What? So at last I learn the backstory to why Matt Baron's writing excels that of others? I have long admired his ability to make a story engaging and alive--but now at last, I learn it is because of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED? And that early in his life. Well, I guess dreams can start when we are young, and just keep going
Thanks, Matt. Had an avid interest in this story and your personal story.
I knew the Rams were outstanding in the Chuck Knox era (although apparently Ray Malavasi, who would take them to the Super Bowl the next year, was already their coach), but I would have thought your fictional triumph for the Seahawks over them would have been a bigger upset than it was. I didn't realize that, at least briefly, the Seahawks were on a better trajectory than their fellow expansion team, the Buccaneers (although I guess the Bucs also came fast, playing the Rams in the championship game after the '79 season). Jim Zorn put up a lot of passing yards early, but by the time I became a big NFL fan, Dave Krieg was pushing him out.
Ouch! Frank Deford let his guard down with "beware of what coach's say." And here I am remarking upon it some 40 years later. Shame on me. Not sure whether the error shows that being prone to such spontaneous errors has no bearing on a writer's true powers , or if that was an anomaly for him.
A lot of Yankees on the leaderboard of your post-1950 home run ratio stat, but the Giants crowd struck me as odder for some reason. You can't argue with Mays and McCovey, but the Giants didn't win a lot of pennants. And Dave Kingman was a Giant in other seasons, so it seemed there was one more Giant.
Kingman hit 30 of his 37 home runs in '76 by the all-star break, so it's tempting to think his ratio at that point must have been absolutely outrageous, but actually his AB/HR at that time was 11.5, not that much different than the 12.8 he ended up with. He only had 128 AB post all-star break. It's a hidden strong home run season, hidden in part because it's easy to miss that the implications of 474 AB are very different than 574, say.
Have been puzzled lately about why "Internet" is capitalized. I'll look that up.
Yeah, I sort of love that Frank had a grammatical miscue in that note. His audience was one--me, of course--and I've now transmitted it to the world. In his honor, I'll create an era right here. See that? I love also that you noted Kingman's year...it was one of those precious gems that I discovered in my research, along with Willie McCovey's great years and also Mike Schmidt's ridiculous two-year span of '80-'81. When he hit 48 in '80, only two other NL players had as many as 30 homers (Bob Horner, with 35, in only 463 at bats, so his HRPR was really high that year; and Dale Murphy, with 33). Now THAT is lapping the field.
Kingman and McCovey two different deals from the standpoint that McCovey's home run totals were kept in check (to some extent) by his very high walk totals. So, if you frame HR% as HR/AB (as I also do), he will rate better than by other home run metrics. Kingman's low-walk totals have not gained him further respect with the benefit of hindsight, and had nothing to do with why he only had 474 AB in 1976. 37 HR, 28 BB!
The Home Run Power Ratio is something that can be appreciated intellectually, but will of course not quite move the needle like home run totals or a home run chase. We were quite starved for 1998. Boy, it was a big deal in the lunch halls when Cecil Fielder hit 50 in 1990, I can tell you that, when there had been a drought at the 50-HR level since George Foster. I latched on to each and every element of Schmidt's record at that time since he was the most exciting I could look to.
My thought about Home Run Power Ratio is that the exact relation between the two things, the home run rate of the league, and the home run leader, is obviously generally true, but it's as assumption. It doesn't necessarily follow that the difficulty of reaching top home run levels is proportional. Regression equations could help find what the relation is. exactly Not sure that B should be being divided by A. In a couple of decades, when I find the time, maybe I'll research and write about, with your permission.
Emotionally and intuitively, your leaders are also a bit hard for me to accept as the "best" home run hitters, and I think that also may say something. What is technically called "face validity" has its place.
What? So at last I learn the backstory to why Matt Baron's writing excels that of others? I have long admired his ability to make a story engaging and alive--but now at last, I learn it is because of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED? And that early in his life. Well, I guess dreams can start when we are young, and just keep going
Thanks, Matt. Had an avid interest in this story and your personal story.
I knew the Rams were outstanding in the Chuck Knox era (although apparently Ray Malavasi, who would take them to the Super Bowl the next year, was already their coach), but I would have thought your fictional triumph for the Seahawks over them would have been a bigger upset than it was. I didn't realize that, at least briefly, the Seahawks were on a better trajectory than their fellow expansion team, the Buccaneers (although I guess the Bucs also came fast, playing the Rams in the championship game after the '79 season). Jim Zorn put up a lot of passing yards early, but by the time I became a big NFL fan, Dave Krieg was pushing him out.
Ouch! Frank Deford let his guard down with "beware of what coach's say." And here I am remarking upon it some 40 years later. Shame on me. Not sure whether the error shows that being prone to such spontaneous errors has no bearing on a writer's true powers , or if that was an anomaly for him.
A lot of Yankees on the leaderboard of your post-1950 home run ratio stat, but the Giants crowd struck me as odder for some reason. You can't argue with Mays and McCovey, but the Giants didn't win a lot of pennants. And Dave Kingman was a Giant in other seasons, so it seemed there was one more Giant.
Kingman hit 30 of his 37 home runs in '76 by the all-star break, so it's tempting to think his ratio at that point must have been absolutely outrageous, but actually his AB/HR at that time was 11.5, not that much different than the 12.8 he ended up with. He only had 128 AB post all-star break. It's a hidden strong home run season, hidden in part because it's easy to miss that the implications of 474 AB are very different than 574, say.
Have been puzzled lately about why "Internet" is capitalized. I'll look that up.
Yeah, I sort of love that Frank had a grammatical miscue in that note. His audience was one--me, of course--and I've now transmitted it to the world. In his honor, I'll create an era right here. See that? I love also that you noted Kingman's year...it was one of those precious gems that I discovered in my research, along with Willie McCovey's great years and also Mike Schmidt's ridiculous two-year span of '80-'81. When he hit 48 in '80, only two other NL players had as many as 30 homers (Bob Horner, with 35, in only 463 at bats, so his HRPR was really high that year; and Dale Murphy, with 33). Now THAT is lapping the field.
Kingman and McCovey two different deals from the standpoint that McCovey's home run totals were kept in check (to some extent) by his very high walk totals. So, if you frame HR% as HR/AB (as I also do), he will rate better than by other home run metrics. Kingman's low-walk totals have not gained him further respect with the benefit of hindsight, and had nothing to do with why he only had 474 AB in 1976. 37 HR, 28 BB!
The Home Run Power Ratio is something that can be appreciated intellectually, but will of course not quite move the needle like home run totals or a home run chase. We were quite starved for 1998. Boy, it was a big deal in the lunch halls when Cecil Fielder hit 50 in 1990, I can tell you that, when there had been a drought at the 50-HR level since George Foster. I latched on to each and every element of Schmidt's record at that time since he was the most exciting I could look to.
My thought about Home Run Power Ratio is that the exact relation between the two things, the home run rate of the league, and the home run leader, is obviously generally true, but it's as assumption. It doesn't necessarily follow that the difficulty of reaching top home run levels is proportional. Regression equations could help find what the relation is. exactly Not sure that B should be being divided by A. In a couple of decades, when I find the time, maybe I'll research and write about, with your permission.
Emotionally and intuitively, your leaders are also a bit hard for me to accept as the "best" home run hitters, and I think that also may say something. What is technically called "face validity" has its place.
cool.
It will be a sad day when Sports Illustrated goes silent.