Father's Day presence

I think I must have inherited that part of my Dad's genetic code that loved the St. Louis Cardinals. It was something we shared from my earliest awareness of the sporting world in the summer of 1962, 'til the day he died just after the 2007 season. For both of us it was a passion that stretched from Stan (The Man) Musial to Albert (El Hombre) Pujols.

I saw only the tail end of the wonderful career of Stan the Man; similarly Dad saw only the first portion of El Hombre's dazzling career. Dad often regaled me with tales of Musial's legendary hitting exploits, such as the season he hit .625 in Ebbetts Field against the arch-rival Brooklyn Dodgers; today I can only reciprocate by thinking of my Dad and sharing vicariously Phat Albert's modern hitting exploits and ever-growing legend.

Fitting that Pujols came through with yet another huge game this Father's Day, with a 2 homer, 4 hit, 6 RBI performance, leading the Redbirds to a convincing 12-5 victory in Kansas City. The highlight was a fourth inning grand slam that broke open a 4-4 game. It was El Hombre's 9th career grand slam, tying the all-time Cardinals' record held by, you guessed it, Stan Musial. Through the magic of the Internet, a photo of today's slam appears up top, and video can be seen here.

If only I could, I'd be picking up the phone tonight and sharing a gloat with Dad. I'd no doubt tell him that Albert now leads the major leagues in runs, RBIs, homers, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and of course OPS (by a spectacular 140 points). Dad would note that the Cards have extended their lead in the tight NL Central to 1½ games. And the man who got a masters degree in history would likely make some comparison across the eras, between dominant hitters past and present.


In researching this piece I came across this wonderful picture (and this photo essay) of Musial and Pujols, taken on Opening Day 2009. The Man is a frail 88, but still has a ready smile and, it would appear, the utmost respect of those who follow his path. Which is as it should be.

The old #6 and the current #5 have lots in common, both starting their careers in left field before finding a permanent home at first base in Busch Stadium. Yet they come from backgrounds as different as their eras. Musial is from Donora (Pennsylvania), Pujols from the Dominican Republic. Due to his skin colour, El Hombre wouldn't have been welcome in the major leagues when The Man started his career; how far we've come. And how lucky I was, having a dad who cheered equally and whole-heartedly for Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, and Albert Pujols as he did Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst and Enos Slaughter. Or who cried equally for Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. Not everyone was so enlightened in the days of my youth, nor even today.

I was incredibly fortunate to have such a dad, and especially to have him right into my 50s. Today I remember him with great warmth, and miss him with all my heart.

Remembering the Man

when my father died

it was like a whole library

had burned

down

-- Laurie Anderson

Every Remembrance Day in my life I have taken a few moments to think of my father. I have always made a point of calling him, but this year he is beyond contact. My personal library burned down a year ago this month.

Dad was a peaceful, people person who left his family farm in rural Nova Scotia at age 18 to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force. After a year of training in Ontario he served overseas in the last two years of World War II. Luckily for me he made it back in one piece, otherwise I wouldn't be around to write this.

Dad was many things to many people. I touched on some of his many interests in dedicating a published article to his memory in which I described him as a "family man, educator, community leader, WW II veteran, music lover, sports fan, and stroke unit volunteer". Since this blog is mostly about sports, I’ll just focus on that aspect of him here.

There were a few things about Dad that never wavered in the 52 years I knew him: he loved his country, he loved my mother, he loved the Toronto Maple Leafs and he loved the St. Louis (baseball) Cardinals. His watershed year was 1942, the year he met Mum, enlisted in the air force, and cemented his love of the two sports franchises that both happened to win their respective championships.

While training in Toronto, Dad finally got the chance to see the Leafs play. He bought a seat in the "greys", the upper reaches of Maple Leaf Gardens, for some ridiculous price like 70 cents. The last time I saw Dad, 65 years later, he spoke of this experience and still remembered the kindness of a total stranger who saw a man in uniform and brought him down to the reds to see the champs up close.

In those days Toronto had a ball team, also named the Maple Leafs, in the International League. Tickets were cheap and accessible so Dad went to a number of games. His favourite story, which he never tired of re-re-retelling, was of the time manager (and former major league star pitcher) Burleigh Grimes spit tobacco juice on an umpire. Dad loved a good rhubarb.

