So What is a Historic Accomplishment?
Writing a tweet about Reggie Smith the other day, I casually tossed off the statement that Reggie did not have any "Historic Accomplishments". I don’t think anyone would argue with that, but then later I got to thinking: What exactly is a Historic Accomplishment in baseball?
Another tweet I sent, sometime within the last couple of weeks, mocked the announcers’ habits of making history out of anything they can find that has never happened before. Somebody has. . .just making this up. . .some hitter has two singles, two doubles, two triples and two homers in two consecutive games. It’s history! It’s historic! It’s never happened before!
That’s not exactly what we usually mean by a "historic accomplishment", but what exactly DO we mean by that phrase?
Thinking about this for. . . oh, I don’t know, eight to ten minutes, maybe, I think there are three things we mean by "a historic accomplishment":
1) It doesn’t happen every year,
2) It has impact on the culture, the baseball culture, and
3) It is positive. It helps the player’s team win, or win something big.
So I have about 100 things in my head now that I would describe as "Historic Accomplishments", and I’m trying to generalize about them. Among players who have Historic Accomplishments, I would list, alphabetically:
Hank Aaron
Pete Alexander
Yogi Berra
Barry Bonds
Lou Brock
Roger Clemens
Roberto Clemente
Ty Cobb
Eddie Collins
Joe DiMaggio
Larry Doby
Everybody who got 3,000 hits
Everybody who hit .400
Everybody who hit 500 homers
Everybody who won 300 games
Everybody who won a Triple Crown (hitting)
Everybody who won three MVP Awards
Everybody who won three Cy Young Awards
Everybody who won five or more batting titles
Everybody who won 20 games eight or more times
Bob Feller
Curt Flood
Whitey Ford
Lou Gehrig
Bob Gibson
Billy Hamilton (1)
Rickey Henderson
Orel Hershiser
Rogers Hornsby
Reggie Jackson
Derek Jeter
Randy Johnson
Walter Johnson
Sandy Koufax
Don Larsen
Mickey Mantle
Roger Maris
Mike Marshall
Bill Mazeroski
Mark McGwire
Denny McLain
Stan Musial
David Ortiz
Old Hoss Radbourne
Cal Ripken
Mariano Rivera
Brooks Robinson
Frank Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Pete Rose
Babe Ruth
Nolan Ryan
Ozzie Smith
Tris Speaker
Bruce Sutter
Ichiro Suzuki
Mike Trout
Bobby Thomson
Honus Wagner
Ted Williams
Maury Wills
Hack Wilson
Carl Yastrzemski
Cy Young
I am asking for help with this project, really, and I am asking for help in several different ways. Mainly what I am interested in is sharpening the definition of a "Historic Accomplishment", so that one can say more clearly who has one and who doesn’t. Breaking a significant record is a historic accomplishment, even if somebody else later breaks it, but only if the first breaker’s action has impact on the culture. Dominating a World Series is a historic accomplishment.
Occasionally it is difficult to say what EXACTLY a player’s historic accomplishment was, even though I feel certain that he should be on the list. Guys like Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Stan Musial and Hank Aaron are on the list, even though they are separately covered by the rule that everybody who got 3,000 hits is included, because they would be on the list anyway; they are there for some other reason. Paul Molitor and Rod Carew would not be on the list if they didn’t have 3,000 hits or didn’t claim one of these other titles; I suppose Carew must have won five or more batting titles, and Tony Gwynn as well. They qualify, but they don’t have separate and distinct Historic Accomplishments, not covered by the phrase "everybody who."
Many , many Hall of Famers are not on the list or not listed separately—Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Harmon Killebrew, Pedro Martinez, Harold Baines, Ryne Sandberg, Catfish Hunter, Jim Palmer, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Joe Morgan, Bobby Doerr—and several players are listed who are not in the Hall of Fame (Bonds, Clemens, Larsen, Maris, etc.) Nonetheless, this is a part of the endless and inevitable Hall of Fame discussion. I don’t think that Bill Mazeroski belongs in the Hall of Fame, but it is certainly relevant to his Hall of Fame case that he does have two historic accomplishments (hitting one of the biggest home runs in World Series history, and winning more Gold Gloves than any other player at one of the key defensive positions.) I don’t favor including Roger Maris in the Hall of Fame, but he does have at least one and possibly two Historic Accomplishments (breaking Ruth’s home run record, and winning two consecutive MVP Awards. I debated with myself whether winning two consecutive MVP Awards was or was not a Historic Accomplishments. I decided not to list it, but I sort of feel like it WAS a historic accomplishment in the case of Joe Morgan, but was not in the case of Dale Murphy or Chuck Klein. Did Klein win two straight MVP Awards? Not sure.)
