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No. 68: Bert Blyleven
When I was entering high school, I moved from Cleveland to Charlotte and soon became good friends with Rob, who was the other biggest baseball fan at our high school. Rob collected baseball cards. I...
View ArticleNo. 67: Harmon Killebrew
This is a fuller version of the column I wrote in the last hours of Harmon Killebrew’s life in 2011. I called it, “The Gentleman Called Killer.” The gentleman the sportswriters somewhat desperately...
View ArticleNo. 66: Roy Campanella
Sometimes, it seems, the Jackie Robinson story is told as a “Once upon a time and happily ever after story.” You know exactly how this fairy tale goes: Once upon a time, black players were not allowed...
View ArticleNo. 65: Kid Nichols
It’s always fun to play the Player A/Player B game. Here are the first 10 seasons of two pitchers, both right-handed, born about 18 months apart. They started their careers the same year. Player A:...
View ArticleNo. 64: Eddie Murray
Here’s a question: How good was Los Angeles’ Locke High School baseball team in 1973? Eddie Murray was the first baseman. Ozzie Smith was the shortstop. * * * In 1979, during the Baltimore-Pittsburgh...
View ArticleNo. 63: Charlie Gehringer
So, I have this friend everyone calls “Ghost.” We call him that because he has this tendency to just sort of disappear. It’s strange. You will be talking to him, turn around for a second, and he’s...
View ArticleNo. 62: Robin Yount
So, you have probably heard the sad story of Larry Yount. He was Houston’s fifth-round pick in 1968 as an 18-year-old. He was a right-handed pitcher with pretty good stuff — his second year in Rookie...
View ArticleNo. 61: Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell
Sure, it’s a copout making this a tie*, but Frank Thomas and Jeff Bagwell are so inextricable, so linked, that I see no way around it. They were both power-hitting, right-handed first basemen of the...
View ArticleNo. 60: Brooks Robinson
About 25 years after we moved from Cleveland, I came back to our old house. It was way smaller than I remembered. That’s obvious. Everyone says that about where they grew up. It did seem extreme in...
View ArticleNo. 59: Reggie Jackson
Jim Sundberg told me not too long ago that Reggie Jackson was the smartest hitter he ever matched wits with as a catcher. Now, it is true that Reggie Jackson was standing right next to us when Sundberg...
View ArticleNo. 41: Pete Rose
The question is this: Can any boy with moderate athletic ability simply will himself into becoming a great baseball player? I’ve thought about this a lot. When I was a kid, I wanted to play Major...
View ArticleNo. 40: Eddie Collins
They called him “Cocky,” and there was nothing subtle or ironic about the nickname. Eddie Collins was a generally reserved man off the field, but on it he thoroughly believed himself to be the smartest...
View ArticleNo. 39: Bob Gibson
I was planning on writing a new piece on Bob Gibson for this series … but I find that almost everything I want to say is in this piece I wrote five years ago. I have edited and reworked for context. *...
View ArticleNo. 38: Eddie Mathews
On January 16, 1974, Eddie Mathews called home to his wife after he got word that he was not elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In truth, he had not even come close. Of the many curiosities in the...
View ArticleNo. 37: Roberto Clemente
A duet with one of my heroes and friends, David Maraniss, who aside from winning Pulitzer Prizes and writing brilliant presidential biographies, wrote the magnificent book “Clemente: The Passion and...
View ArticleNo. 36: Carl Yastrzemski
One of the joys of baseball is that it can prompt fury about stuff that doesn’t matter at all. And by “stuff that doesn’t matter at all,” I mean that literally — I’m not talking about arguments like...
View ArticleNo. 35: Cal Ripken
Before Cal Ripken came along, there had never been a 6-foot-4 shortstop who played with any regularity in the Major Leagues. There had been a few tall shortstops through the years — Bill Almon, Ron...
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No. 34: Mel Ott
Mel Ott is the smallest man in the 500 home run club. At 5-foot-9, 170 pounds he was roughly the same size as Davey Lopes and Bucky Dent and Don Zimmer (in his playing days). He is one of the great...
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No. 33: George Brett
I’ve written a billion jillion shmillion stories about George Brett. If you want to read about the summer he almost hit. .400, there’s this. Also this. Stuff about George carrying the team, you can...
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No. 32: Grover Cleveland Alexander
“The Winning Team” is a spectacularly bad movie. It earns the “spectacularly bad” label because it has many cool, quirky features .and somehow it is still unwatchable. As you probably know, “The...
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