Greatest Baseball Players

Here it is, the verge of winter, and I've been thinking about baseball. Last night I watched some of Ken Byrne's documentary on baseball on PBS, and I've been reading an interesting biography of Mickey Mantle called The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood, by Jane Leavy. It's a terrific book (but could have stood some better editing!).

I had the good luck to watch Mickey Mantle, both on television and live at Cleveland Municipal Stadium during the 1950's and 1960's. I loved the mix of power and speed, his seemingly easy grace as an athlete. I'll never forget one day watching how he dragged a bunt with two strikes on him--and beat it out for a base hit. As a reader of this biography, I'm amazed at his infantilism and his dissipation (and that of his friends and teammates, especially Billy Martin, Whitey Ford, and Hank Bauer). Their abuse of alcohol, and of women, is truly astonishing. We never had a whisper of this as we watched these boys play baseball so long ago. Mickey Mantle was one of the greatest baseball players in history. I was not much aware of him in his great year of 1956. But I was acutely aware of him in 1961, the year he and Roger Maris chased Babe Ruth's home run record; and 1962, when Mickey Mantle was MVP and Player of the Year.

Clevelanders were supposed to be Yankee haters, but I loved those great athletes: Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Elston Howard, Tony Kubek, Bobby Richardson, Ryne Duren, and their great manager, Casey Stengel.

Oddly, these were not the best players I ever watched. I lived in Cincinnati during the Big Red Machine years of the 1970's and saw Johnny Bench, baseball's greatest catcher, Joe Morgan, the best second baseman, and Pete Rose, the most intense competitor in baseball history. I watched the other great players on that team, including David Concepcion, Ken Griffey (Sr.), George Foster, Tony Perez, Tom Seaver--and their great manager, Sparky Anderson, who just passed away.

In my infancy and childhood in Cleveland, we had one of the greatest pitching staffs in baseball history, with Bob Feller, Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, Mike Garcia, Herb Score, and Satchel Paige. We had the great Lou Boudreau at shortstop (and as player-manager); we had Bobby Avila, Larry Doby, Minnie Minoso, Rocky Colavito, Vic Power, and so many other great players.

In the 1990's Cleveland had another great era of baseball. When did a team ever have hitters like Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Albert Belle, and Eddie Murray? A Murderer's Row to give the 1927 Yankees a run for their money. We had the greatest shortstop of his era, Omar Vizquel. For a while we had Dennis Martinez and Orel Hershiser on the mound, Jose Mesa as the closer. And we had a level of journeymen ballplayers hard to match. This team won their division many times and went twice to the World Series, losing to the Braves in 1995, and to the Marlins in 1997 (if I remember correctly, coming within an out of the championship that year).

Mickey Mantle was one of the greatest hitters in baseball history, but I will match him up with the 1995 edition of Albert Belle any time. Belle was said to be a nasty person. Maybe true, I don't know. But he was a great great hitter. His fete of 50 homers and 50 doubles in 1995 has never been matched--not even by Barry Bonds. For a while, Albert Belle was the best hitter in baseball. Must have been like Babe Ruth of 1927 or Mickey Mantle of 1956 or 1962.