HOF vs. HOF

Hello Fans,

We’ve all seen and heard about how the great players of different eras play the game, whether it be live or from highlight shows or even recanted stories.  Baseball is perhaps unique in the sense that its greatest players not only dominated their respective eras, but also would have dominated any era that they came up the system in.  If you can turn on inside fastballs or run down long flies or throw filthy breaking balls, the era is irrelevant.  Well, we can’t find out what would have happened if Teddy Ballgame waited for his pitch versus Greg Maddux or if Hank Aaron caught up with Randy “Big Unit” Johnson’s slider, but what does happen when a Hall of Fame-caliber player faces another mano-a-mano?  Well, in short, it depends.  MLB T.V. recently had a special that included some of the biggest pitcher-batter rivalries the game has ever known.  With that said, let’s take a look at three of my favorites from those matchups.

Chronologically, Babe Ruth vs. Walter “Big Train” Johnson gets us started.  In nearly 80 at-bats, Ruth slugged .727 with a .436 OBP to go along with a .312 batting average.  Even though Ruth was eight years younger, that’s quite amazing when you consider Johnson won 417 games with a 2.17 ERA.  To Johnson’s credit, he did hold Ruth to 30 points below his career batting average.  Next up, we have Bob Gibson vs. Eddie Mathews.  In ’68 Gibson had a ridiculously paltry 1.12 ERA, which was the ultimate highlight of a storied 251 win HOF career but the four year senior HOFer Mathews didn’t care as he showed why he got to 512 HRs and raked a .326 BA with a .446 OBP off Gibson.  Interestingly, Mathews starred with the Braves, but finished out his career in ’68 as his Tigers outlasted Gibson’s Cardinals in the World Series to boot.  Finally, we’ll finish with two guys who are HOF-caliber and still active.  One is a dominating lefty prescence on the hill while the other is an infamously famous slugger.  Yep, it’ C.C. Sabathia vs. Manny Ramirez.  I’ve never noticed a guy go from 0-2 in the count to getting on base more often than Manny.  His career best is actually against the formidable Sabathia instead of the likes of say Javier Vazquez or Jeff Weaver. Here’s the numbers, an unreal .538 BA, .615 OBP, and a 1.208 SLG.  Wow, nobody could have even guessed stats that high.  Just think, in another era they most likely would have been teammates in Cleveland.  Ramirez is already 18th all-time in RBI at 1,831 while the 31 year-old C.C. has a shot to run up his 176 wins total close to, and if not, over 300.  You heard it here first!

Well, there you have it.  That’s what happens when a Hall of Famer faces another one.  Or at least that’s what can happen.  I said it depends, remember?  Obviously, we can’t assume that all great hitters dominate all great pitchers.  No way, that’s what the scouting reports are for!!  Those three examples stand out as some of the games biggest names.  However, they also stand out for another reason if we look at the matchups.  The first two are the lefty batter and righty pitcher combo and the last just the opposite.  Maybe this is a better example of why managers put in pitchers who throw from the same side that the batter hits from late in games.  Food for thought.

Now, here are some stats from great pitchers getting the best of some great hitters.  We won’t go with the whole batting line, just the one stat that makes a pitcher’s dominance stand out the most.  Yep, the strikeout!  Reggie Jackson’s 563 homers didn’t mean a thing to Bert Blyleven so he struck him out 49 times, the most ever one-on-one!  Coming in a close second was the exactly 300 game-winner Early Wynn of the Indians fanning 536 homer legend Mickey Mantle 48 times.  And if you’re going to be number three all-time in hits and end your career with more bombs than the Babe, you had a lot of chances to strike out too as Hank Aaron got fooled by Don Drysdale 47 times to take third place.  Most of the top twenty-five strikeout kings vs. one pitcher are from the ’50s to ’70s era when guys started swinging for the fences more aggressively and starting pitchers still threw a ton of innings compared to now.  The highest 1990s to 2000s matchup for this category is 33 times, which is good for 11th place all-time as Pedro Martinez often sent the switch-hitting Jorge Posada right back to the dugout to grab somoe bench.  By the way, for all you Yanks fans, I can’t distort these stats so don’t think I was targeting your players’ struggles, ok?  They get plenty of props anyways.

Later Fans.