Imagine that Today
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by user Harold Friend
As Bruce Willis once told a young man sitting in an airport waiting room at the beginning of one of this year's better films, "There was a time." In this case, the time was 1944, the league was the National, and the Most Valuable Player was Marty Marion. So, you ask, what is unusual about that? How little we know. How much to discover.
In 1944, Marty Marion played shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals. Marty Marion batted .267, had a .324 on base average, and slugged .362. He hit 6 home runs, stole 1 base, and despite committing 21 errors, led National League shortstops in fielding with a .972 mark.
Marty Marion was the best defensive shortstop in baseball history until Ozzie Smith came along. He was 6'2", which was extremely tall for a shortstop, and his long arms led to baseball writers referring to him as the "The Octopus." Many compared Marion's grace at shortstop to that of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly on the stage.
Despite the fact that in 1944, some of the best players were not playing baseball because they were defending freedom, many had better offensive seasons than did Marty Marion. Dixie Walker won the batting title with a .357 average, Marion's teammate Stan Musial hit .347, Joe Medwick batted .337, and Johnny Hopp finished fourth at .336. Marion finished 90 points behind the batting champion. Bill "Swish" Nicholson led the league in home runs with 33 and RBIs with 122.
The MVP vote in 1944 was almost as close as possible. Marion received 190 points to edge Nicholson by a single tally. Nicholson, a slugger who played for the Cubs, hit .287, had a .391 on base average, and slugged .545, and despite leading the league in the two most important slugging categories, he wasn't the MVP.
Until the current era of "Arena Baseball," defense was recognized as valuable as offense. Great defense prevents runs and a player such as Marty Marion, at a key defensive position, can prevent runs. Sure, a "productive hitter" who might not even play in the field can hit over 40 home runs and knock in over 130 runs, but how many runs can he prevent on defense? How many NET runs does a player produce for his team? Why, that's information even sabremeticians cannot definitively determine.
Marion was not unique. Many "powerless" hitters who were great defensive players and hit for a decent average were MVPs. Frankie Frisch hit .311 with 4 home runs in 1931 and was the National League MVP. In 1934, the highly underrated Mickey Cochrane batted .320 with all of 2 home runs, but he was the Tigers leader and was the American League MVP. Phil Rizzuto won the award in 1950 when he hit .324 with only 7 home runs and nine years later, Nellie Fox was the American League's MVP with a .306 average and 2 home runs. 1960 National League MVP Dick Groat hit .325 with 2 home runs and finally, Maury Wills was 1961 NL MVP with a below .300 batting average and 6 home runs. Of course, it should be noted that Wills stole a then record 104 bases, but since some "experts" have determined that stealing a base is a bad play, an accomplishment that baseball writers considered a huge positive in 1961 has become a negative in 2006.
Let us move to the 2002 National League. The MVP was a player named Barry Bonds, whose big bat led the Giants to the World Series, but while, for some seemingly inexplicable reasons, while Bonds' hitting improved with age, his defense, which once was outstanding, eroded more quickly than top soil during a hurricane.
Bonds batted .370 or an incredible 103 points higher than Marion's .267. Barry hit 46 home runs, knocked in 110 runs, and walked an amazing 198 times. But weaknesses sometimes are exposed.
In the World Series against the other team that plays in the Los Angeles area, the team that has had more name changes than a burlesque dancer has changes of costume, Barry couldn't pick up a Garrett Anderson hit along the left field line, allowing Chone Figgins, who was on first to get to third and Anderson to take second. It cost the Giants dearly as the Angels, who had been trailing 5-0, rallied to win Game 6 and then won the Series the next day. Yes, Virginia, there is a need for defense.
This season, it is likely that Derek Jeter, Jermaine Dye, Joe Mauer, or Jason Morneau will be the American Most Valuable Player. Jeter has 13 home runs, Mauer has 11 home runs, Dye has 41, and Morneau has 33. If either Jeter or Mauer wins the MVP, it may well be the last time in the era of "Arena Baseball" that a player who doesn't hit at least 30 home runs wins the MVP award. It really is a different game.
References:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?search=marion
http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/awards_1944.shtml#NLmvp
http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/M/Marion_Marty.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marty_Marion
http://www.baseball-reference.com/b/bondsba01.shtml
Date
Fri 09/15/06, 2:08 pm EST
