Starting IX Newsletter: Rookies of the Year as child actors; plus best baseball movies, video games, and nicknames

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“Starting IX” Excerpt: Rookies of the Year as child actors

For this week’s “Starting IX” excerpt, we’ll take a look at a list of MLB Rookies of the Year and then compare them the Hollywood child actors. The parallels are as apt as they are forced…

CF Andre Dawson (1976–1986)

“The Hawk” was an excellent power/speed dual threat who won Rookie of the Year with the Expos in 1977 and went on to live up to the potential he showed in that first season. It’s interesting how often players who win RoY don’t pan out, though. There have been 140 winners of the award since its inception [at time of press], and Dawson’s success is not as common as one might think. If the 140 are split into five groups: Hall of Famers, multiple-time All-Stars, role players, complete busts, or injury-ravaged players, the results are surprising. Let’s take a trip down Memory Lane and assign each and every RoY winner (pre-2007) into one of the aforementioned categories:

Well, before we start, here are a pair of special cases:

Sam Jethroe — His rookie season occurred when he was 32 years old, not 28 as he was believed to be when he joined the Boston Braves in 1950. He came to the majors via the Negro Leagues after Robinson broke the color barrier. He posted two solid seasons in Boston before things got sad. Jethroe played in an era in which black players were not allowed to get hurt, and so even though his skills were not actually fading, Boston used his injury as an excuse to cut him and avoid paying him pension. Stay classy, Boston. [Boston is easy to pick on when it comes to race relations, but it was really the entire American League that was struggling with integrating black players at this time.]

Ken Hubbs — Hubbs passed away after the 1963 season (his second full season) in a plane crash. He had completed only two full seasons in the big leagues and was a top-notch fielder but a below-average hitter.

Injury plagued (8): Herb Score — I won’t go into detail about every player’s injuries, but I could have also listed Score under Special Cases. Score was a dominant pitcher for his first two years in the league, until fellow Rookie of the Year winner Gil McDougald hit a line drive that struck him in the face. The incident was so severe that McDougald said he would retire if Score was blinded as a result. Score was able to recover, but sadly he later suffered arm injuries that ended his career for good. This was a career most likely headed towards greatness as well. Mickey Mantle said Score was the toughest American League southpaw he ever faced, and Yogi Berra selected him for his own “Greatest Team of All Time.”

Others: Ron Hansen, Mark Fidrych, John Castino, Sandy Alomar Jr., Marty Cordova, Kerry Wood, and Scott Williamson.

Bust (20): Harry Byrd, Joe Black [Borderline special case, Black was 28 when he came over from the Negro Leagues. Unlike Jethroe, however, he was actually 28, not 32, and the Dodgers probably hoped for more than they ended up getting from him], Don Schwall, Walt Dropo, Bob Grim, John Montefusco, Pat Zachry, Butch Metzger, Alfredo Griffin, Joe Charboneau, Ron Kittle, Jerome Walton, Pat Listach, Bob Hamelin, Todd Hollandsworth, Ben Grieve, Jason Jennings, Eric Hinske, Angel Berroa, and Bobby Crosby.

Role Player (37): Wally Moon, Bill Virdon, Jack Sanford, Tony Kubek, Albie Pearson, Tom Tresh, Gary Peters, Curt Blefary, Tommie Agee, Tommy Helms, Stan Bahnsen, Ted Sizemore, Lou Piniella, Carl Morton, Earl Williams, Chris Chambliss, Gary Matthews, Al Bumbry, Mike Hargrove, Bake McBride, Bob Horner, Steve Howe, Dave Righetti, Steve Sax, Alvin Davis, Ozzie Guillen, Vince Coleman, Todd Worrell, Benito Santiago, Walt Weiss, Chris Sabo, Gregg Olson, Eric Karros, Hideo Nomo, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Jason Bay, and Huston Street.

All-Star (28): Alvin Dark, Don Newcombe, Roy Sievers, Gil McDougald, Harvey Kuenn, Jim Gilliam, Bob Allison, Tony Oliva, Dick Allen, Thurman Munson [Munson also passed away prematurely in a plane crash], Jon Matlack, Fred Lynn, Lou Whitaker [With over 70 WAR, Whitaker should be in the Hall of Fame, but he still isn’t, sadly], Rick Sutcliffe, Fernando Valenzuela, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Tim Salmon [Salmon is on par with all the other All-Star players but somehow never made an All-Star Game], Raul Mondesi, Nomar Garciaparra, Rafael Furcal, and Ryan Howard.

