25/09/2009
As a kid, I really liked Ozzie Smith. I could grasp a back flip better than the infield fly rule, batting averages or the strike zone. The explanation is simple… I was an effing kid.
Hall of fame voters should have more sense than to be overwhelmed by back flips.
Ozzie was an exceptional fielder — 13 gold gloves is remarkable — but considering how fielding statistics were kept and reported for the vast majority of Ozzie’s carreer — I’d say he won two or three of those on the backflip/name recognition ballot.
Again, with fielding stats being what they were back then, let’s just agree that he’s an icon to his city and team and among the best fielding short stops of his generation with a fielding percentage of .978 over 19 seasons.
Alan Staurt Trammell’s fielding percentage over 20 seasons was .977, but he only won 4 gold gloves.
Of course short stops have to hit too.
AT had 2460 hits — the Wiz 2365 hits, which you can probably account for in the one year difference in career length. Of course there are plenty of other batting statistics…
Alan
BA OBP SLG OPS+ RBI
.285 .352 .415 110 1003
Ozzie
BA OBP SLG OPS+ RBI
.262 .337 .352 87 793
This argument has been made lots of times, by people who know a lot more about baseball than me and I’m not suggesting that Ozzie shouldn’t be in the HoF… but come on now Baseball… WTF?
The Tiger’s magic number is 8.
Sorry for the interruption… please return to your regularly scheduled browsing.
In honor of the Cardinals’ current magic number — ONE — here’s video of The Wizard, Ozzie Smith, doubling off Hideo Nomo in an exhibition game back in 1992. All it’s missing is a backflip into second base.
Oh, here’s some more Ozzie fun.
Video posted at 09:44
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