Dad's sporting heroes of those days were not just athletes but men of the first rank. Syl Apps was a clean-cut all-Canadian, an Olympian and a hockey star who, like many NHLers, interrupted his career to go overseas. Dad always had all day for players who did that regardless of their team affiliation, and he had particularly fond memories of Boston's unfortunately-named "Kraut Line" of Milt Schmidt, Woody Dumart, and Bobby Bauer who left the Stanley Cup champion Bruins late in the 1941-42 season to enlist in the RCAF together, subsequently missing over three seasons before reuniting after the war. According to Dad the RCAF had one heck of a hockey club during his time in training.

Similarly Dad had a tremendous amount of respect for Ted Williams, the oft-controversial, now cryogenic baseball star. The Splendid Splinter interrupted his storied career not once but twice to fight in WWII and the Korean war, shaving five prime years off a legendary career whose counting numbers (2654 hits, 521 homers) are still awesome but much less impressive than they should be.

But of all Dad's sporting heroes the one who remained highest on the pedestal was Stan Musial (statued, above). Stan the Man took the major leagues by storm, hitting .426 during a September call-up in 1941 before delivering the first of 16 consecutive seasons of .310 or better in 1942 when the Cards won the pennant and, to Dad's delight, upset the always-favoured Yankees in the World Series. The Cards would win the pennant again in 1943, 1944 and 1946, the gap explained by Musial's own absence in the Navy that caused him to miss the 1945 season. He returned to cop his second MVP award in '46 before leading the Cards to a thrilling 7-game squeaker over Ted Williams and the Red Sox. Dad never tired of telling -- and I never tired of hearing -- the story of Enos Slaughter scoring the winning run all the way from first base on a single, as Red Sox shortstop Johnny Pesky held the ball for an extra second, not realizing that Slaughter was not stopping at third. Amazingly, Pesky is still active in baseball, a bench coach for the Red Sox. I saw the occasion that he was honoured this past season and thought of Dad.

In 1948 Musial had one of the great seasons in baseball history, leading the National League in every hitting category except home runs, where his 39 dingers came up one short of the league leaders Ralph Kiner and Johnny Mize. The difference between Stan the Man and the Triple Crown was a homer that got wiped off the books by a subsequent rain-out.

It is interesting to note that modern baseball metrics applied retroactively to historic figures reveal Musial to be one of the most underrated of baseball's great stars. According to Wikipedia:

"The rise of Bill James and the extensive use of sabermetrics has enhanced Musial's credentials as not only one of the greatest of his generation, but of all baseball history. At Baseball-Reference.com, Musial is consistent among the various test leaders: He ranks fifth all-time among hitters according to the Black Ink Test (behind Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, and Ted Williams), third all-time on the Gray Ink Test (behind Cobb and Hank Aaron), tied with Barry Bonds for second in the Hall of Fame Career Standards Test, behind only Ruth, and ranks first among all hitters and pitchers on the Hall of Fame Monitor Test. Surprisingly, despite his towering reputation with statistic-based aficionados of the game, many common fans are unaware of his achievements, leading ESPN and other organizations to list him as the most underrated athlete of all-time"

Dad had the occasion to see Musial in person a few times over the years, notably a doubleheader against the Braves in Milwaukee County Stadium that the Cards swept, winning the nightcap on a Musial homer in extra innings. A few years later our entire family, en route from St. John's to Edmonton, gathered in that same stadium to see the same two teams meet. I was never quite sure if that was a lucky accident of timing, but it sure worked out. Musial was in his last great season, hitting .330 at age 41, but that day was rested, making a late-inning appearance as a pinch hitter. I was just 6 years old, and I remember Dad saying "Pay attention, you'll want to remember this" and I still do, more the moment than the outcome. There was a buzz in the stadium as one of the game's great gentlemen (3,026 GP, 0 ejections) took his place in the batter's box.

I never saw another live major league ball game with Dad but I can't tell you how many we watched on TV. We both loved the play-by-play commentary of former Cardinal Dizzy Dean and his sidekick Peewee Reese on the Game of the Week, perhaps the most unconventional broadcast team in television history. Dizzy took special delight when the pitcher got a hit, and when the game got boring he would take to singing "The Wabash Cannonball" in the late innings. He was also famous for such twisted commentary as, "I'm telling you Peewee, this here pitcher has just throwed up five straight curves."

