Misc. Bull$h!t

Bouncing away from baseball for a moment, we were viewing an old episode of Gunsmoke and during a very physical scene Ruthie mentioned that you could easily tell that Ken Curtis had a stunt double.

A rodeo rider named Don Happy performed stunts for Curtis and other actors on Gunsmoke. Happy was a rodeo rider that stumbled into stunt work in Hollywood for some 45 years.

He was also known to double for Ronald Reagan, Robert Mitchum, and Elvis Presley.

Young Burt Reynolds used to do all of his own stunts on the show. He was a very nimble man…I guess I used to do all my own stunts, too… 🤓

Finally, getting back to the “more about Maz and the double plays:

Here are the top 12 2B in career DPs, including innings played

ank Player (yrs, age) Double Plays Turned as 2B Innings Played Throws
1. Bill Mazeroski+ (17) 1706 18336.1 R
2. Nellie Fox+ (19) 1619 20217.0 R
3. Willie Randolph (18) 1547 18676.0 R
4. Lou Whitaker (19) 1527 19068.0 R
5. Bobby Doerr+ (14) 1507 16295.1 R
6. Joe Morgan+ (22) 1505 21543.1 R
7. Charlie Gehringer+ (19) 1444 19351.0 R
8. Robinson Canó (17, 39) 1418 18812.0 R
9. Roberto Alomar+ (17) 1407 19876.0 R
10. Frank White (18) 1382 17809.1 R
11. Red Schoendienst+ (19) 1368 15734.1 R
12. Bobby Grich (17) 1302 15156.2

The format breaks up a little, but it does the job.

I took each player and calculated the number of DPs per inning. The list by DPs per inning looks like:

Doerr .092938
Mazeroski .092919
Schoendienst .087
Grich .086
Randolph .083
Whitaker .0800818
Fox .0800811
White .078
Cano .075
Gehringer .074
Alomar .071
Morgan .070

Of course these are not the highest per nine inning rates in history, it’s just sorting out accumulators from super achievers.
Maz and the leader Doerr do stand out. The reason I went top 12 instead of top ten was that Pippsheadache had mentioned that Schoendiest had a ranking in far less innings, and I noticed Grich did as well.

Willie Randolph shows a reason he might be a HOF player being ignored, though Whitaker gets more mention.

Cano’s ranking was quite a surprise. I don’t know how much the pills that mother gave him did for his defense. I guess they could help that too, until the player bulls up too much. Maybe “Spit in Your Face” Alomar was more flash that skill. A bit of Gleyber-like hot doggery… I loved that Whitaker and Fox we so close I had to carry out to six decimal places, and the five places for first place was interesting, as well. (Note: I used only full innings in the calculations…

Thoughts?

Those numbers are of course not definitive of the ranking as a “great” or “greatest” of all second basemen. If you look at Mazeroski’s career though in so many statistical areas he had a huge number of seasons during which he led the NL in fielding pct, assists, putouts. It becomes obvious the man was an absolute monster.

Eras mean so much, and with strikeouts becoming more common since the advent of the live ball and emphasis on the HR, opportunity to turn DP’s has to have varied through the years…

On September 12, 1930 catcher and future manager Al Lopez hit the last recorded “bouncer” home run. His ball that bounced into the stands would become a ground rule double after that season…

Just heard from Culligan. They’re coming here on March 14…

I was working on a crackpot theory -- the most enjoyable kind of theory in my estimation -- trying to tie second basemen and their DP participation to the complementary abilities or at least long-term familiarity with their main SS partners.  While I think there is some evidence for this, I wouldn't call it air-tight.  Of the twelve second sackers in question, Alomar had the least stability in his SS partner -- no one for more than three years, although that one, Omar Vizquel, was bound to make your game better.  Not only did Alomar move around more than any other player on this list -- his longest stint with any team was his five years in Toronto -- even within the teams he played for the shortstop was always changing.

To take the most obvious case, Whitaker and Trammell were essentially the thing with two heads.  It seems incongruous that Trammell got in the HOF without Whitaker going in with him.  The case for Lou is at least as compelling as the case for Alan in my view.  It's as if you put Phil Everly in the Rock and Roll HOF but left Don Everly out.  But in any event Trammell was a fine SS.

Maz had only two partners -- Dick Groat, who was good, and Gene Alley, who was outstanding (just talking defense here.)

Nellie Fox played with Luis Aparicio for eight full seasons, and Looey was the best defensive SS of his era.

Red Schoendienst played his first five seasons with Marty Marion at short.  Marion was the best defensive SS of his era and one of the best of all time, no question.  During his important five-six years with the Braves, Red had Johnny Logan, another really good SS.

Bobby Grich played his first five full seasons (and parts of two others) with Mark Belanger as his SS.  Belanger was the best SS of his era (and again one of the greatest ever.)  However, Grich did have a lot of different partners with the Angels.

Joe Morgan played his prime years with Davey Concepcion as his SS, and Davey was an outstanding SS.

Charlie Gehringer had Billy Rogell as his SS for most of his career.  I think Rogell was regarded more as competent than outstanding, but they had about ten years together, so there was great familiarity.  Gehringer himself was regarded more as steady than brilliant.

Robbie Cano of course had Derek Jeter by his side for nine years before essentially going bum of the month in Seattle.

Bobby Doerr, who by any account was one hell of a defender, had three fairly equal partnerships -- Joe Cronin, who was very good in his younger days but was probably a step slower by the time he paired with Doerr; Johnny Pesky, an excellent defensive player, and Vern Stephens, who had a strong arm but was much more renowned for his offense.

Frank White, another superb defensive player, had Freddie Patek and UL Washington as his main SSs, and they were both strong defensively, although not elite.

That leaves Willie Randolph.  Willie had Bucky Dent by his side for five years, which is longer than I had thought, and Bucky was an excellent SS.  But beyond that, he had one year of Chicken Stanley, two years of a declining Roy Smalley Jr., two years of Bobby Meacham, two years of Wayne Tolleson and one year of Rafael Santana.  Not exactly Ozzie Smith level.  I think that other than Alomar and possibly White, he was at the biggest disadvantage in terms of either longevity or defensive prowess in a SS partner.

So while you can sort of make an argument for partnership/familiarity, it comes down to a bit more than that.  I wish there was a clearcut cause/effect, but it's not quite that facile.  Undoubtedly somebody has a more comprehensive argument to make.  But it's an interesting topic (to me at least.)

I do think it's fair to put Maz and Doerr at the top of the heap for turning DPs by almost any measure.  More later.
 

Billy -- I posted my thoughts before I saw yours.  I do think the partner has to make a difference, although I was applying it strictly to the 12 second basemen listed by Inger.  I wish I had seen Gordon, who may have been the best defensive second baseman the Yanks ever had, just as Scooter must have been the best defensive SS for the Yanks. People forget how good Tony Kubek was as well. There was a time, before we knew about his PED use, that several of us on this board thought Robby Cano was the best Yankee defensive second baseman we had ever seen -- certainly the best arm -- but none of us had seen Gordon or Lazzeri.  Randolph and Richardson were also outstanding defensive players, as was McDougald (but he moved around a lot.)