Clint (Chicago): I maintain to my buddies that what we've seen the last two years from Josh Hamilton (not just the drugs, but never playing above A-ball and very little playing time the prior few years) and Rick Ankiel (conversion to hitter) are probably the two most amazing stories I've seen in my baseball-fan lifetime (I'm 33). Where would you put them in the history of the game?
Steven Goldman: I think you're absolutely right - this came up in the last chat some - when F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives he was full of it. The problem, Scott, is that there are no second acts if you can't get your head out of the bottle. Well, he was right in the sense that most people don't get their heads out of the bottle. They don't get their heads out of whatever problem has crippled them. Hamilton and Ankiel did, and that's always something admirable in any field. It's the same reason that I admire Casey Stengel so much - because he had spent 25 years being dismissed as a kook and an idiot and yet he kept coming back. There are many more Hack Wilsons in the history of the game than there are Hamiltons. Ankiel's problems were different, not substance related, but there are only so many Ankiel/Lefty O'Doul (Johnny Cooney?) -type stories to go around.
---------------------------------------------------
Steve (St. Louis): Brett (Weeble Wobble) Wallace?
Steven Goldman: I still like "The Walrus" for him.
-----------------------------------------------------
Goldeye99 (Olympic Stadium): Coming up on 3 hrs chat, you're the man! not Stan Lee! You have to mention one of the best... Mike "the human rain delay" Hargrove. I also remember Ruben "the village idiot" Sierra, but I'm not sure if that was a one time name or not!
Steven Goldman: I think that was Tony LaRussa.
Baseball Propsectus
No comments:
Post a Comment