Hall of Fame (21): Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Luis Aparicio, Frank Robinson, Orlando Cepeda, Willie McCovey, Billy Williams, Pete Rose,* Tom Seaver, Rod Carew, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Andre Dawson, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken Jr., Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Derek Jeter, Ichiro Suzuki,* Albert Pujols,* Scott Rolen,* Justin Verlander,* and Carlos Beltran.*

* Players likely to be inducted into the Hall sooner or later

Dontrelle Willis (2): Dontrelle Willis, Hanley Ramirez

There are quite a few players labeled as busts here who may not have been considered busts under different circumstances. Part of the bust label is because many people would think of those players as decent role players if they hadn’t set such high expectations for their careers by winning Rookie of the Year. One thing that stuck out during the research for this section was how many interesting stories went along with these players. Believe it or not, the number of footnotes with little tidbits was actually cut down significantly from the first draft.

A similar comparison seems to be Child-Star Syndrome, a disease from which so many famous child actors suffer. Many child stars go on to be messed up (Shia LeBeouf) or just never thought of again (Bradley Pierce, Jumanji). This would be a great chart in and of itself, and here’s a shout-out to one famous child star from each category.

Injury plagued: Lindsay Lohan — Nose injuries… too much of a cheap shot? Maybe I’m just bitter because she was my absolute favorite when she was in her prime, with Parent Trap and Mean Girls being two of my straight-up favorite movies of all time.

Bust: The Olsen twins — Although I’m not entirely giving up on them making one more Minnie Minoso-like comeback; probably with similar results.

Role Player: Neil Patrick Harris — NPH’s name came up frequently as a possible replacement for David Letterman before Stephen Colbert eventually got the gig, and if he were to make that sort of jump, he would certainly outrank this role-player ranking. As is, he was excellent as the womanizing Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother and was also at the forefront of famous actors to come out, a trend that can hopefully make its way into the machismo-filled world of sports sooner than later.

All-Star: Jason Bateman — For Arrested Development alone, Bateman could be considered an All-Star, but between Horrible Bosses and being in a movie seemingly every two months, Bateman has established himself as a top-notch post-child-star actor.

Hall of Fame: Natalie Portman — Seemingly every guy’s celebrity crush, she has the perfect amount of girl-next-door charisma and acting chops to be one of Hollywood’s most popular actresses. She has two Oscar nominations and won for her role in Black Swan.

Willie Mays: Ron Howard — one of the best directors of all time and in the hearts of the current generation as the voiceover in Arrested Development.

Back to baseball, the Rookie of the Year process was a little difficult because the bust and injury-plagued tiers usually overlapped, as so many times injuries lead to players becoming busts. There were also players who were solid players or even All-Star caliber players who had careers dampened by injury as well. I also stopped with the year 2006 because the jury is still out on the newer Rookie-of-the-Year winners, as even established guys like Ryan Braun and Evan Longoria could fall victim to injury, or declining skills [note: this was written in 2015]. They are locks for the All-Star tier, but will they make it into the Hall of Fame tier as well? So this is not a perfect list, but it is interesting to note the even distribution of numbers in each tier.

The only tier that really needs further explanation is the “Dontrelle Willis” tier. He received his own tier because he really could have been in any one of the tiers at different points of his career. His first few years, people regarded him as a true ace and seemingly a lock to win over 200 games. He was even thought to be a threat for 300 wins because of how young he was when he started winning in the majors. He then became a bit of a bust as he struggled through 2006 and 2007. He then suffered injuries that cost him several years, and most recently tried to rebuild himself into a solid role player for different teams. His Marlin teammate Hanley Ramirez makes this tier as well, although he could move into the All-Star tier with a few consistent, productive, healthy seasons in a row.

As for Dawson himself: he turned into a Hall of Fame player, who combined speed and power throughout his career.

