A couple of readers have rightly pointed out that my case for Stan Musial as the number-three number three of all time (behind Gehrig and Fox — remember Pujols didn’t count because he is still active) was based on a bit of faulty logic. I argued that while Musial didn’t play a majority of his innings at first, he played more innings there than at any one outfield position. But there is spotty defensive data for the first several years of Musial’s career — during which time he was playing in center almost exclusively — so though we don’t know for sure, my claim is almost certainly false.

But the debate in the comments section illustrates the phenomenon that actually moved me to write the original post. Namely, certain great ballplayers who spent time at a lot of different positions over the course of their careers sometimes fall through the cracks when we’re talking about the “best ever” at position x or y. It’s not universally true: Pete Rose was the original super-utility guy who played at so many spots on the diamond we tend to just throw our hands up and talk about his hits record. But Musial in particular has always struck me as a guy who doesn’t get the credit he deserves for probably being one of the ten or so best players of the modern era, and I think that has to do with him moving around the outfield and eventually to first base.

Which goes to show you that the whole “best ever at position x” model is going to be problematic. As reader Don Lehmann pointed out in an e-mail, if Stan Musial counts as a first baseman then so does Frank Thomas — and Thomas was better:

[Musial] played 672 games at first base and batted .319 in those games. However, Frank Thomas played 969 games at first and batted .337 in those games.  Thomas also was used as a DH and batted just .275 in that role.  His DH stats are usually lumped in with his marvelous first base numbers, and he is judged unfairly as a result.  The disparity between the two sets of numbers surfaced early in Frank’s career and remains one of those baseball mysteries. 

There is a good case for putting Thomas in this conversation. As for some of the other recurring suggestions in the comments thread, some quick thoughts:

• Willie McCovey was an excellent ballpayer — a guy who hit 521 home runs when hitting 521 home runs was hard. But at the end of the day I think the case for him as up there with Gehrig and Foxx is based more on reputation than data. Obviously, I didn’t see McCovey play, but we’re talking about a .270 power hitter with basically one dimension to his game. His career OPS of .889 is almost a hundred points below Musial’s .976 mark.
• There is an entire cottage industry among baseball dorks dedicated to trying to settle once and for all whether Jeff Bagwell is great or merely very good. Bagwell did a lot of different things well and had a tremendous peak — including one of the best seasons ever in strike-shortened 1994. But I’m more in the “merely very good” camp considering his era and the fact that Houston was a very hitter-friendly ballpark in the latter half of his career. More on “bagging Bagwell” here.
• Speaking of peaks, if Mattingly could have stayed healthy and stretched his 1984-1987 peak out a few more years, his combination of offense and defense would have put him in this conversation.

I picked Butler and UConn to advance to the final, and I expected to be picking Butler to win it all tonight. But the semifinal-game performances have given me pause.

When Matt Howard picked up his fourth foul with 9:21 left in the second half of Butler’s win over VCU, the Bulldogs were up by five points and immediately went into lead-management mode. Defensively, VCU was able to key on Sheldon Mack and no one really stepped up for Butler (it looked as if coach Brad Stevens expected Shawn Vanzant to fill the breach, with mixed results). Had VCU pounded the ball into Jamie Skeen (who also dominated the defensive glass in Howard’s absence) rather than tossing up off-target three-pointers, the Rams might have pulled that game out. Butler is tough (as Clark Kellogg must have said ten times during the semifinal broadcast), but without Howard that toughness looked more mental than physical.

Husky center Charles Okwandu has four inches and 25 pounds on the 6′ 8″, 230-pound Howard. I smell foul trouble for Howard early in the second half. Butler will try to protect him by keeping him on the offensive perimeter, but UConn center/forward Alex Oriakhi (who is 6′ 9″, 240) is quick enough to mark him out there.

Plus, how can I go against fellow Bronxite Kemba Walker? 

I’ll take UConn by five.

The first weekend of the regular season is over. The Phillies, Reds, Orioles, and Rangers stand undefeated, whereas the Astros, Brewers, Rays, and Red Sox have yet to notch a victory.

