During the World Series, Snider hit .320 with four home runs and seven RBI. In six career World Series appearances, Snider hit .286 with 11 home runs and 26 RBI.

Baseball during the Golden Era of the 1950s was still a time when our heroes could be immortalized without fear that a drug scandal was on the horizon.

Known as the “Duke of Flatbush”, Snider was forever paired with fellow New York centerfielders of the 1950s Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in the “Talkin’ Baseball” refrain of “Willie, Mickey and the Duke.”

Because he was arguably the third best of the three greats, Snider often was overlooked and his numbers cast aside. It took him an amazing 11 years before he received enough votes to earn induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Read the rest of this entry →

The New York Yankees hope that Andruw Jones can return to the form that saw him finish second in the 2005 NL MVP Award.

With the recent signings by the New York Yankees of Bartolo Colon and Andruw Jones, the Tampa Bay Rays of Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez and the Baltimore Orioles of Derrek Lee and Vladimir Guerrero you have to wonder if these teams realize that it is 2011 and not 2005.

If it were 2005, the impact of these signings would without question make these three contenders the top teams in the division and favorites for the World Series.

In 2005, Bartolo Colon won 21 games for the Anaheim Angels and was named the American League Cy Young Award winner.

In the 2005 American League MVP race, Vladimir Guerrero finished third, Manny Ramirez was fourth and Johnny Damon placed 13th.

On the National League side, Andruw Jones placed second while Derrek Lee was third.

Unfortunately as the Yankees, Rays and Orioles look toward 2011, most of these former superstars are years removed from performing at that high level. Read the rest of this entry →

Hank Aaron is an American icon.

There are some special names in sports that when you read them on a page or see an image on television, it immediately brings memories flooding through your head. Hank Aaron is one of those names. He isn’t just one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, he is an icon, albeit probably one of the most under-appreciated icons in the United States.

When I saw that today (February 5th) is Aaron’s 77th birthday, I immediately took note.

Whether right or wrong, we rarely take time on the Sports Then and Now site, or in the sports world in general, to recognize and celebrate the birthdays of sports greats. Maybe we should do it more often, but it seems we spend much more time writing about players who have recently passed away than celebrating those who are still with us.

I guess there isn’t really anything wrong with that and with a limited amount of time available to write, celebrating the careers of those who recently have left us certainly isn’t a bad thing.

But knowing that Hank Aaron is now 77 years old reminded me that we need to be sure and celebrate those who are still here while they are here. It is part of why I created Sports Then and Now nearly two years ago. To provide a place where sports fans could go and remember the greats of the sports world when they were in their prime while also connecting that by-gone time with today’s sports world. So while we aren’t able to write a feature each day on a sports star who is celebrating a birthday (though I pledge to do it more often), beginning today we are starting a new side column below our regular “On This Date” feature that celebrates the birthdays of our sports stars.

I recently was going through boxes of things I have amassed over the years (I am a huge pack rat) and in one of the boxes found a program from the first game of the 1990 season for the Richmond Braves, which at the time served as the Triple-A affiliate for the Atlanta Braves. I was an intern for the Braves during that season. Read the rest of this entry →

Is all-time save leader Trevor Hoffman worthy of a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame?

The announcement that career saves leader Trevor Hoffman is retiring after 18 major league seasons means that the five year debate about whether he is worthy of induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame is about to begin.

With 601 career saves, some believe that Hoffman is a lock for a plaque in Cooperstown. However, to others, he is an example of the over-inflation of the save as a statistic of relevance and short of Hall of Fame worthiness.

It is difficult to argue that Hoffman is among the best of the one-inning closers. He registered 30 or more saves in 13 straight full seasons (he missed most of the 2003 campaign) and twice led the majors. He finished his career with a 2.87 career ERA and averaged more than a strikeout per inning for his career.

However, over the last decade Hoffman rarely pitched more than one inning in a game. The last time he averaged more than one inning per appearance was in 2000.

Also, unlike Mariano Rivera, who is known for his big game performances, Hoffman’s results in crucial contests are not especially impressive.

Perhaps the most blatant example occurred in 2007 when Hoffman blew a save opportunity on the final day of the regular season that kept the Padres from clinching a playoff spot and instead forced a one-game playoff with the Colorado Rockies. He then blew a two run lead in the 13th inning of the one-game playoff to keep the Padres out of the playoffs.

In addition, he registered only four saves in 12 career playoff appearances and blew a save in his only game during the 1998 World Series against the New York Yankees. Read the rest of this entry →

In the year of the underdog, the Chicago Blackhawks won their first Stanley Cup title in 46 years.

It began with the Saints winning the Super Bowl. After that, it was one underdog triumph after another.

March was unusually mad, as Butler’s Bulldogs beat several favorites to earn their place in the NCAA men’s basketball championship game.

In the NHL, the Philadelphia Flyers squeaked into the playoffs at the last possible moment and continued their unlikely run all the way to the finals before losing to Chicago. While the Blackhawks were the favorites to win the Stanley Cup, being in such a favored position was a first for that franchise in recent memory.

In Major League Baseball, the Texas Rangers made their franchise’s first appearance including their original identity as the Washington Senators. The Giants made their first appearance since leaving New York and their first in a half-century, eventually winning on the mysterious power of the fearsome beards.

Major League Soccer also crowned a first time champion, the Colorado Rapids. The most likely teams to win the MLS Cup were eliminated early. Meanwhile in Women’s Professional Soccer (WPS) the expansion Philadelphia Independence made it all the way to the championship game before finally falling short. Read the rest of this entry →

Rafael Palmeiro hit 25 home runs in three seasons with the Chicago Cubs before going on to bigger and better things with the Rangers and Orioles.

If career statistics were the only judge, then picking the members of the 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame induction class would be pretty easy. However, the continuing shadow of the “Steroid Era” in baseball has ensured that for the next decade or so picking Hall of Famers will be anything but easy.

There are 19 newcomers to the Hall of Fame ballot for 2011 and it is difficult to predict if any will ever receive a plaque in Cooperstown.

Statistically speaking, there seems to be two “no brainers” and a third who would probably earn a spot. However, it is likely that only one of those three will be a serious contender for the Hall of Fame.

Based purely on the numbers, Rafael Palmeiro has the credentials to be an easy HOF pick. He is one of only four players in major league history with more than 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. The other three players are Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray.

However, the number for Palmeiro that most Hall of Fame voters are likely to remember is one, as in failed steroid tests after emphatically claiming to Congress that he had never used steroids.

That alone seems enough to ensure that Palmeiro will never be inducted into the Hall of Fame and will probably have a hard time earning enough votes to stay on the ballot for his entire 15 years of eligibility.

In some ways, Palmeiro is as much a poster child of the steroid era as Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens, but in a different way.

While Bonds and Clemens were likely Hall of Famers before ever using steroids and McGwire and Sosa used the drugs to break single season records, Palmeiro pretty much flew under the radar and despite being accused of using by Jose Canseco would have probably earned a Hall of Fame plaque had it not been for his positive test.

Of course we have no idea when Palmeiro started using steroids, but the change in his statistics is pretty pronounced.

Palmeiro was a solid player during his first five major league seasons hitting .296 with 602 hits and 47 home runs between 1986 and 1990. He hit a then career-best 14 home runs in 1987 while with the Cubs and matched that total with the Rangers in 1990. Read the rest of this entry →