The Baseball 100

by Joe Posnanski

WAR, meaning that when you added up his hitting, his fielding, and his baserunning, he was worth about 11 wins more than a replacement player, who would be someone you might find in the minor leagues.

Uniqueness is, by definition, the highest bar imaginable in baseball. Ichiro Suzuki was unique.

When the first season was done, Ichiro had done exactly what he did in Japan. He led the league in hitting at .350. He also led the league in hits and stolen bases. He won his first Gold Glove. He became the second player in baseball history voted Rookie of the Year and MVP in the same season. And he led the Seattle Mariners to a 116-win season, tied with the 1906 Cubs for the greatest regular season in baseball history.

He led the league in singles 10 years in a row. Two players in the history of the game have had 200 singles in a season. One is Ichiro Suzuki in 2004 (when he had an almost unbelievable 225 singles). The other is Ichiro Suzuki in 2007.

And at the end of his tour, Ichiro quietly wrote the largest check any player has ever written to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

“I waited for the pitch that allowed me to hit the ball where I wanted to hit it.”

Gwynn faced the great Greg Maddux 107 times in his career. He never struck out. Not once. This is so mind-blowing, it’s hard to even put it into words.

I tried not to guess I did not anticipate I trusted my eyes

“You gotta be a man to play this game for a living,” Campanella famously said. “But you gotta have a lot of little boy in you, too.”

You might remember when he joyfully retweeted a T-shirt about lynching journalists and commented, “OK, so much awesome here…”

“Though my body feels like an old man now,” he told the crowd that day he was inducted in Cooperstown, “I will always be a kid at heart.”

There was honor to be found in pushing themselves beyond their physical limits and dishonor in doing less than their best.

“James ‘Cool Papa’ Bell was so fast that…” He was so fast that he could turn out the light and be under the covers before the room got dark. He was so fast that he could hit a line drive up the middle and beat the ball to second base.

The stories and legends and myths are what have lasted. He once dropped a bunt down the third-base line and the pitcher tagged him out sliding into third… he scored from first on a sacrifice bunt… he stole 175 bases in a single season… he once stole two bases on one pitch… “One time he hit a line drive right past my ear,” Satchel Paige said. “I turned around and saw the ball hit his ass sliding into second base.”

As Uecker famously said, the proper way to catch a knuckleball is to wait for it to stop rolling and then pick it up.

Phil Niekro died a few months after I wrote this, and as I think about that kind man I think of the story he loved most, the story of the scout who came to the family home in Lansing and offered Phil Niekro III the chance to play baseball for a $500 signing bonus. “I’m sorry,” Phil’s father said. “I work in the coal mines. We just don’t have that kind of money.”

speculation. Every baseball fan around my age, it seems, has a story about some wild-goose chase baseball card investment they made.

“Trying to hit him,” Willie Stargell said, “was like trying to drink coffee with a fork.”

“The people I feel sorry for,” he often said, “were the ones who didn’t see us play.” This was Buck O’Neil’s great gift. He was a miracle. He let go of the bitterness.

Perry was a rogue. Bonds was a villain. Perry is Han Solo. Clemens is Darth Vader. Yes, of course, it’s a different kind of cheating—but, more, it’s a matter of style.

Third, the Brewers chose Robin Yount, a high school shortstop. And with the fourth pick, the Padres chose Dave Winfield, an all-world college pitcher and outfielder and athlete at the University of Minnesota. I don’t have any idea how Winfield dropped to fourth in that draft, considering his extraordinary athletic talent. He was also drafted by the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA draft and by the Minnesota Vikings in the NFL draft. Fun fact: In the NFL draft, just like in MLB, Winfield was taken just a few picks after Stearns.

Yount and Winfield became the only pair of future Hall of Famers ever taken back-to-back in the first round of the MLB draft.

Satchel Paige saying “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”

“It’s a beautiful day for a ball game. Let’s play two.” That’s Ernie Banks.

“If you lose your health and your money, you can regain those,” Bill Feller told his son in real life. “But if you lose your integrity, it is gone forever.”

Here’s a trivia question to try on your friends: Name the two players who struck out their age in a major-league game: The first is Feller, a 17-year-old striking out 17. The other was Kerry Wood, who at age 20 struck out 20.

Feller had 107 wins and 1,233 strikeouts through his age-22 season, and both of those are modern records that will likely never be broken.

My favorite Chipper Jones stat is the one I think best describes their relationship: He is the only switch-hitter in baseball history with a .300 batting average from both sides of the plate.

“Trying to throw a fastball past him is like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.”

Legend plays a role—it has to play a role. Cool Papa Bell was so fast that he hit a line drive to center and was hit by the ball as he slid into second. Josh Gibson hit a ball so high and far in Pittsburgh that it did not come down until the next day, when his team was in Philadelphia. Satchel Paige had a catcher who kept a raw steak under his glove to cushion the blow, and by the fifth inning, it had turned into hamburger. Sam “the Jet” Jethroe was faster than the word of God. And trying to throw a fastball by Buck Leonard was like trying to sneak the sunrise past a rooster.

“You could put a fastball in a shotgun,” fellow Negro Leaguer Dave Barnhill said of Leonard, “and you couldn’t shoot it by him.”

Leonard would always say that in his younger days, he never really thought about the major leagues. “It does no good,” he said, “to mourn for what you can’t have.”

“The” + “Where they came from” + “Fun noun, usually with the same first letter.” Mickey Mantle was “the Commerce Comet.” Cap Anson was “the Marshalltown Infant.” Amos Rusie was “the Hoosier Thunderbolt.” Bob Feller was “the Heater from Van Meter.” Frankie Frisch was “the Fordham Flash.” Spec Shea was “the Naugatuck Nugget.”

Mookie Betts is “the Nashville Nighthawk.” Cody Bellinger is “the Scottsdale Smasher.” Anthony Rendon is “the Houston Hammer.” Justin Verlander is “the Goochland Gun.” Kirby Yates is “the Hawaiian Punch.”

Wait for your pitch and then hit it.

“Hitting is timing,” Spahn said, “and pitching is upsetting timing.”

“Rod Carew told me once that for those who know you, no explanation is necessary,” Boggs said. “And for those who don’t, none is possible.”

Ripken motto: Hit the cutoff man.

“Bad balls? Sure, why not? I got to hit at something. They don’t throw me any good ones.” —Yogi Berra, April 19, 1947

“You can’t think and hit at the same time.”

“Drinking makes people ugly. I’m ugly enough to start with.” —Yogi Berra, December 27, 1953

“If you can’t imitate him, don’t copy him.”

“We may be lost but we’re making good time.” “It’s so crowded nobody goes there anymore.” “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” “Ninety percent of baseball is half mental.” “Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.”

Jimmy Piersall: “If you give the pitchers a sign to throw at me, I can bash your head in with this bat and plead temporary insanity.” Berra: “We don’t throw at no .200 hitters.” —Spring training exchange, March 1957

“I never thought we were really out of it. You’re not out of it until it’s mathematical.” —Yogi Berra, September 21, 1973

“You’re not out of it until it’s mathematical.”

“Public figures who die young always have a special glow, from Marilyn Monroe to JFK,”

“he sends lessons in geometry up to the batter with a request for solution.”

Young has the record with 511 wins and that record will never be broken. He also has the record for most losses (315), starts (815), and innings (7,356), and he faced almost 30,000 batters, and none of those records will ever be broken, either. He faced four thousand more batters than any pitcher in baseball history—that’s roughly four seasons’ worth in today’s game.

“Talent is just being where you’re supposed to be and doing what you’re supposed to do.”