Angels second baseman Howie Kendrick and three others are on track to easily surpass Barry Bonds’ single-season home-run record. Indians hurler Fausto Carmona sports a nightmarish 30.00 ERA, after allowing more earned runs in his Opening Day start than he had in his first four starts last year.

Are postseason tickets being printed inside one of the Camden Yards warehouses? Of course not. Is Terry Francona on the hot seat? Puh-leeze.

Noting that Kansas City’s first four games constitute a mere 2.4 percent of the regular season, Will McDonald of the Royals Review blog puts the figure into proper perspective:

• 2.4% of the NFL season puts you in the second quarter of the first game, nearing halftime. 
• 2.4% of the NBA season puts you in the fourth quarter of the second game, nearing the buzzer.
• 2.4% of the Masters puts you on the second hole, somewhere in the fairway.

And for good measure, he points out:

• 2.4% of a four year stint in college puts you in early October of your freshman year.

…which, coincidentally, was pretty much when I finally showed up on-time to an 8:00 am class.

Indians vs. White Sox, April 3:

Jack Curry of YES offered up a quirky Tweet yesterday pertaining to the Yankees’ injured free-agent acquisition, Pedro Feliciano:

Feliciano led the major lgs in appearances with the Mets the last 3 yrs. “He was abused,” Cashman said

Feliciano is a de facto LOOGY who had a career-high 92 appearances for the Mets last season, after pitching in 86 and 88 games in the prior two campaigns.

When asked about Cashman’s comments, Mets pitching coach Dan Warthen replied in part:

I feel badly that someone feels that way. That was part of the reason we decided to not re-sign him — because we knew we had used him 270-some times in the last three years.

Scott Proctor was unavailable for comment.

Shouldn’t this blog automatically capture everything Yankees? Start here, perhaps. (Congrats, Jeter.)

I love how VCU plays defense, John — they’re constantly flying around all over the place. But on the other side of the court, that same frenetic abandon gives their offense a loose-cannon feel, prone to stretches of ineffectiveness. I think the Butler will do it.

Speaking of bad puns, is there another college team aside from the UConn Huskies whose nickname is based on a pun? I’ll take Connetcicut, under the assumption that they force Brandon Knight to beat them by going to his left. 

I’ll also take Dan’s rotisserie team in a laugher, as long as Mark Teixeira keeps up this three-run-dinger pace.

My head says: VCU over Butler & UConn over Kentucky.

But…

I have Kentucky in my wife’s lottery-style office pool.

Also, my 13-year-old son filled out his first NCAA bracket this year. Early on–and incomprehensibly–he picked Butler to reach the championship game. When he did, I gave him a funny look. But he’s going to have the last laugh. In our 33-member Yahoo tournament group, he’s currently in third place. His dear old dad is in the middle of the pack. If I did the math right, he’ll win the whole thing if Butler beats UConn on Monday night.

Just starting an interesting read from Joe Posnanski at SI on the 32 best players in baseball. No. 32 on his list is Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira. In the course of defending the choice, Posnanski says we’re in a “golden age” of first baseman and observes that there are probably fewer elite threes in baseball history than we think:

Fans of baseball history may think first base and immediately think about Lou Gehrig. Then, maybe they will think about Jimmie Foxx. Two all-time greats. Both played a long, long time ago.

OK, now, who is third-best ever? We’re not counting active players — so who is the third-best first baseman ever? Eddie Murray? Johnny Mize? Hank Greenberg? Jeff Bagwell? Sure, it could be any of those guys, but Murray was really more consistent than dominant. Mize was great, and he missed three full years because of World War II, but did you know that Mize was not even voted into the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers*? Greenberg only got about 6,000 plate appearances in his entire career. Bagwell, well, there are many different opinions about Bagwell.

*A sad miss by the writers, I think.

A few years back, Bill James ranked Mark McGwire as the third-best first baseman ever, but McGwire’s career has lost much of its steam the last few years. Willie McCovey has a strong case. Harmon Killebrew has his case, and he remains underrated because of his deceivingly low batting average and the low-scoring era in which he played.

