How Memory Works / Underrated Great Players of Baseball

There’s some things to ponder here regarding coaching and our recollection of past events or our evaluation of athletes…I wrote this because it’s the start of baseball, but volleyball is always nearby….

There is something about how memory works that fascinates me.  No matter what, in terms of sports or heroes in general, the ones who are there while we are kids–those are the ones we hold up as the greatest ever.  You can see this in the hero-worship of the 1950s Yankees, Pete Rose and Jim Brown from the 1960s, Reggie Jackson and Walter Payton for the 70s, etc.   I’m not innocent in this.  I think Payton’s the best-ever as a running back and I hold Ryne Sandberg up as the ideal secondbaseman–even though rationally, I know there are several better than him in the Hall of Fame.

And then time passes.  Old players from the 1930s or 1940s aren’t remembered any more by people–there aren’t a lot of fans around from those decades.  No one argues that Red Grange or Don Hutson are the greatest ever in football (though with Hutson–they should).  Of old baseball players, the only ones remembered are the colorful ones really, the ones who had a moment of something outrageous or that stuck in the media–the 1908 Cubs (kept famous because of the century streak without championships), the Black Sox, Murderer’s Row, the Gashouse Gang, etc.  We’ve forgotten many who were great–they no longer exist in baseball fans’ memories (do you know Arky Vaughan for instance?), except for the fanatics or the researchers.  Ask most fans of volleyball about great players–they’ll name (at most) a dozen.  Many who dominated the sport, especially before Title IX, etc, are forgotten almost entirely.

That’s the nature of things–I get that, except…there are three in the top-20 (two are top 10 for sure) of all-time baseball players who are dreadfully underestimated.One died recentlywhile the other is, in my opinion, the greatest baseball player ever–yet no one ever mentions him any more.

First–Frank Robinson.  He’s the one who is ‘only’ top 20.  He was Rookie of the Year in 1956 then played through 1976, never having a season below average in terms of offensive productivity.  He was an MVP in the National League and then the American MVP to boot (the only player to win it in both leagues).   Even though his prime was through the ‘deadball’ 1960s, he still finished his career at nearly .300 (.294) and hit 528 doubles (17th all-time when he retired) and 586 home runs (4th all-time).  He put up good numbers defensively, too.  Just as important, those 1960s years were played in Cincinnati and Baltimore, cities right near the Mason-Dixon Line and close to the dividing line for opinion regarding equal rights; it was not easy being a black athlete then.  It’s just hard for someone without knowing the changes that dropped him now to 44th in doubles or 10th in home runs–the change in parks, the PED issue.

Second–Willie Mays.  He played from 1951 to 1972 with a year lost for military service.  He was Rookie of the Year and an all-star ever year from his return from the Army until he retired.  He, too, played through the dead 1960s, but Mays was able to finish with 3,263 hits (7th when he retired), 523 doubles (4th all-time when he retired, passed by Robinson), 660 home runs (2nd all-time), and he finished his career hitting .302.  Defensively, highlights remain, but accurate defensive metrics didn’t really exist.  It should say something though that he was still playing centerfield at age 42–and that all of his offensive numbers were put up playing that position.  Yet if you ask young fans–you don’t hear him mentioned as a great.  Mays was also black and played through the civil rights strife, though he was lucky to play in New York; though he faced issues, they weren’t like Robinson or the greatest baseball player faced as a black man in the South.

That’s Hank Aaron.  Aaron never had some sort of outrageous season with 60 home runs, he never flirted with .400.  Worse for his reputation, he played in Milwaukee and Atlanta, far from the bright lights of national media–until he came close to the holiest of baseball records–Babe Ruth’s 714 home runs.  That was miserable for him–a black man chasing a white man’s record while playing in the South, just after the Civil Rights era.  He got death threats, he needed extra security and he still did it.  Remember–Aaron’s forgotten now…unmentioned next to Bonds, Griffey, Rodriguez, etc.  Yikes–the guy finished with an MVP, 25 all-star appearances, 3 Gold Gloves (great, but no Willie Mays), a .305 average (again, including the deadball ’60s).

He had 2,174 runs (2nd when he retired), 624 doubles (6th when he retired), 755 home runs (the all-time leader).  He’s still the all-time leader in runs batted in and oh yeah, by the way, he had 3,771 hits–2nd when he retired and still 3rd today (4th if we count Ichiro’s Japanese stats).  The guy even finished in the top-10 for stolen bases EIGHT times.

There ya go.  I guess maybe I shouldn’t say under-rated.  Perhaps the better word is under-appreciated.  These are legends.  Each generation has its favorites, but we do a disservice to these three when we say that what has come since is better.  It isn’t.