Baseball thread No. 8 - play nice

Scott Cooper

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/coopesc01.shtml

 

Steve Swisher

 

Gibson may not have the stats to put him in the top 500, but like you said, he was a big clubhouse leader. And he was a pretty clutch hitter.

Maybe we're biased because we're Tigers and Dodgers fans, respectively.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/g/gibsoki01.shtml

Did not know Gibby had 284 stolen bases. Not shabby for a tight end from MIchigan State.

 

Gibson's "passion and intensity" = 98% arrogant bullying loudmouth fog-horning and showboating. He was always great at telling everybody else how to do their jobs.

As far as being "no-nonsense," that ended when he walked on the field, and became one of the dumbest, worst-fundamentals players of recent decades. He wasn't much worse of an outfielder than Greg Luzinski, but he wasn't much better, either.

 

He won 2 World Series titles with 2 different teams. The Dodgers don't win it in '88 without him.

Who cares about the arrogance? The Dodgers stopped their joking ways and played ball in '88.

 

Cooper was the Mark Redman of his day - forced into the All-Star game because the Sox needed a representative.

 

He was on 2 teams that certainly could, and probably would (Tigers) have won the WS without him. His vaunted Dodger home run came in the first game of a 4-game sweep.

He was no better than the 7th most valuable player on the '84 Tigers (Trammell, Whitaker, Morris, Petry, Parrish, Hernandez, and probably Chet Lemon and Darrell Evans in front of him).

 

Cooper went to 2 games and both years Mo Vaughn was also on the Red Sox and would have been a better choice as representative.

 

There are actually some Hall of Famers who never played in an All-Star Game, as their careers were winding down as the All-Star Game began in 1933. I think Rogers Hornsby and Waite Hoyt are among that group. But of course they didn't have their whole career to make an all-star game so that's sort of an easy way out of the debate.

Kirk Gibson is an excellent choice. Another one I thought of was Tim Salmon, who could easily have made it in any of these years...

1995: .330, 34 HR, 105 RBI
1996: .296, 33 HR, 129 RBI
2000: .290, 34 HR, 97 RBI

 

HIs vaunted home run set the tone to that World Series. Mighty Oakland with Canseco and McGwire weren't so mighty after that homer.

After Hershiser, Gibson was the Dodgers' 2nd-best player in '88. He was the right guy at the right time at Chavez Ravine.

The '84 Tigers were, indeed, a powerhouse, so he was just one more in a group of killers.

Again, though, he played hard. Loved that about him.

 

Just to clarify - is anyone saying Kirk Gibson isn't one of the top 500 players?