Point is, that while we may think of first base as a glamour position now … it hasn’t often been that way. Well, it certainly is a glamour position now with Albert Pujols, Miggy Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez, Joey Votto, Ryan Howard, Paul Konerko, Billy Butler and on and on and on.

I think that’s basically right. But when Posnanski asked who was the third best (non-active) first baseman in history, after Gehrig and Foxx, I thought immediately of a guy he never even mentions: Stan Musial. Stan the Man hit .331/.417/.559 with 475 home runs over 22 seasons.
He ranks  second all-time in career total bases (behind Hank Aaron); fourth all-time in hits (behind Rose, Cobb, and Aaron); third all-time in doubles (Speaker and Rose); and second all-time in career MVP vote share (behind Barry “asterisk” Bonds). All those bases didn’t just come from power, either. Musial was speedy, especially early in his career, amassing 177 career triples — or more than any first baseman in history save dead-ballers “Big Ed” Konetchy, “Big Dan” Brouthers, Roger Connors, and Jake “Eagle Eye” Beckley, all of whom retired before 1908.

Now I know, baseball historians will say Stan the Man was an outfielder first. But consider, while he played more innings in the outfield than at first (8972.2 versus 6215.2, respectively), he played more innings at first than in any single OF position. Consider also that over his career Musial played only 126 fewer games at first than Hank Greenberg, and Musial played three other positions! The only other knock on Musial is that he was by all accounts thoroughly average on the glove side. But first base is an offensive position. Defensive aptitude is a cherry on top. (Jimmie Foxx was a great fielder, but Gehrig was below average).

Last but not least, for those who like one number. Musial’s career OPS of .976 trails only Gehrig, Greenberg, Foxx, and McGwire among 1Bers. And all but Foxx have disadvantages: Gehrig and Greenberg had short careers; McGwire, well. . . .
 

USA Today:

The Kentucky Wildcats play Saturday in the NCAA semifinals against Connecticut and, should they win, would play again Monday night in the national championship game.

Jeff Krauss, the mayor of Bozeman, Mont., isn’t taking any chances on the possibility of missing the title game.

Krauss, a die-hard Kentucky basketball fan, has canceled a Bozeman City Commission meeting scheduled for Monday so he won’t miss the game should the Wildcats advance.

“Everybody knows Kentucky basketball fans are lunatics and I’m no exception,” Krauss said Thursday, according to the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.

It’s not just Cam Newton — NFL general managers hate all the quarterbacks this year.

In a ruling that could throw NBA marketing into chaos, the league’s logo has been whistled for carrying and forced to surrender the ball. At a hastily summoned news conference, Carey Palmer, the league’s supervisor of graphic rules enforcement, explained: “We performed a frame-by-frame 3-D forensic time-lapse reconstruction using iterative kinesiological software, and he’s, like, totally palming it, bro. The guy might as well put that ball in a tote bag.”

A furious Commissioner David Stern announced the logo’s immediate benching. “I’ve warned that logo time and time again about sloppy play,” he grumbled. “If we can’t get our own marketing insignia to follow the rules, how can we expect our players to?” For the time being, Stern has replaced the transgressive trademark with a little-known backup that shows a player trying to in-bound the ball. The commissioner was noncommittal on the logo’s long-term prospects, but sources say he is actively pursuing a trade with other sports leagues and may be willing to throw in a snappy promotional slogan, perhaps accompanied by a generic young-male-oriented publicity campaign to be named later.

The prosecutors are at the plate . . . oh! Swing and a miss:

Barry Bonds’ personal physician Arthur Ting surprised the prosecutors on Thursday and denied discussing Bonds’ steroid use with Steve Hoskins, who testified last week.

Dr. Ting so flummoxed the feds that they were unable to recover and may have given the jury all it needs to wonder if any of the allegations against the defendant come from reliable witnesses.