In the fall of '63 Dad somehow managed to procure four of the hottest tickets in town and took us to an exhibition hockey game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the San Francisco Seals of the old Western League. We boys were all Leaf fans in those days; I had watched my first serious hockey the previous spring as the first-place Leafs rolled through the playoffs to their second of three straight Stanley Cups. So this was our own chance to see the champs up close. It was something of a barnstorming tour as the teams were playing themselves into shape Original 6 style, but the whole team was there and large as life just 8 rows or so down on the big ice surface of the Edmonton Gardens. No masks or helmets either, just the well-known faces of Johnny Bower, Tim Horton, Allan Stanley, Dave Keon, Red Kelly, Dick Duff, Bob Pulford, George Armstrong, Frank Mahovlich ... the most Hall of Famers I've ever seen on one team to this day. Of course the NHL proper was not even on Edmonton's radar at that point.

Dad and I did see a lot of football together. After our family's permanent move to Edmonton in 1971 we got season's tickets to the Eskimos from 1972 to 1983, stretching exactly from Tom Wilkinson's arrival in Edmonton to Warren Moon's departure and encompassing the greatest dynasty in CFL history. Too many tales for this already rambling essay, but the highest moment was probably the Fog Bowl, the 1973 Western final in which the lead changed hands six times in the second half before the Eskimos pulled it out 25-23 over the Green Riders on a late touchdown catch by Dad's favourite Esk, George McGowan.

In later years I had the opportunity to repay a small portion of my vast debt. I took Dad to a couple of WHA games after Gretzky arrived, and Dad recognized instantly what an extraordinary talent he was. He attended a few games here and there in the early NHL years, including what remains the finest regular season game I have ever seen, a 4-3 Oiler win over the champion Islanders in December of 1981. Gretzky set up the first three goals before scoring the winner with 1:02 to play, his 33rd in 32 games, keeping him ahead of Rocket Richard's 50 in 50 pace. Little did we know that later that month he would utterly destroy that record, but that Islanders' conquest might have been his best game of that entire season. Gretzky's game winner was hardly the end of the drama that night, as in the dying seconds the Islanders' bid for a tying goal was denied by a goal line save by Kevin Lowe.

A year and a half later I was able to score an extra ticket for Game 1 of the 1983 Stanley Cup Finals, the only SCF game Dad ever attended. That was the "Billy Smith game", in which Battlin' Billy made a 1-0 lead stand up from the sixth minute through the 60th, blanking the high powered Oilers with an evil admixture of great goaltending, goal posts, stick wielding, head games, and black magic. Results be damned, it was a great game, the best of that series, and vaulted the Islanders to their fourth and final title.

As I used to bug Dad, he remained a Leaf fan in the regular season but an Oiler fan in the playoffs. There wasn't a whole lot of reason for conflict, and when the two played one another in mostly meaningless contests we went our separate ways with good cheer.

Things took a serious turn for the worse in February 1984 when Dad suffered a major stroke that seriously disabled and nearly killed him. The doctors held out little hope for his future quality of life but he persevered and beat the odds by relearning to walk and talk. He was forced to retire from his job, but turned to volunteer work while maintaining his great loves of music, politics, and sports. Despite great difficulties in speaking he remained a people person whose positive attitude towards life was an inspiration to all who knew him.

Dad continued to follow the Cards, Leafs, Oilers, and Eskimos mostly on TV, and took great delight in the Oilers Stanley Cup triumphs in the subsequent years. Our season ticket days were done, but I was able to take him to a very occasional sporting event. It took great effort on his part so we really had to pick our spots. Eventually he and Mum left the snow and ice of Edmonton for the milder climes of Victoria, but our regular phone conversations would always turn to the latest developments in the world of sports. While the Leafs never did come around, the Cards developed another powerhouse in the current decade. Dad became a huge fan of Albert Pujols who continued the tradition of great Cardinals like Dizzy Dean, Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and Ozzie Smith. To our delight, the Cards pulled off an unlikely World Series win in 2006, a few months after the Oilers had come oh-so-close to doing likewise. I still recall the phone ringing within minutes of the final out, my Dad's halting voice delivering the words I knew were coming: "The Cardinals have won the World Series!" His once booming voice was weakened by the stroke, but he was triumphant. I silently thanked the baseball gods that he had lived to see that day.

