tek
tek's hanging 'em up today and we're soon going to hear all over again about all his baseball achievements, including being the only player to ever play in the little league world series, state high school finals, college world series, olympics, world baseball classic, and world series finals, too. he was a gold-glove switch hitting for-power catcher who even holds the records for most catcher triples in the world series (ok, just 2, but that's a lot if you've ever seen tek run the bases), and he's a hall-of-famer in my book, though you never know with those knuckleheads.
end of an era for sure.
but his stat of which i'm most impressed is having been the only catcher in mlb history to have ever caught four no-hitters. there have been 264 of these since pop snyder caught joe borden's back in 1875, and only 23 since the turn of the century, but the captain has four of them. FOUR of them.
boggles my mind.
it's also remarkable how many catchers have three of them--far more than there are pitchers--though nolan ryan with 7 has to top the entire discussion either way. other than larry corcoran who played during the dead ball era, there's only cy young, bob feller, sandy koufax and jim maloney to join that list on the pitching side. on the catching side, by rough count, i found 14 other catchers before tek who have caught as many as three no-hitters.
says to me that, overall, catching is a greater influence on no-hitters than pitching is--otherwise any old backstopper would be picking up the random credit and the concentration of success would be far more diluted. no, it's catching that makes the greater difference, and if derek lowe can get one, you know it was only because he had the good fortune to team up with tek for those glory years in boston and no other reason.
yaz, jim ed, and now tek. i've been fortunate to have been a fan for all of them. can't imagine the player who will ever succeed those three in these days of free agency and clubhouse childishness, but i'd like to meet him, whoever he'll be.
i'll bet you, until we find another captain worthy of tek's shoes, we won't be seeing another series victory now that tek's have been hung up. bittersweet, but for me today in my #33 home white replica jersey, nothing but sweet. tek, today you da man.
end of an era for sure.
but his stat of which i'm most impressed is having been the only catcher in mlb history to have ever caught four no-hitters. there have been 264 of these since pop snyder caught joe borden's back in 1875, and only 23 since the turn of the century, but the captain has four of them. FOUR of them.
boggles my mind.
it's also remarkable how many catchers have three of them--far more than there are pitchers--though nolan ryan with 7 has to top the entire discussion either way. other than larry corcoran who played during the dead ball era, there's only cy young, bob feller, sandy koufax and jim maloney to join that list on the pitching side. on the catching side, by rough count, i found 14 other catchers before tek who have caught as many as three no-hitters.
says to me that, overall, catching is a greater influence on no-hitters than pitching is--otherwise any old backstopper would be picking up the random credit and the concentration of success would be far more diluted. no, it's catching that makes the greater difference, and if derek lowe can get one, you know it was only because he had the good fortune to team up with tek for those glory years in boston and no other reason.
yaz, jim ed, and now tek. i've been fortunate to have been a fan for all of them. can't imagine the player who will ever succeed those three in these days of free agency and clubhouse childishness, but i'd like to meet him, whoever he'll be.
i'll bet you, until we find another captain worthy of tek's shoes, we won't be seeing another series victory now that tek's have been hung up. bittersweet, but for me today in my #33 home white replica jersey, nothing but sweet. tek, today you da man.
posted by kad barma at 9:55 AM
2 Comments:
As a fan of semi-obscure sports statistics (and especially of measurable ways that people can *add value*), glad you posted this...and agreed that it's not some kind of coincidence that he would rack up the most-ever.
Catching four no-hitters should factor into the discussion about which records would be the most difficult to break...I'd still go with Johnny V's back-to-back no-hitters as less likely to be broken, but for someone to be able to catch FIVE no-hitters over a career seems just as hard if not harder than any of the incremental stats with the bigger numbers (i.e. home runs, base hits, doubles, etc.)
Records that reflect a different era in the game need their own category, however (i.e. Cy Young's wins and losses).
He is also the only player in history to have played in the Little League World Series, the College World Series, the World Series, the Olympics, and the World Baseball Classic. (h/t boston.com)
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home