Sandy Koufax

[DoubleX]

Not much different from where he is now. He had a couple of ok years with the Blue Jays, but he hasn't really done anything of note since he left the Red Sox.

Ok with the Blue Jays?! He achieved the pitching Triple Crown both years with the Blue Jays as well as two Cy Youngs, posting great numbers despite the Blue Jays being only a .500 ballclup during those two years. Look at what he did in those seasons:

1997: 2.05 ERA, 21-7, 292 K, 264 IP, 226 ERA+
1998: 2.65 ERA, 20-6, 271 K, 235 IP, 176 ERA+

Clemens' 1997 campaign deserves mention as one of the finest seasons ever by a pitcher, IMO.

I will admit that he was something of a disappointment during his tenure with the Yankees, but those years did come when he was ages 36-40, and at the time looked like it was his decline phase. As far as decline phases go, it wasn't too shabby and he did capture a Cy Young with the Yankees in 2001 and then another with the Astros in 2004 at age 41!!!

[RuthMayBond]

I just try to pretend the Astros years never happened. They came in the NL anyway, so it didn't really count.

Seems like the league counted in 2001 & 2003

[SABR Matt]

Nice.

EH's total lack of knowledge about what goes on the NL and/or most other teams besides the Yankees is always amusing.

[ElHalo]

Nice.

EH's total lack of knowledge about what goes on the NL and/or most other teams besides the Yankees is always amusing.

Big fan of baseball history, so excepting the 70's and 80's (when I was too young to pay attention, and after all the books I learned baseball from had been published), I've got a nice working knowledge of what went on. As I grew older, I learned that in baseball, as in life, no place but New York and Boston matter in any way ever. So I play to my strengths (i.e., caring about places that don't have cows).

[SABR Matt]

That's one of the most arrogant, insulting, and idiotic things you've ever said, EH.

Maybe when you get a grown up brain, you'll discover that people who don't live in your urban paradise matter and perhaps, just perhaps, your ugly stereotypes will start to vanish.

[ElHalo]

That's one of the most arrogant, insulting, and idiotic things you've ever said, EH.

Maybe when you get a grown up brain, you'll discover that people who don't live in your urban paradise matter and perhaps, just perhaps, your ugly stereotypes will start to vanish.

I've lived all over the country; spent a good chunk of years in my childhood growing up in the Midwest (hence my Detroit Piston / Red Wing / Lion fandom). I'm spending a week in LA next month because it's nice to get away sometimes. I went to college in the most boondock of boondock places in upstate New York (forty five minute drive to the nearest highway; hour and a half to the nearest city, other than the one the school was in, with more than a thousand people). I spent significant chunks of my childhood living in Virginia, Ohlahoma, California, Delaware, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Florida, and New Jersey. I see absolutely no need to live anywhere but the New York area. It's not insulting, just a truism. I honestly, truly believe that there's no point in being anywhere else. Just my opinion.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

I've lived all over the country; spent a good chunk of years in my childhood growing up in the Midwest (hence my Detroit Piston / Red Wing / Lion fandom). I'm spending a week in LA next month because it's nice to get away sometimes. I went to college in the most boondock of boondock places in upstate New York (forty five minute drive to the nearest highway; hour and a half to the nearest city, other than the one the school was in, with more than a thousand people). I spent significant chunks of my childhood living in Virginia, Ohlahoma, California, Delaware, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Florida, and New Jersey. I see absolutely no need to live anywhere but the New York area. It's not insulting, just a truism. I honestly, truly believe that there's no point in being anywhere else. Just my opinion.

ElHalo,

Does it ever occur to you that your sardonic humor can be mistaken for a pompous and arrogance attitude? You sure name lots of places as "significant" amount of time spent living there. What's so lame is that you are not even from New York, just a wannabe "New Yorker". Your words are insulting when you know they will cause tension with other BBF members but I suspect you do to gain attention.

[SABR Matt]

Hate to break it to you bucko, but I've lived in 9 different states for at least a year, set foot in 35 of the 50 states, driven across coutnry twice, been to NYC on 4 seperate occasions (not counting the dozens of times I've passed through the unbearable traffic of NYC on my to another more appealing locale), seen 11 different Broadway and near-broadway shows ON BROADWAY (and three others outside of NYC), and have come to the conclusion that I'll take just about any location before I take New York.

