100

I wanted to do something special for my 100th post, but then I thought, wait, 100 is just an arbitrary number with no more significance than 99 or 101. Like remember when The Simpsons had the 138th Episode Spectacular, and Bart wrote "I will not celebrate meaningless milestones" on the blackboard? Well, this is kinda like that, so enjoy.

Before we get things started I got a special request this week from a special reader to continue using the word "az." Now in order to reward my loyal readers, I will explain its origin. Seven years ago I spent an amazing six months at Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem, the holy city. The head of the Yeshiva is Rav Aharon Bina, and his mastery over the English language is, umm, suspect. Not only that, but he refuses to actually speak to us in Hebrew for some reason. Anyway, he ALWAYS used the Hebrew word "az" instead of the English word "so," and anyone who ever does any impressions of him invariably will use the word "az" at one point or another. In an effort to please all my readers as much as possible, I will intermittently use the word "az" in the place of "so," az don't get scared.

Last night I went to a birthday party at a bar/club-ish type place on the upper west, and around midnight, there was quite a line to get in. While I was waiting I overheard that after midnight, patrons need to pay a $10 cover fee to enter, which was a tiny bit annoying because I got on line at 11:56, but okay, what can you do? I finally get to the front of the line, and the nice lady sitting by the door was clearly not having the best of nights, what with the constant pushing and complaining of long-time line-waiters. She even got so annoyed at a couple of women who were speaking ill of her once they got inside that she had the bouncer escort them out. (The cool part is that when the women were brought back outside one of the used the classic "what's your name?" line. You know like when you're having trouble with a Dell tech-support person or a verizon technician on the phone, and you want to scare them into helping you more, and you ask them their names so that you can tell their managers how poorly their help was? Anyway, the bouncer didn't even flinch; it was brilliant.) Now I was certainly in no hurry to get in, az I just engaged the woman in conversation, saying how people should chill out a little bit, and not always be so self-centered, and try to be more considerate, etc. So when I was finally allowed in she said I was nice and gave me a ticket so I wouldn't have to pay the cover. Az if you include the $10 I saved at the Verizon store (see the post "Fine, No Sports This Time (Much...), from July 17th, 2007), that's $20 I've saved so far just by being a nice guy. Lessons for all to learn...

Now we're getting to the delicious, room-temperature, creamy center of the Ring Ding that is my 100th post. I was discussing a few baseball related tidbits with my roommate the other day, and we decided we'd both come up with our all-time baseball teams. So I spent a little while at work compiling a spreadsheet with data about the top-players in history at each position. I haven't gotten around to looking up pitchers yet, but I'll get there next time. I'm going to list my all-time team and a few backups, along with some comments about each. (See my post "At the Risk of Losing Readership, Another Baseball Post" for the definitions of the stats.) Here goes:

Catcher: Mike Piazza (.308 BA, .922 OPS, 143 OPS+, 427 HR, 2127 Hits, .313 EqA)
And frankly, it's not even close. Piazza blows away the competition with a career OPS of .922 as compared to Yogi Berra at .830 and Johnny Bench at .818. His Equivalent Average also dominates any competitors at .313. No other catcher has a career EqA above .300. Granted, his defensive skills are definitely lacking, but he more than makes up for it with his hitting. It's Piazza in a landslide. Honestly, I thought this would be a lot closer, but I was wrong.
Backup: Bench (389 HR, 1376 RBI)

First Base: Lou Gehrig (Umm, everything: 1.079 OPS, 179 OPS+, .340 BA, 493 HR, 1995 RBI, 2721 Hits, .346 EqA, 10.8 RC/27)
I've only seen numbers of this magnitude from one other player ever (and we'll get to him a little later). Gehrig is just head and shoulders above all other first basemen. A 1.079 career OPS is just plain unheard-of these days. Even Alex Rodriguez who just completed one of the greatest offensive seasons of all time only had an OPS of 1.067. He really was one of the luckiest men on the face of the earth to have all that talent.
Backup: Albert Pujols (1.040 OPS, 169 OPS+, .332 BA, .342 EqA)

Second Base: Rogers Hornsby (1.011 OPS, 175 OPS+, 9.9 RC/27, .358 BA, 301 HR, 1584 RBI, 2930 Hits, .337 EqA)
And here all along I thought I was going to have to pick Joe Morgan, but once again this race isn't really close either. There has never been another second baseman to have a career OPS above 1.000, and for a period of eight years, Hornsby was absolutely unstoppable. From 1922 to 1929 (keeping in mind that he only played 107 games in 1923), these are his relevant stats:
Runs: 141, 89, 121, 133, 96, 133, 99, 156
Hits: 250, 163, 227, 203, 167, 205, 188, 229
Home Runs: 42, 17, 25, 39, 11, 26, 21, 39
RBI: 152, 83, 94, 143, 93, 125, 94, 149
Strikeouts: 50, 29, 32, 39, 39, 38, 41, 65
Batting Average: .401, .384, .424, .403, .317, .361, .387, .380
On-Base-Percentage: .459, .459, .507, .489, .388, .448, .498, .459
Slugging Percentage: .722, .627, .696, .756, .463, .586, .632, .679
OPS+ (remember, 100 is average): 207, 186, 222, 210, 124, 175, 200, 178
Jesus Freakin' Christ, this guy was a monster. And he was a bleeping second baseman!
Backup: Joe Morgan (132 OPS+, 268 HR, 1133 RBI, 689 SB, 2517 Hits, .311 EqA)

