Like him or not, he is the best ever

Well, Zeke, during the year you cited, Bond's range factor was above the league average.

So that really doesn't help your case.

Bonds was a plus-plus defender for the better part of his career. Like most players, his defensive skills began to slip as he hit his mid-to-late 30s.

Check out Andrew Jones in 3-4 years and see how many balls he's getting to in CF.

Or check out Griffey, who is now kind of a hack in RF.

 

I'll grant you the Lind error, but I don't recall a misplay on Terry Pendleton's double into the right-field corner that led off the inning. Doesn't mean it didn't happen, but I don't remember it.

Funny this should come up because, in all honesty, I've always felt that Bonds made a pretty good throw given the circumstances (game on the line, stadium going absolutely bananas, etc.). I seem to recall some of the Pirates criticizing him for poor positioning after the fact, but I could be making that one up. Regardless, the fanboy loser in me will always revel in the fact that, until his head and feet grew three sizes too big, Barry never managed to beat the Braves when it mattered

 

Willie Mays hit 20 triples exactly one time. His career total - 140 triples in 10,881 at-bats. He had five seasons with 11 or more triples.

The Babe's career total - 136 triples in 8,398 at-bats. He had four seasons of 11 or more triples, including one year in which he hit 11 triples in only 317 at-bats. Advantage: Ruth.

And sure, "that fat-ass Ruth" never stole 38 bases in one season, let alone hit 20 triples at the same time. But I'll take his 1921 season over any year's worth of stats Mays ever put up:

.378 batting average
59 home runs
171 RBIs
44 doubles
16 triples
AND 17 stolen bases.
Oh yeah - he had 17 assists in the outfield and went 2-0 on the mound that year as well. Advantage: Ruth.

Thanks for playing, we have some nice parting gifts for you.

 

The throw by Bonds really does belong well down the lists of things that went wrong in that inning. Lind's error was the worst, simply because it was an easy play and he had something like six errors that year in the regular season. His only real value was his glove and he gakked one when it meant the most.

Jim Leyland blew it, too. Doug Drabek was obviously out of gas, yet Leyland let him go back out for the ninth. The Pirates' closer, Stan Belinda, was never particularly good and he was worse when he had to come in with runners on base. Never mind that improvising and using a veteran like Bob Walk (who was warming up in the pen when the game ended) would have been a better option.

And, of course, Belinda gets his share of blame because he sucked.

 

Um, no. Jim Edmonds.

 

Outstanding.

Thank you.

 

I guess I could also have mentioned you don't have to steal bases when you run all the way around them at once at your own preferred pace.

 

Just me, but I always had the impression that Edmonds was consistently out of position, especially when he played in tthe AL, and made the great plays to get to balls that a real good CF would have caught routinely.

But that's verrry anecdotal and probably wrong.

 

Plus the home plate umpire had about a six inch by six inch strike zone that inning. Watch it on classic sports sometime. It was amazing how it shrunk like a Wal Mart t-shirt that last inning.

 

Jim Edmonds couldn't carry Andruw Jones' jock. That guy gets to balls that other OFs don't even consider remotely reachable. I can't even begin to guess how many times I've thought a ball was going to the wall, only to see Jones snare it.

 

McSherry's strike zone didn't shrink; Belinda just wasn't hitting his spots.

He was near the plate, but a lot of the old-school umpires, like McSherry, wouldn't give you the call if you threw it over the inside corner when your catcher was set up outside -- even if it crossed the plate. And that's what Belinda was doing the whole inning.

And no, most umpires won't give a pitcher the benefit of the doubt in that situation.

Watch the pitch to Cabrera. The catcher sets up inside-middle, and Belinda's pitch was outside. LaValliere was reaching for the pitch when Cabrera slapped it into left. If he lays off that pitch, odds are McSherry wouldn't have called that a strike, either. He's not going to get that call when he misses his spot.

 

I agree that Jones has much better range than Edmonds.

But Hunter's is just as good...