[Yankwood]

Big fan of baseball history, so excepting the 70's and 80's (when I was too young to pay attention, and after all the books I learned baseball from had been published), I've got a nice working knowledge of what went on. As I grew older, I learned that in baseball, as in life, no place but New York and Boston matter in any way ever. So I play to my strengths (i.e., caring about places that don't have cows).

Let's face it. Anything west of Manhattan is campin' out.

[SABR Matt]

Let's face it. Anything west of Manhattan is campin' out.

Yeah.

If by camping out you mean enjoying air conditioned comfort, eating the same food you do, watching the same televsion, living the same life except without the constant noise pollution, air pollution, city traffic, frantic paced mania of tight scheduling...

We're really roughing it out here in the boonies.

This is why I hate New Yorkers.

[Yankwood]

Yeah.

If by camping out you mean enjoying air conditioned comfort, eating the same food you do, watching the same televsion, living the same life except without the constant noise pollution, air pollution, city traffic, frantic paced mania of tight scheduling...

We're really roughing it out here in the boonies.

This is why I hate New Yorkers.

You are certainly full of vitriol.

[DoubleX]

This is why I hate New Yorkers.

Nice to know that you can stoop to EH's level also and turn away from the road less traveled by the bigger man...

I think everyone needs to chill out and get back to baseball.

[SABR Matt]

Oh relax...my best friends all live in NY...LOL

I just don't get along too well with "New Yorkers"...the "I'm from NY and the rest of the world is a bunch of backwater hicks who don't matter" crowd that epitomize the NYC attitude.

[DoubleX]

Oh relax...my best friends all live in NY...LOL

I just don't get along too well with "New Yorkers"...the "I'm from NY and the rest of the world is a bunch of backwater hicks who don't matter" crowd that epitomize the NYC attitude.

That might be, but this New Yorker better respects the bigger person rather than the person that allows him/herself to be goaded by the obviously idiotic and ignorant comment of another. EH's comments were beyond ridiculous; they didn't dignify a response, let alone stooping to his level. Please don't judge all of us New Yorkers based on comments like EH's; I too am offended and would happily disavow everything he said.

[SABR Matt]

Noted XX.

My apologies if I insulted you.

[DoubleX]

Noted XX.

My apologies if I insulted you.

Thank you.

Now back to baseball.

[64Cards]

Mooooo....I like cows, especially sliced into thick cuts and cooked on my grill.

[digglahhh]

New York is a mixed bag. Certainly it is a media and cultural mecca, but to what ends? What does our media and culture glorify and perpetuate? Certainly I'm not proud to be a resident of a city that's home to Madison Avenue, Wall Street and 50 Cent. But I am proud to be a resident of a city that was the home of the Stonewall, and the birthplace of the beat generation, graffiti and KRSONE.

When it comes to baseball it is the same. I'm proud to live in a town that appreciates baseball and supports its teams. I'm proud to live in a city that has both an AL and NL team and has so much baseball history within it. But I'm not proud that I take the train to work everyday with people who think Derek Jeter is the greatest SS of all time. I'm not proud that NY fans boo Alex Rodriguez and I'm not proud of the fact that the Mets were dubbed "The Worst Team that Money Could Buy."

[ElHalo]

ElHalo,

Does it ever occur to you that your sardonic humor can be mistaken for a pompous and arrogance attitude?

No, not really. If I'm making outlandish claims like I invented the question mark, I can't imagine that anyone in their right mind would take it too seriously. If I try to push it over the top to a point where nobody could ever mistake it for seriousness, and they just decide to wilfully defy logic and take it seriously, well, that's not really my problem. My apologies if it's taken that way, but people really need to be more clever than that when confronted with something that's so outlandish that a literal interpretation would create an absurdism. We're all trying to have fun here, of course, but it's not really my job to dumb down my language to placate those whose psyche is so rigidly structured as to preclude the possibility of understanding layered meanings in conversation, or comprehending the fact that the same words said by the same person can have dozens of different meanings given the proper context; computer programs aren't to be expected to pick up on subtlety and nuance, but I'd expect more from actual human beings.

