The fans speak out

Baseball Digest, June, 2008 by Wayne Towers, Dave Sanders, Ralph Williams, Robert Adams, Al Pudge, Raymond Savoy, David Roegner, T.J. Kuhn, Lou Corradi, Chuck Finkbeiner, Sylvester A. Heckman, James Quinn, Al Lulis, Paul Funicello, Max Shenk, Andy Galus, Betsy Wright, Bernard A. Smyle, Bill Harrison, Brian Hills, Jonathan Craig, Jim Weber, Larry Cohen, Billy Jones, Ed Johnson, Tom MacDonald, Alan Thomas, Brian Bowman

I really enjoyed the article on Rich Gossage in the March/April issue. He gave Padres fans many a highlight during the drive for the 1984 National League pennant.

Also, I enjoyed the chart about relief pitching and could not help but notice that among the 26 relievers with 300 or more saves listed, only four of them had double digit counts of saves of three innings or longer.

These four include Gossage with 24; Jeff Reardon, 13; Rollie Fingers, 36, and Bruce Sutter, 15.

How do these numbers stack up against the pre-specialist relievers like Dick Radatz, Lindy McDaniel and ElRoy Face? Although these three relievers had saves in the 150 to 200 range, my guess is that their saves of three innings or longer would stack up favorably against the specialists who followed them.

Wayne Towers

San Diego, Calif.

ElRoy Face had only seven saves of three or more innings among his career total of 193. Lindy McDaniel had 28 and Dick Radatz earned 23.

Some other well known pre-specialist relievers who stacked up impressive totals in the number of saves that were earned through three or more innings of work include Hoyt Wilhelm (49), Mike Marshall (41), Sparky Lyle (32) and Ron Perranoski (22).

Thanks for the nice article on Rich Gossage making the Hall of Fame. Being a Pittsburgh fan, I wonder if you could print his stats and or highlights of his season with the Pirates.

Dave Sanders

Danville, Pa.

In his one year with the Pirates, 1977, Gossage posted an 11-9 won-lost record with a 1.62 ERA while appearing in 72 games in relief. He also had 26 saves, finishing third in the National League behind Rollie Fingers of the Padres (35) and Bruce Sutter of the Cubs (31). He also set a league record for relievers with 151 strikeouts.

His relief work helped manager Chuck Tanner lead the Pirates to 96 wins and a second place finish behind the front-running Phillies in the East Division. At the end of the season, he signed with the Yankees as a free agent.

If I may be so bold, I'd like to ask anyone in major league baseball, be he the commissioner, an owner or club executive, a simple question.

It's this: Why has it been allowed for the two leagues to remain unbalanced for so long, 16 teams in the National League and 14 in the American League?

Why can't one N.L. team be moved to the A.L. so there would be 15 teams in each league. It seems like this arrangement would be so easy to achieve if someone had the guts to get it going.

Why not move Arizona from the N.L. West to the A.L. West, and then move Houston from the N.L. Central to the N.L. West.

The N.L. Central already has six teams. If that isn't an unfair setup for those six teams, I don't know what is. Teams in that division have to fight five, not four, other teams to win the division title.

I'd love to hear an answer to this problem. Is anybody out there listening?

Ralph Williams

St. Louis, Mo.

In going through some of my old papers, I noticed that the 1930 St. Louis Cardinals had all four of their regular infielders hitting .300 or better. That's an amazing feat.

The infielders were Jim Bottomley at first base (.304), Frankie Frisch at second (.346), Charley Gelbert at short (.304) and Sparky Adams at third (.314).

Has any other team accomplished this feat?

Robert Adams

Reading, Pa.

Besides the 1930 Cardinals, the 1926 and 1927 New York Giants are the only two other teams to have their entire infield hit .300 in the same season while playing 100 or more games at their position.

The 1926 Giants had George Kelly (.303) at first base, Frankie Frisch (.314) at second, Fred Lindstrom (.302) at third and Travis Jackson (.327)at shortstop. The 1927 Giants fielded Bill Terry (.326) at first, Rogers Hornsby (.361) at second, Lindstrom (.306) at third and Jackson (.318) at short.

I have two questions. Does Bobo Newsom have the most victories (211) of any pitcher who finished with a won-lost record under .500?

And does Al Kaline have the highest lifetime home run total (399) of anyone who has never hit as many as 30 in a single season?

Al Pudge

Hollywood, Calif.

In the history of major league baseball, there have been only three pitchers with 200 or more lifetime victories who finished their careers with a .500 winning percentage or below--Jack Powell, Bobo Newsom and Charlie Hough.

Powell, who pitched from 1897-1912, won 245 games and lost 254 for a .491 winning percentage. Newsom went 211-222 for a .487 mark from 1929 through 1953. Hough, a knuckleball specialist, played from 1970 to the end of the 1994 season and finished with a .500 record, 216-216.

Through the 2007 season, there have been 283 players who have clubbed 200 or more career home runs in the major leagues and only 37 of those sluggers did not have a 30-homer campaign.

Al Kaline clubbed the most lifetime homers (399) without ever hitting 30 in a single season. See the accompanying chart.

On Father's Day in 1975 or 1976, the Los Angeles Dodgers were in Montreal to play the Expos. I took my son to that game on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We drove over 450 miles to see that one game. We are big Dodger fans.