Ting said no when asked if he had had multiple conversations with Hoskins’, Bonds’ former business partner about the dangers of steroids and also denied every telling Hoskins that a 1999 injury resulted from steroids use.

That leaves Hoskins out there on the island of no credibility, at least that is what the defense hopes happened yesterday. Hoskins was adamant that Ting told him after surgery performed on Barry that but for juicing, the surgery wouldn’t have been necessary.

Adding insult to injury, Dr. Ting gave the jurors what they might need to decide there is reasonable doubt that the back and shoulder acne coupled with size changes to significant body parts was a direct result of steroids us.

Man, I thought the prosecution had a slam-dunk case when they introduced zits into evidence. The rest here.

USA Today:

ESPN is pulling Jalen Rose off the air after a report found the NBA basketball analyst waited almost three weeks to tell his employers about his arrest in Michigan on suspicion of drunk driving.

“Jalen has accepted full responsibility for his actions. Both parties are taking this very seriously, and as a result, we’ve agreed that he will not be on our air while he addresses this situation,” said ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz in an email to Game On!

On Thursday, ESPN’s new ombudsman at the Poynter Institute published a report blaming Rose for not informing his bosses in Bristol, Conn. about his run-in with the cops for weeks.

None of the “Uncle Toms” at Duke could be reached for comment.

There is a new go-to site for Red Sox (and, yes, Liverpool FC!) fans, particularly those who are big on statistical analysis: http://redsoxbeacon.com. Marc Normandin of Baseball Prospectus, Patrick Sullivan of Baseball Analysts, and Ryan Beale of RBeale.com offer up a regular dose of news, analysis, and useful links.

Here is an excerpt from Sullivan on this year’s club:

Bad baseball players, or at least players having awful seasons, are very much a part of good baseball teams. I think more than any GM in baseball, [Theo] Epstein tries to prepare for the worst. They may not work every season, but the Red Sox always seem to have contingency plans in place. But this year, this roster, is just an amazing collection of baseball talent from 1 to 25. Ok, maybe that’s charitable to Dennys Reyes and Matt Albers, but they’re the last two guys out of the bullpen. 1 to 23, call it.

Although very much the optimist, he cautions:

You need talent to win. But as we learned in 2010, you also need health, some luck, and you need your talent to actually perform. Maybe Crawford struggles in an environment like Boston. Maybe the caliber of play in the AL East will offset any gains we expected from getting Gonzalez out of Petco. Youk, Pedroia and Ellsbury could all go down again. You just never know.

The Red Sox play the Rangers in Arlington, Texas, at 4:05 EDT.

The Preakness Stakes has a new mascot, Kegasus. It’s half man and half beast, which is actually a pretty good description of the typical infield patron at Pimlico on Preakness Day. Pat McDonough, a state delegate from Baltimore, says he’s disgusted by the Kegasus campaign’s vulgarity, but that’s the whole point: Pimlico is quite openly courting the lout demographic, figuring that a once-a-year invasion of uncouth spendthrifts is worth a bit of tut-tutting from respectable quarters. One might expect better from the sport of kings, but even kings have been known to misbehave.

Still, Kegasus, while perhaps no match for the incomprehensible Whatizit, seems a prime candidate for membership in the Bad Sports Mascots Hall of Fame. If the Preakness folks were intent on using a keg-related mascot, they would have done better to borrow Dartmouth College’s Keggy, the best thing to come out of Dartmouth since Dinesh D’Souza (well, second-best, after former NR intern Emily Esfahani Smith). Here he is in action:

Keggy was semi-officially adopted by the college administration a few years back, three decades after Dartmouth gave up its Indians nickname for a new one (Big Green) that could not easily be anthropomorphized into something that wanders through the stands acting stupid. Dartmouth certainly has its share of frat-boy behavior, at football games and elsewhere, but as Keggy shows, the administration isn’t uptight about it. And now, with Kegasus, there’s finally a sports mascot that makes Keggy look tasteful and restrained in comparison.

Is not faring well in the home-page poll on the NCAA tournament.

