linkGrowing up an AF brat with minimal geographic ties to sports (although I came to be a Boston fan thanks to Mom being a Massachusetts gal) and few telecom outlets when overseas with my Dad in the 1960s, growing up I read a lot about sports, especially baseball. Lou Gehrig was my all-time favorite baseball player, followed by Mick and Roger and (pick a name off the 1961 Yankees... okay, Bobby Richardson) and Joltin' Joe and Bill Dickey and Roy Campanella and Rogers Hornsby and Jimmie Foxx and Ted Williams and Dewey Evans and Carlton Fisk and George (No C. as in curve ball) Scott and Rico Petrocelli and Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Conigliaro and Al Kaline and Norm Cash and Bob Gibson and Stan (The Man) Musial and Humboldt KS' own Walter (Big Train) Johnson and Honus Wagner and Sandy Koufax and Roberto Clemente and Paul (Big Poison) and Lloyd (Li'l Poison) Waner and ... you get the picture.
But it was always Lou -- MLB's
All-Century Team Starting 1st Baseman (and top vote getter!) -- at the top of the list. You have to wonder what he would have done to the record books if he had been able to play longer than he did. His stats line from his last full season (1938) as ALS was just starting to destroy him at age 35 is one any major leaguer today would be proud to have:
G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+ TB
157 689 576 115 170 32 6 29 114 6 1 107 75 .295* .410 .523 .932 132 301
*one of only two occasions in his career where he did not hit at least .300; career BA .340
"So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late" -- Bob DylanTravel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. - Mark Twain, "Innocents Abroad""Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum... Still it's a real good bet the best is yet to come." song sung by Sheahon Zenger, 2011-12-09.