Having historic accomplishments IS a legitimate Hall of Fame credential. I certainly would not have voted for Bruce Sutter, but, like Mazeroski, he does have two historic accomplishments: adding a new pitch to the standard pitcher’s arsenal, and the role of "closer" was invented specifically for him. Brooks Robinson has two distinct Historic Accomplishments: He dominated the 1970 World Series with his defensive play, and, like Mazeroski and Ozzie Smith, he is the number one defensive player in history at his position. Could argue the same for Pudge, but it isn’t as clear in his case. Tris Speaker was long considered the greatest ever defensive outfielder, and maybe still is.
There is a difference between Yastrzemski’s Triple Crown, because it put the Red Sox into the World Series, and Miguel Cabrera’s, which was more of a personal accomplishment. The same with Morgan; his two consecutive MVPs were the capstone on one of the greatest teams of all time, whereas Murphy’s were kind of like "somebody has to win this thing."
There are a good many players that I debate with myself, sort of feel like they should be there but can’t come close enough to formulating a reason why. This includes Johnny Bench, Ivan Rodriguez, Jimmie Foxx (who maybe won three MVP Awards; I’m not sure), Joe Morgan, George Brett, Hank Greenberg, Ken Griffey Jr., Robin Roberts.) I suppose A-Rod has to be there; he is covered by several different "Everybody who" categories, but if he wasn’t covered, would he be included?
Al Kaline was the youngest player ever to win a Batting Championship. Is that a Historic Accomplishment? No. Manny Ramirez drove in more runs in a season than any other player in the last 80 years. Is that a Historic Accomplishment? No. If you ask a baseball fan who had the most RBI in a season is since World War II, more people will guess "Roger Maris" or "Ted Williams" or "Tommy Davis" than will get the answer right. Aaron Judge and Pete Alonso hit 50 home runs as a rookie. Is that a Historic Accomplishment? No.
Sam Crawford holds the All-Time record for triples. Is that a Historic Accomplishment? I don’t know. I wouldn’t argue with you if you said it was, but I’m not saying that it was. Another hard one is Carl Hubbell, who lifted the New York Giants to two pennants with MVP seasons. Sammie Sosa hit 60+ home runs three times. Is that a Historic Accomplishment? Might be. How about Harvey Haddix, for the unforgettable game, or Cadore and Oeschger, for pitching 26 innings in a game, or Toney and Vaughn, for the double no-hitter?
Dale Long, hitting home runs in eight consecutive games; it feels like that was a historic accomplishment at the time, but no longer is, since it has been matched by better players (Griffey and Mattingly.) Wilbur Wood pitching 377 innings in a season is borderline.
Catfish Hunter pitched a perfect game, pitched 5 innings in an All Star game, won 20 games five times in a row, made the All Star team like eight times, was the #1 starter on three World Championship teams, and was the first big-dollar free agent. All of these things are sort of borderline historic, but none of them is EXACTLY historic. Should Messersmith and McNally be on the list? Should Jim Bunning? I don’t know. I think that Bunning was a Historic Player, but that no one thing he did was a Historic Accomplishment. In a sense, you can make a better argument for Floyd Giebell than you can for Jim Bunning.
I didn’t put Jack Chesbro or Ed Walsh on the list, because I don’t regard Chesbro’s 41 wins or Walsh’s 464 innings as legitimate records, since they were created by drawing an arbitrary line behind them. But John Thorn would ask "If 19th century baseball is not major league baseball, how can Chesbro’s 41 wins NOT be the all time record?" It’s a legitimate point; there is something else there that I can’t quite explain.
Some people will say that I am shorting the recent players, the last ten years, which is probably true. It takes perspective to say what stands out in history. Albert Pujols has many Historic Accomplishments, but none I can identify that are unique to him. Can you say anything Pujols did that nobody else did that isn’t just some arbitrary combination of statistical plateaus?
It is hard to say what EXACTLY Derek Jeter’s historic accomplishment was, although I feel certain that he deserves to be here. There is a difference between a Historic PLAYER and a Historic ACCOMPLISHMENT. Should Derek Jeter really be separately listed here, even if I have a hard time saying exactly what his historic accomplishment was?
Genuinely asking for your help. Can you define more clearly what a Historic Accomplishment is, and what it is not? And. . . who am I missing? And why do they deserve to be on the list? What EXACTLY was their historic accomplishment? If you can’t say what it was in ten words or less, it wasn’t historic.
Thanks. And please don’t talk about Shohei Ohtani; we have had enough of that.