Decades of basketball strategy were rendered useless today when researchers declared the numerical equivalent of a point guard to be 1.07, not 1. Standard basketball terminology has long used 1 to designate a point guard, 2 for a shooting guard, and so on up to 5 for a center. But as Shaquille Leibniz, Undistinguished Professor of Sports Mathematics at UCLA, explains: “Due to revised calculations of the speed of light, precise GPS measurement of the distance from Cleveland to Phoenix, and fluctuations in the Canadian currency exchange rate, we have determined the value of a point guard to be 1.0693, which for in-game purposes can be rounded off to 1.07. There’s still a chance that historic global-warming data, currently being collected, could alter the figure slightly up or down. But due to the momentous nature of this study, we felt it was important to get word out as quickly as possible.”

Coaches are struggling to comprehend the magnitude of the revelation. “We like to run a play where the 1 and 2 set a double screen for the 3, who circles to the elbow for a quick jump shot,” says Larry Drew, head coach of the Atlanta Hawks. “But will the play still work if the 3 is actually a 3.21? At this point, nobody knows.” Reports out of Los Angeles say Phil Jackson, head coach of the Lakers, has hired an assistant to point at a sign saying “approximately” whenever Jackson starts talking in numbers.

Other coaches, however, believe the new system may actually help avoid ambiguity. Tex Winter, formerly an assistant with the Chicago Bulls, recalls: “One night during Toni Kukoc’s first year in the league, we were trailing near the end of a game, and I told him, ‘Toni, we need you to knock down a three.’ Next thing you know, the other team’s small forward is on his butt and Toni gets called for a charge.” Kucoc’s mistake is understandable, since the small forward has always equaled 2.82 in metric units; this may explain why basketball was slower to catch on in Europe.

I see your video-clips and go all-in:

Navy Tribute Wins Sportsmanship Award 11/23/2009

Ohio State will be recognized by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics for its September 5th Armed Forces tribute during its 2009 season opener against the U.S. Naval Academy.  The University’s Department of Athletics will be honored at the 2009 AT&T National Sportsmanship Awards at the Chase Park Plaza in St. Louis on November 21st.

“We are extremely proud of the great work our student led Sportsmanship Council has done,” said Ohio State associate vice president and director of athletics, Gene Smith. ”Buckeye fans continue to demonstrate great sportsmanship at home and on the road. We are grateful for this honorable award.”

Mike Penner, assistant athletics director for event management at Ohio State, will receive the honor on behalf of the department of athletics.  Penner helped direct the athletics staff in paying tribute to all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. The department also will be acknowledged for its efforts leading up to the Navy game in helping to spread the message of sportsmanship and welcome the Midshipmen into Ohio Stadium.

When Navy came out of the tunnel, an opening day record crowd of 105,092 gave a standing ovation.  Then both teams lined up in the south endzone and each Buckeye shook hands with each Midshipmen.  As Coach Tressel progressed through the line, he looked every Midshipmen in the eyes and thanked them with genuine respect.  Then, in a rare, beautiful moment, the teams rushed the field together at the same time to raucous applause.

Before kickoff, a special, armed-forces-themed flyover wowed the crowd.  The Fighting Bengals of VMFA (AW) 224 stationed out of MCAS Beaufort in Beaufort, South Carolina, kicked things off in style.  During the break after the first quarter the Ohio National Guard was honored in the south endzone to, of course, a standing ovation.

At halftime, The Best Damn Band in the Land gave a tribute performance to the U.S. Naval Academy.  The Navy Fanfare was first, followed by Stars and Stripes Forever, the Navy Hymn, and finally, Anchors Away.  In a rare halftime edition of Script Ohio, former Ohio senator and U.S. Navy pilot John Glenn dotted the “I” with the OSU alumni band.

The rest here.

ESPN:

Warren Moon, the first African-American quarterback to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, told CBSSports.com that he believes some of the criticism of Auburn quarterback Cam Newton is based in racism.