[This will simply be a footnote because the point will be discussed ad nauseam with our next player, but the turf at Olympic Stadium really cost Dawson some of his elite speed. He had 12 knee surgeries, and after stealing 208 bases through his first seven full seasons (he had one steal in 24 games in 1976), he had only 105 stolen bases the remaining 13 seasons of his career. Part of that decline is natural aging, and part of that had to do with a hellacious knee injury in high school, but a whole lot of it is the result of what the Olympic Stadium turf did to his knees. Bill Lee said of Dawson’s knees, “I mean his knees looked like fucking Frankenstein’s face.” The fact that Dawson made it into the exclusive 400 home run/300 steals club (there are only three other members — Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, and Willie Mays) is even more impressive with that in mind. Without the turf killing his knees he easily could have joined Bonds as the only member of the 400–400 club.]

He is also the first player to win a MVP award from a last place team, beating A-Rod and his 2003 Rangers to the punch. Dawson’s MVP season came the year after he left Montreal and was unusual in that it was right after he joined a new team. It is often said that players perform best before a big contract, and in a sense this was true of Dawson as well. When Dawson signed with Chicago in 1987, it was a blank-contract signing. He told the Cubs to pay him what he was worth and proceeded to put up his incredible MVP season and got a fat contract as a result.

OOTP Year-by-Year Re-Simulation: 1910

We continue our trek through re-simulating each season in baseball history using Out of the Park Baseball 21, the most realistic baseball simulation game on the market.

MVP: Fred Snodgrass and Ty Cobb

Cy Young: Louis Drucke and Walter Johnson

The 1910 real-world regular season was one of the most enjoyable in the early days of baseball, with the sport’s two megastars: Cobb and Nap Lajoie, battling it out to the final day for the season batting crown. With no actual MVP award given out, and batting average being the premier statistic of the day, it was almost a McGwire-Sosa 1996-type storyline, drawing all sorts of attention to the sport.

In our simulation here, it was Cobb who ran away with the batting crown (.395 BA) — capturing the OOTP MVP award as well. Fellow megastar Walter Johnson captured the league’s Cy Young, but it was the National League that had a pair of far less heralded award winners.

Snodgrass is likely the more familiar name of the two, having put together a solid, albeit brief career on those John McGraw pennant-winning Giants sides of the 1910s. Sadly, like his teammate Fred Merkle, it is a misplay on a big stage for which Snodgrass’ name is most associated today, his mishap coming in the 1912 World Series. However, his career 110 OPS+ spot from mostly the centerfield position paints the accurate picture of an underrated player and just the type who a game like OOTP can shine a further light on. Here’s his 1910 player card:

Drucke is a name that I will admit to never having even heard of prior to this simulation, and after looking him up I feel a lot less bad about that. He did indeed have an outstanding real-life 1910 season, tossing 215.1 innings of 2.47 ERA/2.39 FIP for the second-place Giants, but that was his only full season, in a career of just 317.0 total innings pitched. Drucke’s is a sad story and one that is highlighted in my second, forthcoming book.

American League pennant winners: Philadelphia Athletics

National League pennant winners: New York Giants

World Series: Athletics 4, Giants 2

We have our third franchise able to win back-to-back titles in just a decade of our OOTP “re-sim,” as parity was not nearly what it is today in baseball’s early days. In fact, both teams meeting in this OOTP 1910 World Series had already made multiple appearances in the re-sim World Series, despite us beginning our journey in just 1901.

As for the series itself, the A’s made relatively easy work of the Giants, stealing Game 1 on the road, and never looking back. Frank Baker (better known as “Home Run” Baker) had a particularly strong series, batting .423 with two long balls and 10 RBI in the six games.

“One Final Imagination of the Baseball Hall of Fame” Pre-excerpts: Best baseball movies, video games, and Chris Berman nicknames

Last week I said ‘If there’s one thing I love doing in my books, it’s cramming lists into every possible nook and cranny of my writing.’ Well, if there are TWO things I love doing in my books, it’s cramming in lists to every possible nook and cranny of my writing AND painful cross-culture references. Here are both!

Virgil Trucks: Earlier in this section [of the book], we covered Allie Reynolds, a fascinating man who was the first AL pitcher to toss a pair of no-hitters in the same season. Weirdly enough, Trucks managed the same feat, just a season after Reynolds (1952). Trucks was nicknamed, no joke: “Fire,” which is just so lazy it’s almost funny. But not really.

