Hello Baseball Fans,
Well, a new year is upon us! In recognizing the date and impending activities of ringing in and celebrating 2023 over the next twenty-four plus hours, it dawned on us here at VFTD to complete a 2022 year-in-review of the Views.
There is only one slight problem. While many great things happened across the Major Leagues in 2022, we produced exactly zero posts in 2022. Many reasons, but no excuses, we completely slacked off. This is our last chance! Here goes:
In no particular order, here are some great and leagues-leading performances from across the season:
Seattle’s A.L. Rookie of the Year CF sensation Julio Rodriguez, Baltimore’s Catcher of the Year (we named him that for great O and D) Adley Rutschman, a big-known big fella Aaron Judge for a most impressive and really cool-looking number of a 1.111 OPS total, two machines-in-one Shohei Ohtani, who hit more than twice the amount of HRs, 34, than he gave up, 14, in 166 innings pitched, Miami’s Sandy Alcantara’s leading 228 innings pitched (that’s a guy who takes control), Albert Pujols’ 703rd homer, Atlanta’s Kyle Wright’s leading 21 pitching victories, Texas’ team leading total of 128 stolen bases (reminder, Rickey Henderson snagged 130 for the Athletics all by his lonesome forty years earlier!), and finally, the New York Mets’ 1,565 strikeouts as a team, who fell just short of the 2021 Chicago Cubs’ all-time record of 1,596 (for those keeping score at home).
That is a small, and hopefully interesting, snippet of ’22. But on this day, what we would really like to mention is all about 21. As in Number 21. Roberto Clemente. Most unfortunately, he passed away fifty years ago today on New Year’s Eve of 1972 while flying in stormy weather to provide much needed aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. He is an all-time great ambassador, humanitarian, social leader, and player. Apologies for a repeat of sorts as we resorted to our 2019 post of ‘An Even Ninety-Nine’ for our favorite stat for him. He came in on that ‘count-up’ list of 99 at number 12, as opposed to his 2-1 for his jersey. Twelve is the number of consecutive Gold Gloves won by Clemente. That is an amazing streak of talent, desire, hard work, and durability. And sadly, the streak was retired, not defeated, similarly to him being forever locked at 3,000 hits. He won four batting titles, was named 1966 N.L. MVP, and had a career WAR of 94.8!!
The Pittsburgh Pirates retired his jersey long, long ago and rightfully so. Recently, momentum has been gained for retiring his ’21’ across the Big Leagues, similar to Jackie Robinson’s ’42’. Perhaps this sad anniversary can provide more reflection on Clemente’s legacy and be the catalyst to retire Twenty-One for all-time.
Happy New Year Baseball Fans.