17 May 2011, by Ted
Dave Benoit is a banking reporter for Dow Jones Newswires. He tweets @DaveCBenoit.
I submit Maurice Vaughn. Not just because he was the first baseman for the decade in Boston, but because he's practically an “I Love the 90s” walking metaphor. His body encapsulates the 90’s first baseman (lumbering). Being called "The Hit Dog" would only happen in the 90s. And he got one of those crazy-for-the-time historical contracts and promptly fell in a dugout his first game, never to be the same in the following decade.
16 May 2011, by Eric
Brian Kist writes the blog Punk On Deck. He's on twitter, too, @punkondeck.
While Mark McGwire may be the pinnacle, the aspirational embodiment of nineties first basemen, other, less glorious athletes also manned the position. In St. Louis, a hodgepodge of players preceded “Big Mac.” They may not be as talented as the slugger, but they are just as noteworthy (because I'm noting them now).
1990: Pedro Guerrero opened up the decade at first base. On the downside of his career, Guerrero benefited from a time when it was still okay for management to acquire aging talent at the expense of young prospects. Anomaly First Baseman: Tom Pagnozzi started one game at first on Aug. 12, 1990. He went 3 for 4 and Bob Tewksbury threw a complete game shut out.
1991: Guerrero keeps getting older. Somehow, he had a better WAR this year than the last. The only memory I have of Guerrero is that odd 9-1-1 call from O.J. Simpson. I bet he has led a very colorful life. Anomaly First Baseman: Craig Wilson started one game at first, coincidentally on Aug. 12, 1991. He only went 1 for 5 in the loss. He was out of baseball two years later.
1992: Journeyman Andres Galarraga found himself at Busch Stadium in 1992. He played 83 games at the position with Guerrero getting 28 games. The Big Cat scratched out a .673 OPS that season before moving on to Colorado. My favorite players that year were Felix José and Ray Lankford. They led the team in home runs: 14 for José and 20 for Lankford.
Yes, led the team. Anomaly First Baseman: Stan Royer played first base in four games in 1992. He was a “Coming Attraction.” He played sparingly over the next two years before retiring.
1993: The team acquired their first baseman of the future by trading for Gregg Jefferies. The former first round draft pick had the best year of his career and was an All-Star. Even though he made his MLB debut six years earlier, he was only 25 when the Cardinals acquired him. Plus side: he was a “Rated Rookie.” Down side: one of my favorite players Felix José was involved in the trade for him. Anomaly First Baseman: On July 30, 1993 Catcher Erik Pappas made his lone career start at first base. On Sept. 21, he started at catcher. In the seventh inning, he took over at first. In the eighth, he moved to right field. José Oquendo saw this and yawned.
1994: Jefferies once again started the majority of the games at the cool corner. He later had a contract dispute with the club and was granted free agency after this season. That's around when my mom remarked about her distaste for him saying he was stuck up or something along those lines. Anomaly First Baseman: Scott Coolbaugh played most of his short MLB career at third base. He mostly pinch hit for the Cardinals but started two games including the last game of the shortened season. It was also his last game as a major league baseball player.
1995: This was a bit of a mish-mash year at first base. John Mabry held down first for 66 games. Mabry has become a Cardinal fan favorite mostly because he keeps showing up. He had three stints with the club during his career that spanned from 1994 to 2007. Todd Zeile had 33 games at the position that year. Anomaly First Baseman: José Oliva had two starts at first this year on Sept. 24 and 27. His MLB career ended in 1995. According to Wikipedia, Oliva died in a car accident in 1997.
1996: Mabry played the lion's share of games at first in LaRussa's first year as manager. Even though Mabry started 139 games at first, this may have been the most unusual collection of first basemen. Gary Gaetti, Mark Sweeney, and Willie McGee (RETIRE 51!!!) all made starts there. In late August, former first round draft pick Dmitri Young made his MLB debut. Anomaly First Baseman: Backup Catcher Danny Sheaffer made one start at first base that season on April 14 vs. the Phillies. The Cards won.
