Thank you.  Very nice of you to say.  

 Frank, the difference between me and a talk show host is that, unless I happen to know the answer, I do research before I weigh in.  

 Thanks.  In basic training they had us fire live ammunition at targets in an open field, and then had us cease fire, and a dozen people who were hiding in the field in front of us stood up.  The field looked flat, but it was actually uneven.  People could hide safely in the low parts of the uneven ground.  

 

In Hall of Fame voting, the ground doesn't even LOOK flat.  It's very uneven; the standards are nowhere near consistent.  So what you're really asking, I think, is "OK, there are lots of people who have been left out compared to other people who are in, but is there one who is MORE obvious than the others?"  

 

I had an idea for a new way to write about this, but I don't know if I'll get it done.  Thanks again for your kind words.  

 They're not here right now.  They will be back soon.   There's a little glitch.  

 

 

 

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Last year (2019) I had kind of let the daily answering of Hey, Bill questions lapse.  I set a goal of answering "Hey, Bill" questions on 300 days this year, and as of today I have met the goal; 331 days so far this year, and I have answered Hey Bill questions on 300 of them.  I'll continue doing it (almost) every day, but. . .I've met my goal for the year.  Just wanted to make a note of that.  

 ??

 1953, beyond question.   It's hard to explain, but. . people remember the 1953 Dodgers as a fantastic team, which they were; they finished 105-49 and have a lot of great individual stats.  But the 1953 Yankees beat them in the World Series, and also, the 1953 Yankees had a better record until late August.  The Yankees were 82-38 on August 21; the Dodgers were 81-38, but the Yankees had a far better run/opposition run ratio at that time, 1.54 - 1 for the Yankees, 1.375 -1 for the Yankees.  Neither team had a serious challenger.  Stengel completely took his foot off the gas at that time, coasted in; Charlie Dressen continued to push until the end, so the Dodgers pulled a few games ahead although the Yankees still had a better run ratio.   The 1953 Yankees BACKUP team--guys NOT in the regular lineup--would be C--Gus Triandos or Charlie Silvera, 1B--Johnny Mize on Don Bollweg; 2B--Jerry Coleman, 3B--Andy Carey, SS--Willie Miranda, OF--Bill Renna, Irv Noren, Bob Cerv.    Their backup team was at least a .500 team.   Bollweg had 155 at bats with an .887 OPS.  Catchers, Silvera hit .280 and was a career .282 hitter as Berra's backup; Triandos was a really good catcher when he got a chance to play, in 1957 threw out 42 of 63 baserunners, 2/3.   It may be the highest percentage ever for that many chances.  Coleman was a terrific player in 1950, went into the military for two years and never got his job back.  (Like Ted Williams, Coleman was a World War II pilot who was recalled for service in Korea.)  Andy Carey was a Gold Glove quality third baseman and hit .321 with a .900+ OPS in a backup role in 1953.  Miranda was a glove wizard, was later a regular for several years.  Bill Renna got into 61 games, 121 at bats and hit .314.  Irv Noren was a good defensive center fielder who in 1950 had hit .295 with 98 RBI for Washington, had another pretty good year in 1951; the Yankees traded Jackie Jensen to get him.   Cerv hit 38 homers one year for Kansas City.  That was the team that WASN'T the team; that was the backup team.  

 

At first base, if Joe Collins and Johnny Mize and Dan Bollweg weren't good enough, in Triple-A they had Moose Skowron and Vic Power.   Skowron in 1952 hit hit .341 with 31 homers, 38 doubles, 11 triples, 134 RBI in the American Association, but did not get called up, got sent back to the minors for 1953, and had another great year, not quite AS great.  Vic Power on the same team hit .349 with 34 doubles, 10 triples, 19 homers, 93 RBI, 215 hits, and the best defensive first baseman of his time.   He didn't get called up, either.   Skowron had to play the outfield, which probably kept him in the minors an extra year.  That team (in the minors) also had Elston Howard, Alex Grammas and Bill Virdon, all of whom were ready to play, just biding their time in the minor leagues.  Grammas was 27 by then; he was later a regular for several years in the National League, and I believe won a Gold Glove one year.  

 Thank you, and I am hoping that you meant the 2021 Handbook.  

 There were far, far, far more in the past than there are now, and the further back in time you go, the more there are.   But there were many more in the 1960s and 1970s than there are now, and it is my understanding that there were many more, particularly in the dead ball era, than there were in the 1960s and 1970s. 

 When you click on the box that says reader posts, what do you see? 

 (a) I'm not following your logic, and (b) If I did follow it, I'm not sure how I would determine whether it was true or false.    I agree that the insight that an attacking force only needs to be lucky once is relevant here, and I have heard Homeland Security officials say the same thing, perhaps picking up the language of the IRA, but I have heard them say that the terrorists only have to be lucky once; we have to be perfect.  I agree that is relevant to the general subject.   But I don't really see how you're getting from that to the distribution argument.

 

The reason that a team of offensive players would probably beat a team of defensive specialists in baseball is that, in baseball, a significant portion of the workload of defense is done by the pitchers.  Let's say that defense is 70% pitching, or that baseball is 50% hitting and baserunning, 35% pitching, 15% fielding.   It is very difficult for fielders, controlling only 15% of the "outcome territory", to match the impact of hitters who are controlling 50%.  

 I think it is because the first act of the mind is always to simplify.   Reality is overwhelmingly complex.  We instinctively reduce the flood on information coming toward us to small bits of information.  We do that by throwing away 90% to 99% of the information and filing the event/person/ entity under a label based on the remaining portions.  A non-baseball fan might file "Rod Carew" under "Baseball Player".  A passing fan might file him under "Baseball Player--Great Batting avearges".  A more interested fan might file him under "baseball player--great batting averages--Minnesota Twins", and then, as the fan gets more interested, under "Baseball Player--great batting averages--Minnesota Twins--Second Baseman--Panamanian--poor at turning Double Play--hit .388 on year", etc.  If you're at our level you might remember 200 facts about Rod Carew, but there aren't 200 facts available about him; there are 200,000.   We always discard most of the facts in order to keep track of the others, unless you're like Rain Main and keep all of the facts on file but can't organize them to make sense of them.  

 

Anyway, the more complex a player's skills are, the more difficult it is to get a grasp of what he does.  There is no easy hook to file it under, no easy label to put on it.  The two facts that are kept are not that impressive. . .whereas for Rod Carew, hitting .388 is REALLY impressive, although Carew was probably no better player than Abreu.  

 I would be, but it's pretty far down the list of books I might read.  I don't have any opinion about Scarborough. . .don't watch him or have any understanding of what he believes.  

 No, I haven't seen it, and no, I don't think it is a sound reason for removing him from a 1-0 game.  But its a doorway to an interesting question if we can figure out how to open the door.  

 Did you get this sorted out?   Sorry for the inconvenience. 

 Copied from you tweet.   Thanks.