Baseball Minutiae and Trivia Only

And Robinson himself said Nettles deserved the last 5 or 6 GGs that he won.

I think Nettles is HoF quality.

Nettles still holds the record for HRs by an American League third baseman. Out of his 390 career HRs, 333 came in the AL, and of those 319 came while he was playing third. Beltre had 330 in the AL, but had a lot as a DH. A-Rod of course had a zillion, but a large percentage came at SS and DH.

Nettles had the fourth highest WAR of any position player of the 1970s, behind Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench and Rod Carew. Higher than Pete Rose or Reggie Jackson or Mike Schmidt or George Brett (admittedly the last two didn’t play the entire decade.)

He clearly should have won more than two Gold Gloves and is obviously on the short list of greatest defensive third basemen ever. I am obligated to throw in that Clete Boyer was also awfully good. I wouldn't want to have to choose. Offensively he blows Boyer away.

Plus extra points for his needling humor that even got aimed at The Boss.

He has the highest WAR of any position player with a BA under .250. That's some serious cherry picking, but that's a large part of what baseball stat arguments are anyway.

    
    If Nettles put up similar career numbers in Cleveland or San Diego I think he'd be in the HOF. This is one time being a Yankee hurts a guy. I don't see a national movement to add a 45th Yankee player to the Hall. 

There has been a long-time Yankees Bias for years with Baseball's Hall of Fame. In 2013, the Baseball Hall of Fame finally elected Yankees long-time Team Owner Jacob Ruppert (1915-1939), who had died in January of 1939, meanwhile a lot of his comtemporties were already elected in, Connie Mack (A's), Clark Griffith (Senators) and others were voted into the Hall of Fame. During the 1980's, George was so disgusted with the Hall of Fame voting, that he stopped the Yankees from playing in the Hall of Fame Game at Cooperstown. Also, he would start the Yankees Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. It took Ted Williams long time battle with the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee to get Yankees All-Star Shortstop Phil Rizzuto voted in.

I haven’t been as active here lately as usual.
I still have a couple interesting 1890’s Player’s League guys fer ya’…

MARK BALDWIN

He quit baseball at age 29 to pursue his childhood dream of becoming a doctor & studied at Johns Hopkins & Belville Medical College.He practiced medicine as a surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, among several noted hospitals.

St. Louis Browns owner Chris Von Der Ahe, a gentleman of questionable repute at the best of times, had Baldwin arrested for conspiring w/O'Neil to sign players from St. Louis to Pittsburgh shortly thereafter. The charges were dropped & Baldwin sued von der Ahe for false imprisonment. After years of litigation, Baldwin won a judgement of $2,525 (equivalent to $92,000 in 2023) against him in 1897.

His nickname, “Fido”, literally means “I am loyal” or merely “faithful” in Latin.

Switch-hitters with hitting streaks of more than 15 games.
Hitter Streak Year WAR /Yr /Career
Pete Rose.................... 44 G in....... 1978........... 3.4.......... 79.5
Jimmy Rollins................. 39 G in..... 2006-07........ 6.1/5.5.... 47.6
George Davis................... 33 G in....... 1893........... 5.7......... 84.5 [HOF]
Luis Castillo................ 33 G in....... 2002........... 2.0.......... 29.1
Red Schoendienst...... 28 G in....... 1954........... 4.7......... 44.8 [HOF]
Goldie Rapp.................... 23 G in....... 1921.......... -0.7........... -3.9
Wally Schang................ 20 G in....... 1916........... 3.6.......... 48.0
Augie Galan................... 19 G in....... 1944........... 6.3.......... 45.4
Miller Huggins............... 16 G in....... 1906........... 4.2......... 35.4 [HOF]
Dan McGann............... 16 G in....... 1907........... 2.5.......... 34.0
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