1997: Dmitri Young marked some stabilization at the position. I remember thinking that this kid had some big potential. In fact, when Mark McGwire was acquired on July 31, my first thought was “They already have a good first baseman.” Perspective is difficult sometimes. Young started 68 games, McGwire started 49, and John Mabry started 38. Starting on Aug. 1, McGwire hit 24 home runs. 1993 was a distant memory. Anomaly First Baseman: Mark Sweeney lived in the bowels of old Busch Stadium. He sometimes dressed up like a janitor in so he wouldn't be thrown out. On May 13 and May 14, Sweeney the Elder started at first base for the Cardinals. When it was realized that Sweeney was somehow still on the roster, he was sent to San Diego in a trade that sent a mossy Fernando Valenzuela to the Cardinals.
1998: It's hard to measure the magnitude of first base in Busch Stadium during the Summer of '98. Baseball fans and media from around the world were pulled to the gravitational center that was first base. McGwire's hunt for 62 overshadowed all other aspects of baseball, even his team's success. It was the most exciting third-place-in-the-division season ever played. On Sept. 8, I was struggling with freshmen algebra homework. My mom called me to the living room when McGwire came to bat. The first time, he grounded out. The second time she called, he hit number 62 off Steve Trachsel. He raised his son, Sammy Sosa came out of left field (literally), and the Maris family gave McGwire their blessing. Looking back with cynical eyes, it was cheesy, but I distinctly remember being unable to stop grinning as I went back to deciphering algebra. McGwire would later hit number 70 off of Carl Pavano. Anomaly First Baseman: It's true: McGwire only started 152 games that season. John Mabry was the main back up with eight starts. This was probably due to Mabry having the genial personality that would simply laugh off fans that booed another name at first. Gary Gaetti started one game at first while Mabry started at third. That was an odd defensive lineup. Brian Hunter was on the Cardinals and started two games that season. One was the second game of a double header.
1999: After the euphoria of the previous year, 1999 proved to be a sobering season. McGwire started 150 games that year. But already, he was like an old rock band that has the audience shout out the hits from decades ago. He hit 65 home runs that year. The law of diminishing returns came to fruition again as the team finished in fourth place heading into the 2000s. Anomaly First Baseman: With John Mabry leaving the team for the first time (but not the last) the role of understudy fell on various shoulders. Catcher Eli Marrero was the most common back up with three whole starts at first. Players that started those other eight games included Eduardo Perez, Shawon Dunston, David Howard, Craig Pauquette, Joe McEwing, and Willie McGee (RETIRE 51!).
All stats via Baseball-Reference.
16 May 2011, by Ted
Navin Vaswani writes about the Toronto Blue Jays at Sports and the City, and for NotGraphs. Follow him on Twitter @eyebleaf.
Fred McGriff, John Olerud and Carlos Delgado. These were the three first basemen I watched in the 1990s, growing up a Blue Jays supporter on the outskirts of Toronto. I know, I was lucky. Blessed, actually. And the first baseman that defines the era -- the 90s -- for me is a combination of all three of those men.
Fred McGriff: tall, quiet, and unassuming. Yet accomplished. Ready to make a lasting mark on the game, like the Blue Jays teams he played for. His career began in Toronto and, wherever he played, McGriff got the job done. Remembered for hitting the first home run in the history of the SkyDome, my ideal first baseman of the 1990s no doubt has the consistency of the Crime Dog.
John Olerud changed my opinion of the position. He is the reason why, years later, I'm most fond of the first baseman who can field as well as he can hit. A revolutionary, you might call Olerud, what with him wearing a batting helmet in the field, as well. My model 1990s first baseman has Olerud's swing -- one of the sweetest, smoothest and most fluid I've ever seen -- along with Olerud's ability to work a base on balls. As late as August 27, 1993, Olerud was batting .390, and I'll never forget that summer. That year. For Blue Jays fans who grew up in the 90s, Olerud is synonymous with winning.
Give my Utopian 1990s first baseman Olerud's grace, along with Carlos Delgado's power. In the one-on-one battle that is pitcher versus hitter, and hitter versus pitcher, I'd never seen a Toronto Blue Jay strike fear into his opponent, standing 60 feet away, the way Delgado did. Delgado's batting stance -- left-handed, slightly open, back elbow raised -- is ingrained in my mind. Along with his smile. Confident beyond his years, Delgado led.