A year later he was gone, a week before Remembrance Day. He had lived his life to the fullest right up to his last days at age 83, having lived on borrowed time and made the most of it for 23 years. A brain scan taken in his last days showed fully a third of his brain had been ravaged by the stroke; the doctor was astonished by what this determined man had accomplished with what was left.

A year has past and on Remembrance Day I again reflect on the most important man in my life. I can't pick up the phone and call him, a particularly bitter pill today of all days. But I think of him often. On Saturday night I watched the Hall of Fame game, and thought of how he would have loved seeing his Leafs put the hurt on the Habs 6-3. I thought of how he would have delighted at the sight of Glenn Anderson, one of his favourite Oilers, finally get the recognition he deserved. And I thought of how he would have thrilled to see Gaye Stewart, who he had seen play for the Leafs that fall of 1942. Stewart would win the Calder Trophy that season before giving the next two years for his country, just as Dad had done. And I thought of how Dad would have wept at Stewart's beautifully composed reading of "In Flanders Fields". I know I did.

Lest we forget.

Comparables

Hi from the Wet Coast. I've been travelling for a few days so the blog has been quiet.

I have, however, been pondering the matter of comparables that was discussed in the comments of the (second) Smid post. Popularized if not introduced by Bill James, the method is particularly useful in baseball where players are measured across a wide range of statistical categories.

Here's a simple example: Who is the best hitter in baseball?

To answer such a question I like to look right across the spectrum of offensive stats and spot those who contribute across the board without apparent weakness. As a Cards fan it's natural for me to start with the guy pictured above, Albert Pujols.

Albert had an exceptional 2008 season, even by his own exceptionally high standards. While playing his usual glittering defence (1st in the majors at his position in both range factor and zone rating, tied for 1st in the NL in fielding percentage), Albert brought a mighty big stick to home plate for the eighth consecutive season. He finished among the offensive leaders in virtually every significant (positive) category and in a class all his own in my favourite stat, OPS. I like to group the important stats into logical clusters:

524 AB (49th NL / 91st MLB) 1.J Reyes 688
187 H (3rd / 7th) 1.I.Suzuki/D.Pedroia 213
81 XB (2nd / 3rd) 1.R.Braun 83
37 HR (4th / 4th) 1.R.Howard 48

49th in AB, 3rd in hits. Albert is always a little ways down the AB list because so many of his plate appearances end in walks. In 2008 Pujols had a stint on the 15-day DL which depressed all of his raw numbers totals by close to 10%.

100 R (14th / 27th) 1.H.Ramirez 125
116 RBI (4th / 9th) 1.R.Howard 146

Run production numbers always depend on the other hitters in the line-up, and players on high-scoring teams are favoured. It's no mean feat to make the 100 + 100 standard; just 13 major leaguers did so in 2008. Among them, just the also-injured Alex Rodriguez did so in fewer ABs (510) than Albert.

104 BB (2nd / 3rd) 1.A.Dunn 122
54 K (116th / 243rd) 1.M.Reynolds 204

That last category is nothing short of scary. Of the 14 players in baseball who drew over 90 walks in 2008, the other 13 all had over 90 strikeouts as well, averaging 129 K's among them. Albert's 54 was at barely 40% of the norm. Considering the number of pitches he takes and how hard he swings, that's astonishing.

.357 AVG. (2nd / 2nd) 1. C.Jones .364
.462 OBP (2nd / 2nd) 1. C. Jones .470
.653 SLG (1st / 1st) 2. M.Ramirez .601
1.114 OPS (1st / 1st) 2. C.Jones 1.044

Percentage stats iron out the differentials in GP, AB etc. which may have been impacted by injury. The playing field thus levelled, Albert's performance is revealed as across-the-board spectacular.
***

Comparing on a player-by-player basis, there are a few individuals whose performance is equal or even better than Albert's among the various clusters of stats presented above. How did they compare across the board?


Player** AB* H** XB HR | R** RBI | BB* K** |
AVG* OBP* SLG* OPS**
--------------------------------------------
A.Pujols 524 187 81 37 | 100 116 | 104 054 |
.357 .462 .653 1.114
C. Jones 439 160 47 22 | 082 075 | 090 061 |
.364 .470 .574 1.044

Chipper won the batting title -- thanks in part to his protecting the lead by sitting in the dugout down the stretch, the gutless puke -- and posted some pretty nice percentages and a decent BB:K ratio. But his power and run production fell far short.

