Daily Archives: January 4, 2009

Day two of the NFL playoffs this afternoon.  I enjoyed both games yesterday.  Tough guys, football players, huh?

Well, here’s a real tough guy for you, one of the hardest men ever to grace the silver screen. From a Johnny Carson interview on The Tonight Show:

Carson: Lee, I’ll bet a lot of people are unaware that you were a Marine in the initial landing at Iwo Jima and that during the course of that action, you earned the Navy Cross and were severely wounded.

Marvin: Yeah, yeah … I got shot square in the ass and they gave me the Cross for securing a hot spot about halfway up Mount Suribachi. The bad thing about getting shot up on a mountain is guys getting shot hauling you down. But Johnny, at Iwo, I served under the bravest man I ever knew. We both got the Cross the same day, but what he did for his Cross made mine look cheap in comparison. The dumb bastard actually stood up on Red Beach and directed his troops to move forward and get the hell off the beach. That Sergeant and I have been life long friends.When they brought me off Suribachi we passed him and he lit a smoke and passed it to me lying on my belly on the litter. “Where’d they get you Lee?” he asked. “Well Bob, they shot me in the ass and if you make it home before me, tell Mom to sell the outhouse. Johnny, I’m not lying, Sergeant Keeshan was the bravest man I ever knew!” You now know him as Bob Keeshan. You and the world know him as “Captain Kangaroo”.”

(more…)

Here’s Joe Posnanski from his latest column about the Hall of Fame:

One knock you hear all the time about certain Hall of Fame candidates is that they were just good players who assembled impressive career numbers simply by sticking around for a long time. I have always thought that undersells longevity, the ability to stay healthy, the ability to grow old gracefully, which is probably the most underrated talent in the business.

…Baseball is an unforgiving game — you can’t live off your name for very long. You have to perform or you will be discarded, and those players who perform long enough to put up the huge numbers, well, while most people think they are overrated, I tend to believe the opposite is probably true — they are probably underrated, under-appreciated for being successful after their youth has faded, and their bodies ache, and their stuff has gone, and their bats have slowed.

If there is one thing that I think we as fans generally overlook is how difficult it is to play the game, and play it well, once you get older.  Jamie Moyer, are you kidding me?  This guy is a marvel.  More than ever, we seem geared to asking, What have you done for me lately? And each slump is greeting with impatient proclamations of, That’s it, he’s Done.

Pos mentions a few great players who were ineffective by their early-to-mid Thirties: Foxx, Koufax, Mantle, Drysdale, Sandburg. Makes you wonder what Jeter’s career will look like from here on out, Alex Rodriguez too for that matter.  It ain’t easy growing old, no matter how great you once were.  Will any team sign Frank Thomas next year? What about Ken Griffey, Jr? Mike Piazza went quietly into the night and he was one of the great hitters of our time.

Once again, reading this story reinforces my appreciation for Mariano Rivera’s brilliant career. Man, are we ever lucky. It won’t last. And as is the case with most great players, it probably won’t end gracefully.