[6] WOW!!! .230! Two-fucking-thirty!

Was that the year Yaz won with .305?

by the way, i spent a lot of time time watching the Auburn yankees in those days and it was fun seeing Phil Linz, Joe Pepitone, Rollie Sheldon and the likes play ball.

I refer to that time as “The CBS Debacle”…

Best I’m gonna get from you, Bruce? Sigh. Guess I’ll have to live with it. Make it a t-shirt: “Better Than Mediocre”.

HCE

(But yes, indeed, the name I chose here does reflect the way in which Hoss became the poster-boy for a mediocre series of Yankee teams, a sequence that didn’t end till George S showed up as owner. The key, really, is that on a GOOD team, some decent-but-limited talents could have been sheltered – think Bucky Dent – but on those Yankees, such talents as Ol’ Hoss were overexposed.)

Batting average is a very limited stat. For example, Cater’s career ISO D is .040. So if he didn’t get a hit, he didn’t get on base.

His career OPS+ is 101.His career SLG is .377. That’s not the type of hitter that good teams have at 1B.

In contrast, in 1968, Yazstremski’s OPS+ was 170, and his ISO D was .125.

Again, AVG doesn’t reveal sufficient information about a player to be very useful.

Granted, 1970 was a decent season, but from 1965-1975, it was the only time they won over 90 games. That’s what I grew up watching.

In my first visit to the Stadium, Clarke hit a game-tying homer in the 8th against the White Sox’ Tommy John. So I had a soft spot for Hoss for the remainder of his career.

(edit: the leaguewide slugging pct. in 1968 was .339, and the league batting avg. was .230)

And Danny Cater was a decent player. In 1968, Yaz won the batting title with a .301 BA. and Cater was 2nd, with a .290 BA. He was not a cleanup batter, although he batted cleanup for us. However, when we had a 2,3,4,5 of Munson, Murcer, Cater and White, we actually has a decent team.

In 1969, we won 80 games. We got Cater in 1970, and won 93 games.

Which reminds me:

I can recall listening to a sports radio talk show as a kid. Lee MacPhail was being interviewed.

A caller said (paraphrasing): “Lee, right now, your starting infield for next season will be Danny Cater at 1B, Horace Clarke at 2B, Gene Michael at SS, and Jerry Kenny at 3B.”

MacPhail said: “Yes, I think that’s right.”

The caller replied: “That stinks.”

The caller, although impolitic, was spot on. But having lived through that period of Yankee history, I have never taken subsequent Yankee championships for granted because I can remember what it was like when the team was awful.

In those days, few teams got any offense from SS or 2nd base. There were worse players. And while Hoss’s career OPS+ was 83, we had a SS, that while he had very good hands, posted a career OPS+ of 67, and only broke the .600 OPS barrier twice in his career. What was his name again?

And correct… RF and 3rd base were black holes for years.

1991 wasn’t a very good year for Yankee 3rd basemen either. “Eight third basemen combined to hit .225 with 38 runs batted in and 37 errors for the Yankees last season.”

Hoss was a likable oddball.
And his defennse at 2nd was better then Roy’s!

http://tinyurl.com/crrksy

Roy White’s new book, “Then Roy Said to Mickey . . . ” (written with Darrell Berger) focuses in part on the Yankees’ 1965-75 drought, which he experienced firsthand.

Does he think the Yankees players from 1965-75 tend to be dismissed unfairly?

“We had some very good players,” he said. “Bobby Murcer came up then. Thurman Munson actually joined us in those years. We had Bill Robinson.

“Mel Stottlemyre was a tremendous pitcher who is very underrated. You talk about guys breaking bats; Mel used to break two or three every game he pitched with the sinker he threw.

“And Horace Clarke was a good ballplayer. He has the stigma of being associated with bad teams but he was a good baseball player. One year him and Stick [Michael] led the majors in double plays. That’s no easy feat.”