If a baseball fan can be expected to understand that when a Red Sox fan screams out "Yankees suck!," he isn't meaning to literally state that members of the New York Yankee franchise engage in oral copulation with other male individuals, they should just as well be able to understand that when a New Yorker says that nothing west of the Hudson matters, they don't literally mean that.

You sure name lots of places as "significant" amount of time spent living there. What's so lame is that you are not even from New York, just a wannabe "New Yorker".

I'm 25 years old, and I've spent 15 of those in New York. I'm not a New Yorker if you define "New Yorker" as strictly a city person, but I was born here, and have spent four years living in Manhattan, three upstate, and eight on Long Island, so if I'm not a New Yorker I really don't know what I am.

Your words are insulting when you know they will cause tension with other BBF members but I suspect you do to gain attention.

Absolutely not. I've never once in my life set out to cause tension with anyone... and I've really never understood the idea of doing things to "just get attention." That might be a motivation when you're five years old and nobody cares enough to make a mental note of the fact of your existance, but as an adult who (as most do) has to cram 30 hours of work in a 24 hour day, has a constant stream of people outside their office all day long waiting to speak to you, has an active social life and gets calls from clients at one thirty in the morning on Friday nights (thanks for that one, buddy), the idea of doing something "just to get attention" is beyond ludicrous. Solitude is a blessed enough gift as it is, fleeting though it might be, and it's unfathomable why one would pierce that veil for the mere sake of doing so.

[Sultan_1895-1948]

Think about this, if Ruth would have retired in 1926 would he have made the hall of fame

the answer is yes

After '24 and he would have made the hall considering what he'd done.


All you guys arguing about places to live and teams crack me up. Be thankful you have home-teams to even discuss.

[RuthMayBond]

After '24 and he would have made the hall considering what he'd done.

You should be starting your Pujols HOF campaign any day

[Sultan_1895-1948]

You should be starting your Pujols HOF campaign any day

lol, funny.

Well, if for nothing else, than I think he would have not only received the honor for revolutionizing the game, but based on what people think he would have done. He would be two years removed from the disaster of '22. At that point he proved the '23 reform wasn't just a fluke. Of course it might have helped his cause if he had an accidental death or something (surprised he didn't) but eventually I think he would have got in. It seemed to be commonly accepted by '24 that he was unquestionably the greatest player of the day and one of the greatest of all-time. Wagner didn't prefer the new style of game Babe introduced, but in '24 he named Ruth as an "extra" outfielder on his all-time team. That's saying quite a bit.

*You have to remember that back then all the power number standards hadn't been formed yet. What he did was out of this world. I don't think they would have had a choice but to elect him.

His '14-'24 totals....

3564 AB (because of 881 BB and early pitching)
1251 H (51 % for xtra bases)
284 HR
83 triples
270 doubles
884 RBI
.351 AVG

Pitching accomplishments
WS accomplishments
All-Time HR king in '21
114 OF assists in 873 games
most feared hitter ever seen

If he made it at 29 like that, no doubt by today's standards he would end up on Chris' list (right next to Schalky) of the all-time most undeserving HOFers.

now...back to Koufax

[brett]

I'm sorry, but the answer is NO. If Ruth had retired after '26 no one would have cared enough to even create a baseball hall of fame.

I think we're looking at Koufax's career the wrong way

we see his seasons as great at the end, so we're comparing him to some pretty average players (in the grand scheme of things)

Look at when he played and the numbers he put up and what he did puts him with the greats.

Think about this, if Ruth would have retired in 1926 would he have made the hall of fame

the answer is yes

[ElHalo]

You should be starting your Pujols HOF campaign any day

If Pujols dies in a plane crash tomorrow, what do you think the odds are that the Hall waives the ten year rule and puts him in immediately? 90%? 95%?

[RuthMayBond]

If Pujols dies in a plane crash tomorrow, what do you think the odds are that the Hall waives the ten year rule and puts him in immediately? 90%? 95%?

If they are, then I gotta think about continuing my HOF collection, AND start pushing for other candidates