ERIK: My initial thought was “Well, no one’s breaking their low rarity score today,” but I actually think that’s more on me than them—with one proviso. For something like MVP, I think they should only pair it with original 16 teams. Then the user really only has themselves to blame. With Senators/Rangers, I chose the earliest, most no-name MVP possible and he’s still at 6%. Because there are only five answers. You can only get so low with a team established in 1961.
If I blew it with my other MVPs, that’s on me. I just don’t know enough baseball history
Hell, I don’t even know when the MVP starts. Or which MVP? Weren’t there a couple different versions, a couple of different ways of doing it? With Rookie of the Year, I go, sure, 1947, Jackie Robinson, and then they divided it by league a few years later. Cy Young Award, it’s 1956 or ‘57 (1956, Erik), Don Newcombe, then they divided it by league about 10 years later (1967) So at least I’m good with timeframe on all of those.
MVP, in comparison, is the old jalopy of awards: It starts, sputters, stops, starts up again but only kind of? Per BR, they have it going 1911-14, one in each league, then an eight-year hiatus, and when it starts again it’s just the AL? Or was it either league but the AL kept winning? Then it’s both leagues again, then, in 1929, just the NL?
So it’s confusing.
Anyway if I’d done my homework I would’ve known this. And if I’d really done my homework I would’ve known that Larry Doyle, NYG, won it in 1912 (despite Heine Zimmerman, CHC, leading the league in practically everything), and Frank Schulte, CHC, winning it in 1911, opposite Ty Cobb, and both, I’m sure, would’ve given me minuscule percentages rather than the 8% and 21% I got from McCovey and Banks. Hell, I could’ve gone with the guys I chose for All Stars for those teams. Both Hubbell and Hartnett gave me fractionals there*. I bet I’d have gotten fractionals for them as MVPs, too.
(*Hubbell as All Star is actually the percentage that surprises me most. Sure, the 1930s, a long time ago, but striking out five future Hall of Famers in a row at the ’34 game is one of the most indelible moments in the history of the ASG.)
The point is there are options for deep dives with MVP and original 16 teams. There’s no such option for Senators/Rangers. Or Angels or Astros. Or any of them, right? I just double-checked: Who was the first member of an expansion franchise to win the MVP Award? Answer? Jeff Burroughs, Texas Rangers, 1974.
Finally, a shout-out to lifetime .303 hitter Al Oliver. I knew he played for the Rangers for a few seasons (four, it turns out) but couldn’t remember if he hit .300 for any of them but decided to roll the dice. Turns out he hit .300 for all of them. Every single season. That’s the lesson of the day: Never doubt Al Oliver and .300.
TIM: These Saturday Grids are always so simple, relatively speaking, that my biggest curiosity is which square will have the lowest success rate? Today it’s not the one you’d expect—I’d have thought TEX MVP—but Cubs .300 average: only 77%. Cubs! With all those hitters! 422 options, including a big one this year in Cody Bellinger, and barely three in four Gridders got one. I can see only nerds like us getting Gabby Hartnett or Frank Chance, but c’mon. Sosa? Sandberg? Mark Grace? Ernie freaking Banks? Hell, Ben Zobrist, if your memory only goes back to their most recent World Series year?
Rangers/Senators II MVP was 83%. Better than that lower right box, but that’s still a lot of baseball fans—with recency bias—to whiff on huge players. Texas MVPs, Burroughs notwithstanding, are big names, hard to forget names: Juan González; Alex Rodriguez, inc.; Pudge. One would think that the least memorable, other than Burroughs, would be Josh Hamilton, but that’s the highest percentage response. .300 average for both Rangers/SensII and the Giants also got under 90%. I’m flummoxed.
I got a 37 score, which I’d think was good if not for that Saturday Grid I got a 6 on.
I think TEX/WAS All-Star has come up before, and I think I went Frank Howard then too. Because didn’t you and I and Mr. B watch the 1971 ASG at some point years back? Not sure how, back then YouTube and the like weren’t what they are now, but I’m sure we did. Must have run on cable during an off-season or something? Amid the homers peppering Tiger Stadium there was the lone Senator in the dugout, either before or after his one meager at-bat.
Like I said, Ranger MVPs are big stars, so I took a chance that Pudge would be the better percentage; unlike you, I was unaware of Mr. Buroughs as MVP. I figured Juan Gone would be the top pick. Ranger .300s are many many (actually, only 150; I thought it’d be 200ish, I guess I didn’t account for them being the expansion Senators), so I went with the earliest one I could think of that I had any certainty for.
Giants All-Stars bring to mind the biggies—your Mayses, your Marichals, your Bondses, your McCoveys—but also Atlee Hammaker. For you see, in 1983, when the NL dominated ASGs, Hammaker entered the game fairly early on in relief and promptly got, well, hammered. I, at 14, was aghast. Quite displeased. These dumb American Leaguers with their dumb DH rule (even though the ASG in those days didn’t use it) put the hurt on and won by ten runs, most of which was courtesy of Mr. Hammaker, whom they batted around on. I remain scarred.
I tried to think of a less-obvious Giants MVP than Mays/McCovey/Bonds and somehow landed on Kent and not Kevin Mitchell, who should have been more in my wheelhouse. Like Chris Brown for Giants .300, a forgotten player who was really good for a couple years in the ’80s.
The Cubs column was the most fun just because there are so many to pick from. Buckner was a favorite of mine when I was really young, I don’t know why. I recall getting a Buckner baseball card from his Dodger days and being really psyched for it, not just because Buckner, but it must have been the oldest card I had at that point. I chose Sandberg mostly because I thought Dawson and Banks would be top picks and my well isn’t quite deep enough to know Phil Cavarretta was an MVP. (Looking at his numbers, duh; I love an MVP with fewer than 10 homers.) And for Cubs .300, I went to the old poem and Tinker to Evers to Chance.
That photo of Frank Howard makes him look like he’s just been asked around 1970 what he thought of a shift ban or a pitch clock. “A whut?! Git off my lawn, you idjit.”
I’m waiting (in vain?) for some innovation in the grids post purchase. Things like “First name starts with L” or “born in Florida”. I just think we’re going to get very bored of the same stats over and over.
I’ll fix it all when I start ammoculategred.org