Look, what I believe I'm trying to say is: Frehnlos McOlergado. When I think of the 1990s, of first basemen, and of growing up, I think of Fred McGriff, John Olerud, and Carlos Delgado. Looking back, and much thanks to the gents at Pitchers & Poets for allowing me to do so, it's rather obvious: the 1990s were the best of times at first base. As they should have been.
16 May 2011, by Ted
Patrick Dubuque writes about baseball and the Seattle Mariners at Playful Utopia. Find him on Twitter @euqubud.
People are crazy about base ten. It allows us to compartmentalize, to put things into order and compare them. If it doesn’t always work, at least it gives us permission to round up or down: the thirties started a year early; the seventies went a year late. If these demarcations are arbitrary, they at least provide value through the reflection they inspire.
For the Seattle Mariners, however, 1990 was a decisive year. If baseball were popular culture, the Mariners of the early nineties were a provincial backwater, nouveau riche without the riche. For the first thirteen years of their mediocre existence, the Mariners had managed their roster the way a clerk shuffles through papers at their desk. Then, at the turn of the decade, the impetus had arrived.
Their first baseman and franchise face, Alvin Davis, was a shambling, smiling corpse. Their future, Tino Martinez, was too young; or at least he looked too young, boasting that straggly mustache and those chubby cheeks. It was time for the team to experiment with a dangerous new idea running around baseball. They called it free agency.
It sounded risky. Worse, it sounded expensive, but the team was going to have to buy new uniforms for someone anyway. And fortune, as Cicero notes, favors the bold.
In this case, it favored the Mariners with Pete O’Brien.
Pete O’Brien was a human anachronism. He was the Mariners first baseman for a third of the nineties, but everything about him was 1986: The Howie Mandel curls, the Ron Kittle glasses, the Von Hayes helpless eyes. His statistics are terrible without having the benefit of being interesting, much like many of the teams he played for. He was, if anything, J.T. Snow’s flawed earthly facsimile. Once the true Snow surfaced, O’Brien was banished to the realm of trivia: yet another good man for whom the game had passed by.
16 May 2011, by Eric
David Roth is a writer from New Jersey who lives in New York. He co-writes the Wall Street Journal's Daily Fix blog, and writes for The Awl, New York Magazine and Can't Stop The Bleeding, among others. The Mets make him sad -- you can read his laments @david_j_roth.
This is not true for everyone, but to a great extent the spaces in which we live reflect the consciousnesses we live with. The exceptions to this, I imagine, would be your very neat people – it may be true that the man with the alphabetized spice rack or the woman whose shower is a staring-at-the-sun blaze of sanitized tile has a brain that reflects the same order, but a portion of my self-esteem depends on that not being so. If you've ever watched the sadly brittled and locked-up pathetics of A&E's "Hoarders" shuffle through homes choked comatose by shit-piles of knickknacks and emergency food stores and here-to-eternity stockpiles of whatever, you know things are just as crowded in their brains as in their homes – there is just too much in there, and cleaning it all up is likely to be a dirty and sad life's work. This may be true for you, too, as it is for me – my apartment is clean but cluttered, and while I know where things are around the area from which I'm writing this, I wouldn't expect anyone else to be able to figure it out. And, in my apartment as in my mind, there are baseball cards stashed away in a closet. You know, in case I need them.
And, in my apartment as in my mind, there are baseball cards stashed away in a closet. You know, in case I need them.But to truly see this in action – and this is me finally getting to what I'm going to write about, which is remembering things, and who I'm going to write about, which is Rico Brogna – we'll have to go to my parents' house in New Jersey. More years on earth, here, and more space and much, much more stuff. Here, my baseball cards – boxes of them, whole cleared forests of crummy Fleer commons and spooky-serious Donruss Studio portrait cards boxed and stashed in a tweenager's vision of investing for the future – are in my childhood bedroom, which is actually more apt than a closet as metaphors go. Brogna's cards are in there – I remember his rookie card, from that one weird set of oversized Bowman cards – although I certainly don't know where.