Player** AB* H** XB HR | R** RBI | BB* K** |
AVG* OBP* SLG* OPS**
--------------------------------------------
A.Pujols 524 187 81 37 | 100 116 | 104 054 |
.357 .462 .653 1.114
R.Howard 610 153 78 48 | 105 146 | 081 199 |
.251 .339 .543 0.881

Howard is an MVP favourite for his great production numbers in the middle of a potent Philllie lineup. But he was over 100 points shy of Albert in batting average, and even more than that in both OBP and SLG. As for those 199 strikeouts, say no more.

Player** AB* H** XB HR | R** RBI | BB* K** |
AVG* OBP* SLG* OPS**
--------------------------------------------
A.Pujols 524 187 81 37 | 100 116 | 104 054 |
.357 .462 .653 1.114
ARod**** 510 154 68 35 | 104 103 | 065 117 |
.302 .392 .573 0.965

Like Albert, ARod missed a little time and still managed to post yet another .300-30-100-100 season. But in 2008 it was really no contest between these two greats of our time.

Player** AB* H** XB HR | R** RBI | BB* K** |
AVG* OBP* SLG* OPS**
--------------------------------------------
A.Pujols 524 187 81 37 | 100 116 | 104 054 |
.357 .462 .653 1.114
MRamirez 552 183 74 37 | 102 121 | 087 124 |
.332 .430 .601 1.031

Now here's a decent comparison. Manny posted his numbers across two leagues, closing with a flourish in L.A. His percentages are a little shy of Albert's across the board, but at least they're in the neighbourhood, while the production numbers of the two are very similar. Again there is a huge differential in BB:K ratio, but no comparison is perfect.
***

Turning to career production, it's tough to compare guys at different stages of their careers. One possible method is to use the handy 162 Game Avg line courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com. Assuming full health, what's a typical season for these guys?

Player** AB* H** XB HR | R** RBI | BB* K** |
AVG* OBP* SLG* OPS**
--------------------------------------------
A.Pujols 599 200 89 42 | 124 128 | 091 066 |
.334 .425 .624 1.049
MRamirez 586 184 81 41 | 111 133 | 093 128 |
.314 .411 .593 1.004

Once again Manny is a good comparison, although as was the case in 2008 he falls a little short in all percentage categories. Production numbers are fairly similar, although Manny has generally played on a high-powered line-up, and unlike Albert has benefitted from playing in a hitter's park for much of his career.

Player** AB* H** XB HR | R** RBI | BB* K** |
AVG* OBP* SLG* OPS**
--------------------------------------------
A.Pujols 599 200 89 42 | 124 128 | 091 066 |
.334 .425 .624 1.049
ARod**** 624 191 80 44 | 127 127 | 078 130 |
.306 .389 .578 0.967

Many consider ARod the best player in baseball, but again we see Albert with a nice edge in batting average that is larger still in both OBP and SLG. Production numbers are very similar indeed. Of course ARod has been doing it for longer, so Albert has to prove he can keep doing it, but all the arrows do seem to be pointed in that direction. He puts up big numbers across the spectrum with Brodeur-like consistency.

Player** AB* H** XB HR | R** RBI | BB* K** |
AVG* OBP* SLG* OPS**
--------------------------------------------
A.Pujols 599 200 89 42 | 124 128 | 091 066 |
.334 .425 .624 1.049
B. Bonds 534 159 78 41 | 121 108 | 139 083 |
.298 .444 .607 1.051

Finally an "active" (unretired) player who outperforms even Albert in the BB:K dept., and the walk machine has the on-base percentage to prove it. Albert has a significant edge in hits and batting average to balance the scales. Even with the four "superhuman" years 2001-04, in which Bonds posted the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 8th best OPS seasons in major league history, the two are a virtual saw-off in that significant category over the course of their careers. The comp isn't perfect, but I think it's fair to say that across the offensive spectrum Albert compares pretty darn well to the seven-time MVP.
***

So what about comparables in hockey? That's a whole 'nother essay, better saved for another day.