When it comes to nicknaming athletes, nobody does it better than Chris Berman. I know he got the rep of being a bit bombastic and self-important by the end of his career, but I ride for Berman, and in his peak, there was no one like him. I still remember late one night during my freshman year of college, my roommate and I got to talking about Berman, and so we hopped out of our lofted beds to find a complete list of Bermanisms. We proceeded to read about 200 of them, laughing so hard that the RA had to come knock on our door and tell us to quiet down. Some top floor Berman baseball nicknames:

** Carlos One if by Land, Two if Baerga
** Todd Which Hand Does He Frohwirth
** LaMarr Where Does It Hoyt
** Jeff Pin the Tail on the Bronkey
** Oddibe Young Again McDowell
** Scott Supercalifragilisticexpiala Brosius
** Carlos Daylight Come and Delgado Go Home
** Joe Actual Retail Price
** Bernard Innocent Until Proven Gilkey
** Alan Have Gun Will Trammell
** Stan Javier Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
** Rob the Flying Nen

That’s just a tasting, though. To really get the full effect, you need to just sit down and read them, in the words of Berman, “back-to-back-to-back, back, back, back.” Go to www.funny2.com/berman.htm and just scroll through them and let them wash over you with wave after wave of hilarity.

Ken Keltner

Best known for his multiple excellent defensive plays that helped break Joe DiMaggio’s hit streak at 56 games, he is best known to me as being an extra in the film Major League. And as you can probably guess by now, that loose sequitur means we’re doing top floor baseball movies:

** Everybody Wants Some
** Moneyball
** The Natural
** Bull Durham
** Angels in the Outfield (1994)
** A League of Their Own
** The Sandlot
** The Pride of the Yankees
** Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch
** Mr. 3000

That list is going to piss off so many people. I’m so excited. It is out of Kevin Costner hate (even he can’t wreck Bull Durham), rather than a lack of a soul that Field of Dreams is left off; Major League is just hella overrated; Fever Pitch not being there will cause the most in-family turmoil.

Ken Griffey Sr.: I wonder if you slipped Senior some Veritaserum and asked him if he is even slightly annoyed that his legacy is basically “Ken Griffey Jr.’s dad.” I think he’d say, with his trademark smile, that he loves it more than anything else in the world. When he and Junior were able to make it into the same lineup, Senior played it cool, but you could tell it meant the world to him. And when they hit back-to-back home runs against the Angels on September 14, 1990, it was one of the coolest moments in baseball history. As such, I don’t mind hijacking Pops’ write-up for a more Junior-centric top floor list — the top baseball video games of all time:

** Triple Play Baseball 2001
** Backyard Baseball
** Mario Superstar Baseball
** MVP Baseball 2004
** RBI Baseball
** MLB 07 The Show
** Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball
** MLB 2K8 (only because the game play was SOOO bad that it actually became entertaining)
** NCAA Football 2005 (not a baseball video game, but so good that it has to appear here anyway)

Who Is This Player?

Answer at the end of the newsletter (I’m debating formats here, so feedback on how easy/difficult this section is would be appreciated)

Weekly Best Reads

• It was an incredibly sad way to start Saturday to hear that Hank Aaron had passed away. One of the all-time legends, and a man who truly transcended the sport. Here’s SABR with an excellent In Memoriam, and here’s a wild story of how he and Mays almost shared the same outfield.
• I’ve plugged The Athletic here plenty, but here are two more must-reads this week: Britt Ghiroli with the challenges female reporters still face in the sport; and Marc Carig with a look at some famous numbers in light of baseball’s recent Negro Leagues decision.

Pop Culture Recommendation of the Week

I published a combined 4,000 words on podcasts I love over the past few weeks, so go check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you are so inclined for some great recs!

Keep You On Your Toes

I’m sure a lot of you bought Ibram X. Kendi’s book “How to Be an Antiracist” this year, here is his selection on ten best political books by Black women.

Quiz Answer

That’s my personal fav of the Berman nicknames above: Scott Brosius.

Remember to follow along here on Medium for the first few months before I move to the actual email newsletter format.

Feel free to reach out to Jim.Turvey21@gmail.com for any feedback or inquiries.