It's like that throughout the place. Everywhere in my parents' house, there is this moraine of stuff, as if a glacier had retreated through the place and left behind improbable formations of manila folders and maybe-broken electronics and old clothes. It's not at all hoarding – although the bones hidden around the house by their coddled dog lend a faintly creepy At Home With The Dahmers aspect to certain corners – so much as it's… well, obviously I need this for my purposes here, but mostly it's just the accumulation of time, taking up real-world space. All that accreted stuff doesn't crowd out access to the things my parents need – those things all work, and are easy to reach – but it does encircle, and in some rooms outright surround those things. So, to the downstairs bathroom.
There is some reading material in there, and it is old and weird. There is a disintegrating copy of a Baseball Hall of Shame book, the blown-out binding of which was certainly my fault. There are some old books of cartoons and there is also a scorebook/game-day magazine from a lopsided 1995 Mets win. Half the scoring is done in my looping, weirdly childish hand – I was 16 years old at the time, with penmanship of someone half that age – and the other half in my father's neater, older one. The scorebook is a mess – the Mets won 13-4, and six of the eight position players who started the game were removed for some amusingly mid-90s Mets backups. Aaron Ledesma replaced Bobby Bonilla, Tim Bogar spelled Jose Vizcaino, and someone named Jeff Barry got his second and final Mets hit in relief of Joe Orsulak. Given the churn of time and event and substances and everything else through my life since then, it's surprising how well I remember the game. Rico Brogna was one of two Mets starters not lifted from the game (Edgardo Alfonzo, whom I'll write about if there's ever a '90s Second Baseman Week, was the other), and apparently he homered in the game.
This being 1995, the season began late for Brogna right along with everyone else, which was a shame in general and especially in the Brognian particular. At the age of 25, Brogna put up a .289/22/76 slash line in 134 games and notched a career-best 119 OPS+. Given that he also fielded well, was acquired in a rare savvy '90s Mets trade (the team got him from the Tigers in '94 for fading prospect Alan Zinter, who wouldn't reach the Majors until George W. Bush was President) and – in a novel twist for the Mets of that vintage – not a surly, declining turd whose Diamond Kings Years were shrinking behind him, Brogna was about as good as anything the Mets had to offer around then. I know this because I kind of remember it, and because Greg Prince, who is older than me and also has a spectacular Technicolor memory for every Met in history, asserted that Brogna was indeed pretty great. Great in the qualified and sentimental and heroically sliding-scale way that certain types of fans assess these things, but given that that is how I assess these things, I'm okay with the word, here.
But what I remember about Brogna, mostly, is that he wasn't there when things finally turned around for the Mets later in the decade – he was in Philadelphia by then, where he'd enjoy (if that's ever the right word for anything an athlete does in Philadelphia) a couple of 20-homer, 100-RBI seasons on some half-lousy teams managed by Terry Francona. My memory of him during those years is also vague – I was in college, where I spent much time vague-ing up my memory and less time paying attention to the Mets. By the time I was back on this coast, it was a different decade and Brogna was playing out the string as a meek-ish platoon first baseman in Boston and then Atlanta.
Brogna has his spot on the list of Mets who deserved better than they got – good guys on bad teams, best players on worst rosters, players who were jettisoned before they ever got to hear anything but desperate cheers in anything but a half-empty Shea Stadium. This is not a short list, and it's not one that is put together in an unbiased or even semi-rational sort of way. In 1995, Brogna was indeed a very good first baseman. In his post-strike years in Philadelphia, he was a very 1990s first baseman – the sort of player who, judging by metrics that no one was really using then, was not very good at getting on base, didn't have all that much pop, and in a baseball sense is probably most accurately described a supercharged Doug Mientkiewicz. And in a baseball sense, he's exactly that memorable.
But what makes Rico Brogna resonate, for me, is how clean his escape from my memory has been, how deep was his dive into the anonymous clutter of things forgotten. As a Met, Brogna was appreciated roughly as much as he should have been, was good and likable when others around him weren't, offered a little bit of hope in a Mets decade of mostly hopeless baseball and a solid diversion for me in a decade in which my attentions were generally turned inward or elsewhere – and he's gone, gone, gone, a baseball card disappeared into a stack of the same, boxed up in a room I don't live in anymore. It's strange, but there are worse ways to be remembered. Brogna's still in there, at least, and I was glad to remake his acquaintance in writing this. It's just that there's so much else in there, too.