“A lot of the criticism he’s receiving is unfortunate and racially based,” Moon, who is Newton’s adviser, told the website. “I thought we were all past this. I don’t see other quarterbacks in the draft being criticized by the media or fans about their smile or called a phony. He’s being held to different standards from white quarterbacks. I thought we were past all this stuff about African-American quarterbacks, but I guess we’re not.

“Of course there is racism in every walk of society. We’ve made a lot of progress in this country. But racism is still there. I just thought in the sports arena we were beyond it. I think the way Cam is being treated shows we’re not.”

No, it doesn’t. Quarterbacks make a lot of money and ALL QBs are subject to intense criticism, especially if a team is going to use a high first-round pick on them. For example, here’s a piece on the selection of white QB Tim Tebow in the 2010 NFL Draft:

All the critics and analysts said it would never happen, but Florida quarterback Tim Tebow has defied the odds again.

The former Heisman Trophy winner was selected No. 25 by the Denver Brocons, who traded with the Baltimore Ravens to get Tebow.

He was the second overall quarterback selected in the draft. Oklahoma’s Sam Bradford was the No. 1 overall pick.

“I told them I was willing to do whatever it took,’’ Tebow said of his conversation with Broncos’ coach Josh McDaniels. “They know they are going to get my heart and soul and everything that goes with that.’’

Even after he was drafted, analysts continued to question whether the pick was a sound one, but Tebow didn’t seem deterred.

“Not everybody has to like you, just one team has to like you,’’ he said.

Tebow was the third Gator selected in Thursday’s first round, tying for the most first round picks in school history (1989).

Was it racist when the critics said Tebow didn’t have what it takes to be a first-round pick? Of course not.

And even with the criticism of Cam Newton, he’s still the No. 2 QB on Scouts Inc. pre-draft board.

Dan Wetzel has more on why Warren Moon is even raising the issue at this point:

Ex-NFL star Warren Moon has claimed that QB prospect Cam Newton is being unfairly criticized in the media because Newton is black.

Moon, who also is black, works as an adviser to Newton as he prepares for the NFL draft at the end of April. After 17 seasons as an NFL quarterback, starting at a time when the position was almost exclusively white, Moon has earned the right to broach the subject. His opinion shouldn’t be dismissed in a knee-jerk fashion.

It is, however, open to fair debate, especially since NFL draft coverage has hardly been kind to anyone, particularly white quarterbacks such as Tim Tebow, Ryan Mallett and Jimmy Clausen.

Even more, how does bringing race into the Cam Newton debate help Cam Newton? Isn’t Moon’s job to make Newton’s transition easier?

Race is a sensitive and complicated matter to discuss, especially on a national scale through the instant-feedback modern media. A 21-year-old QB trying to show teams he can move past numerous off-field dramas doesn’t appear to be the ideal vehicle. Moon may be ready for the argument. Is his client?

The rest here.

More Warren Moon:

“Colt McCoy came out of the spread offense and very few people raised that issue about him. So did Sam Bradford. Same thing. Very few questions asking if Bradford could run a pro offense. Some of these questions about Cam are more about his intellect. It’s blatant racism, some of it.”

Oh really? It looks like Moon’s memory is a little fuzzy on how last year’s white, spread-offense QBs avoided questions if they had the skills to play under center in the NFL:

“The thing that makes me laugh is the question of can he [Newton] come out of the spread offense? Can he run a pro offense? Colt McCoy came out of the spread offense and very few people raised that issue about him. So did Sam Bradford. Same thing. Very few questions asking if Bradford could run a pro offense. Some of these questions about Cam are more about his intellect. It’s blatant racism, some of it.”

From Nawrocki’s 2010 evaluation of Bradford: “Has not played much under center, operating heavily out of the shotgun, nor has made pro-style, NFL reads in OU’s simplified offense.”From Nawrocki’s 2010 evaluation of McCoy: “Played in an overly simplified offense that did not force the QB to learn the position and needs to be trained in the mechanics of dropping back from under center.”

Of course, if Newton drops to the 2nd round, this story won’t go away, no matter what the truth is.