Shortstop: Honus Wagner (150 OPS+, .327 BA, 1732 RBI, 722 SB, 3415 Hits)
He's really the classic example of a dominant player from the dead-ball era. He only hit 101 home runs in his career, but still drove in about a zillion runs (18th all time) and hit a million extra base hits. It's no wonder his T206 card was once auctioned for $2.8 million. This is where my list got kind of dicey, because I wanted to limit my selections to players who have played at least 1000 games at his position, but the 3rd base position has been historically weak, so I made an exception. I selected Alex Rodriguez as my starting 3rd baseman and as the backup to Wagner, and put two backup 3rd basemen instead.
Backup: Alex Rodriguez

Third Base: Alex Rodriguez (.967 OPS, 148 OPS+, .306 BA, 518 HR, 1503 RBI, 265 SB, 2250 H, .324 EqA)
He's only played 621 games at 3rd base, but I'll give him a break because he's still active and he's way better than George Brett and Mike Schmidt ever were. What's interesting is that once again, even his historically good season isn't nearly as good as some of the seasons from back in the day, but it's a different game today. Anyway, by the time his career is over he'll be better than Brett and Schmidt in every single statistical category, and he already is in most of them. In six or seven more years he'll surpass Brett in hits, and he should pass Schmidt in home runs this coming season (518 to 548). I imagine he'll also end up with the requisite 1000 games as a 3rd baseman eventually.
Backups: Brett and Schmidt

Left Field: Ted Williams (1.116 OPS, 190 OPS+, 12 RC/27, .344 BA, 521 HR, 1839 RBI, .364 EqA)
Yeah, okay, maybe the greatest hitter ever. If he hadn't gone to serve his country in World War II and hadn't gotten hurt for about two seasons, he might have compiled a far more impressive array of numbers. He would definitely have gotten 3500 hits, 600 homers, and 2000 RBI. As it is, he had absolutely mind-boggling stats.
Backup: Barry Bonds (1.051 OPS, 182 OPS+, 762 HR, 1996 RBI, 514 SB, 2935 Hits, .356 EqA)

Center Field: Ty Cobb
Before you all get to roasting me for not picking Willie Mays, I just want to compare the stats, because this was really the toughest decision.
Cobb: .366 BA, .433 OBP, .512 SLG, .945 OPS, 167 OPS+, 8.8 RC/27, 117 HR, 1938 RBI, 892 SB, 4289 Hits, .329 EqA
Mays: .302 BA, .384 OBP, .557 SLG, .941 OPS, 156 OPS+, 7.9 RC/27, 660 HR, 1903 RBI, 338 SB, 3283 Hits, .328 EqA
The stats are really close. Mays obviously dominates in HR and SLG, but Cobb beats Mays in every other category. Now everyone says that Mays was probably the best fielding CF of all time, but Cobb was also extremely good. Again, this really was a tough decision, but Mays will still be in the starting lineup as the designated hitter. Or maybe I'll stick him in right field and let Ruth DH. Either one.
Backup: Willie Mays

Right Field: Nick Punto (.562 OPS)
Just kidding! It's Babe Ruth! (1.164 OPS, 207 OPS+, 12.6 RC/27, .342 BA, 714 HR, 2213 RBI, 2873 Hits, .368 EqA)
Yeah, there has never been and never will be a hitter quite like the Babe. Forget the fact that he invented the home run, no one has ever been able to duplicate his statistics. And I don't even mean his sabermetric stats that are adjusted for era, I mean EVER. PERIOD. He has the highest OPS of anyone who would qualify for the record. Same for EqA, same for OPS+, same for RC/27; I could keep on going. But I won't, because nothing more needs to be said. And besides, one of the funniest, and most apropos posters I've ever seen says everything for me. At a Phillies/Giants game last year, a fan held up a poster that read "The Babe did it on hot dogs and beer." Brilliant stuff.
Backup: Mel Ott (.947 OPS, 155 OPS +, 511 HR, 1860 RBI, 2876 Hits, .329 EqA)

Designated Hitter: Jimmie Foxx (1.037 OPS, 163 OPS+, 10 RC/27, .325 BA, 534 HR, 1922 RBI, .329 EqA)
Backup: Hank Aaron (155 OPS+, .305 BA, 755 HR, 2297 RBI, 240 SB, 3771 Hits, .326 EqA)
Backup: Mickey Mantle (.978 OPS, 172 OPS+, 9.3 RC/27, 536 HR, 1509 RBI, .340 EqA)

I'll come back to the pitchers one day this week.
Thanks to all my loyal readers and commenters. I couldn't have done this without your financial support. Wait, never mind.