The modern-day closer is a highly-specialized role, with most top-tier closers rarely pitching more than one inning at a time to lock down the victory. However, if you go back half a century or so to the nascent days of the closer (or firemen, as they were known back then) circa the 1970s, end-of-game relief pitchers at that time would commonly pitch one, two, or even three innings at a time to nail down the victory. In those early “Wild West” days of relief pitching, two pioneering pitchers who would pave the way for today’s closers were Rollie Fingers and Rich “Goose” Gossage – as the first two players in MLB history to reach 300 career saves (while saving winning and losing 100+ games apiece), they were at the vanguard of baseball’s evolution; thus, between these two contemporaries, it is only natural to ask the question:
The beginning of MLB’s modern era circa the 1960s saw a plethora of legends gracing baseball’s outfields, from Al Kaline, Carl Yastrzemski, and Mickey Mantle in the AL to Hank Aaron and Willie Mays in the NL, just to name a few. Also shining brightly among this constellation of superstars were right fielders Roberto Clemente and Frank Robinson – one was an electrifying all-around talent, the other a powerful slugger, but each can stake a claim to being among the greatest ever at the position. Nearly fifty years after each player last suited up for a major league game, their respective legacies are still intact, with Clemente having an annual award named him for community contributions and Robinson still being the only player to win MVP in both the AL and NL. Between these two baseball titans of yesteryear, it is an interesting question to ponder:
Who was better – Roberto Clemente or Frank Robinson?
Take a look at MLB’s career pitching wins list and when you scroll past the workhorses of the late 19th and early 20th century (Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, etc.), i.e. post the dead-ball era, you come across Warren Spahn at #6 and Greg Maddux at #8 with 363 and 355 career victories, respectively. Known for their pitching guile and control rather than overpowering heat, both the southpaw Spahn and the righty Maddux spent their primes with the Braves franchise and helped lead the team to World Series titles nearly 40 years apart – thus, it seems only natural to compare these all-time MLB and legendary Braves pitchers and ask:
Catcher is by far the most physically demanding position in baseball (imagine crouching behind the plate for nine innings for well over 100 games annually), which makes it rare for teams to have backstops who can produce at a high level both offensively and defensively over an extended period of time. This fact set makes players like Gary Carter and Carlton Fisk somewhat of “unicorns” – each Hall of Fame catcher played well into his late 30s (and in Fisk’s case, well into his 40s), catching over 2,000 games apiece and hitting over 300 career home runs. As only a handful of catchers in MLB history can match this unparalleled combination of greatness and longevity, it is therefore apt to draw a comparison between these two legends of the 1970s and 1980s and ask:
Growing up as teenagers in Los Angeles during the late 1970s, Eric Davis and Darryl Strawberry were two of the nation’s best high school baseball players and dreamed of playing in the major leagues one day. That dream came true and both ascended to become two of the most dynamic players in baseball during the 1980s, but also dealt with injuries and/or personal demons that would later derail their careers before making comebacks in the 1990s. Given the almost eerie similarities between their prodigious talent and career paths, it seems natural to make the comparison and ponder:
