Grid 231

Beware of Johnnys, and three other lessons from Heartbreak City

ERIK: There are two lessons for the day, and they’re old ones:

• A little learning is a dangerous thing (Alexander Pope). For the center square, I went Johnny Evers because of the not-so-deep dive into MVPs I did last month, when I realized that Evers was one of the first so honored—but with the Boston Braves not the Chicago Cubs. So confronted with Braves .300 hitter, I thought, “Hey, Evers! No brainer, right? He won the MVP with them in 1914, back when everyone hit .300. Done and done.” And … undone. Evers hit .279 that year. Hit .300 twice for the Cubs but never the Braves. Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring, kid.

• Read the fine print (everyone). Though I like it, I was wringing my hands over No. 1 draft picks, since, for these teams, nothing was coming to mind. Buster Posey maybe? Johnny Bench maybe? Eventually I pulled the trigger on Bench. Nope. In the very first draft in 1965, he went in the second round. (Reds’ first-rounder was Bernie Carbo.) Which is when I doublechecked the stat specs and realized, of course, they didn’t have to be drafted by that team; they just needed to be a first-rounder who played at least one game for them. Pay fucking attention, kid.

Maybe the real lesson of the day is: Beware of Johnnys.

Actually there’s a third lesson, too: Read the room. I.e., check out all the options before you start plopping in names. I didn’t do that with the Hornsby answer.

Yesterday, you see, I went to the Pac NW meeting of SABR at Seattle Pacific University, and one of the speakers was Robert F. Garratt, who recently published “Jazz Age Giant: Charles A. Stoneham and New York City Baseball in the Roaring Twenties.” One of the stories mentioned in the Q&A session is why Rogers Hornsby spent a season with the Giants. Apparently McGraw and Stoneham needed a player to compete with that fat upstart Babe Ruth across town, and they figured Hornsby was it. And in 1927 they finally got him. Except he proved to be such a horse’s ass that even though he led the league in runs and walks and OPS, not to mention the as-yet-created bWAR (10.2), they traded him after that one season. Probably didn’t help that the fat upstart across town broke his own home run record with 60. (Do you think it lit a fire under Ruth having Hornsby in his city that season? Curious.)

Anyway, as soon as I heard the story, I thought, “Gotta remember that for the grid!” So as soon as I saw GIANTS/.300 I plopped him in … instead of realizing, no, use Hornsby for Giants/Orioles, doofus. That’s a tougher get than a Giants .300 hitter.

Think any of these lessons will stick? Yeah, me neither.

Another speaker at the SABR event was one you would’ve been interested in, Tim: Shaun Scott, who just published a book through University of Washington Press called “Heartbreak City: Seattle Sports and the Unmet Promise of Urban Progress.” He knew his shit backwards and forwards. Bought a copy of both books this morning. Scott will also be speaking at Seattle Town Hall on Nov. 29. Tickets available.

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TIM: Huh, Heartbreak City looks interesting. Sorry to have missed the SABR event, I completely spaced it out even though when Bill sent out the details I intended on going. My headspace hasn’t been great for a while.

But, for the Grid today I managed a feat: NEW LOW SCORE!

4.5%! That’ll be tough to beat.

I assumed the rule for 1st-Round Draft Picks correctly, and two of my three were drafted by a different team than the one specced. Justin Dunn, of course, drafted by the Mets, made part of the Canó/Díaz deal, possibly ruined by the Mariners promoting him to the bigs ahead of schedule, then traded to the Reds in the Suárez/Winker exchange. Walt Weiss drafted by the A’s, later finished up his playing days in Atlanta. Matt W. actually fits the box as a Giant and was drafted by the Giants.

If I’d needed to stay within the teams, i.e. needed a 1st-round REDS draftee, I don’t know who I’d have gone with. Jonathan India, maybe. Curious about this just now, I looked up the Reds top draftees and see there are a few really fun ones in the list, including a bunch of Mariners: Dan Wilson, Mike Leake, Jay Bruce, Pokey Reese (OK, Reese never actually played a game for the M’s, but they did trade for him), Yonder Alonso, Jesse Winker, and Taylor Trammell. Braves I wouldn’t know anybody. I probably would have guessed Dale Murphy (yep) or Michael Harris (nope).

I was curious about who Kal Daniels was traded for when he went to LA and looked up his page—surprisingly (to me), he also would have worked as a first-rounder. I think we’ve mentioned this before, but back in the day we didn’t pay a lot of attention to who were the top draft picks; I certainly wasn’t aware of any of that stuff when I was growing up. Weiss and Williams were more educated guesses than knowledge.

Except for Dunn, this is an all-1980s bunch. Though to be fair, I probably wasn’t cognizant of Blauser until Atlanta’s ’91 postseason. Norm, of course, was on Lou’s Reds and went to the Orioles after they beat the M’s in ’97. Daniels was a force when he first came up, got dealt to LA (for Marinano Duncan, it turns out), had one more good year and flamed out. Lonnie, natch, also on those ’91 Braves (and, for future reference, also a first-round draftee by the Phils) with Blauser. Weiss, ROY in ’88. Melvin seemed to find himself involved when the Giants wanted a better catcher—traded to SF for Matt Nokes (with others), traded from SF to Balmer for Terry Kennedy. Matt Williams was the hot prospect who underachieved for a couple of years ala Jarred Kelenic, except when Williams got sent down he stayed for a while and then became the breakout star of 1990. And, of course, Willie. If there’s a spot for him, always use Willie. He had a couple of really nice years in SF; though he wasn’t a Giant until 1991, he’s still an ’80s guy.

More importantly, not a Johnny in the bunch.