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Friday, August 3, 2007
A mark many swung for, missed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
So it is remarkable that Cy Young won 511 games. (He also holds the record for losing.) That Henry Aaron hit 755 home runs, which is the record in my eyes. That Cal Ripken Jr. played in 2,632 consecutive games, remarkable just for showing up for work. That Ty Cobb had a lifetime batting average of .367, and that Rogers Hornsby hit .424 one season. They still write of Ted Williams’ season of .406 as some magical figure that will never be struck again. And they write songs about Joe, Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.
Well, let me tell you about Joe Sewell. It’s not a name that rings a lot of bells in the mind of baseball these days. Oh, he’s in the Hall of Fame, elected in 1977. He reached the major leagues ahead of time on account of the only death of a player that ever happened in a major league game. Carl Mays’ submarine pitch caught shortstop Ray Chapman in the head and killed him in 1920. Cleveland called Sewell up from the New Orleans farm, then just a kid of 21. He finished the season, and 13 more followed.
In his 14 seasons with Cleveland and the Yankees, Joe Sewell struck out only 114 times. That’s right — one hundred and fourteen. I’m not talking about some designated hitter, (ugh!) or a guy who sat when left-handers were pitching. He played every day, 1,902 games at shortstop and third base with the Indians and Yankees. That came to 7,976 plate appearances, 844 bases on balls, a lifetime average of .312 and 1,051 runs batted in.
Four of those seasons, Sewell struck out only four times. FOUR. (Some guys have struck out more than that in one game.) It all averaged out that he struck out only once every .0l6 times at bat. In modern times, so to speak, Lloyd Waner of the Pirates came closest. He struck out only 173 times and resides, as well, in Cooperstown. Illustrative of an abiding respect for guys with a keen eye among the Hall of Fame voters.
Not so in a major league feature recently filmed under the title “Baseball’s Most Unbreakable Feats.” You get the usual collection, such as mentioned above. There are others, Nolan Ryan’s all-time strikeouts, Rickey Henderson’s all-time stolen bases, Pete Rose’s all-time hits, among the ten most highly regarded by the producers of the DVD. (Not the narrator, Roger Clemens, if you will. And I’ll say this, “The Rocket” gets a good mark for his performance.)
For one thing, Ted Williams’ season of 1941, when he was the last major leaguer who hit for a .400 average, is viewed as a “record.” It’s likely true, we’ll never see another .400 hitter again, but a “record” it’s not. Rogers Hornsby hit .424 in 1924 with the Cardinals, and musty character that he was, that’s still the major league record for a season.
Ripken’s streak for consecutive games is viewed as the “most admirable” feat of them all, and who’s to joust with that? It should be added that Ripken gets credit for being the kind of human being he was, and is. His Hall of Fame partner, Tony Gwynn, posts another record that’s unlikely to be bettered or equalled. None of us ever expects to live long enough to see one man lead one of the major leagues in hitting eight times.
Perhaps Sewell’s immaculate feat isn’t the kind of positive stuff they were looking for. A streak of batting efficiency, not of muscular offense. May be, but it gets my vote as a kind of out-of-the sky performance, contributing to offense in its own way. Sewell hit for an average over .300 in 10 of his 14 seasons, struck 436 doubles and even slipped 49 home runs into his modest power production. Twice he played on two winning World Series teams, one each with the Indians and Yankees. Say this for him, he didn’t give the pitcher much of a strike zone. He was 5 feet 6-1/2 inches tall and weighed in steadily at a trim 155 pounds.
When it was over, he went home to Alabama and coached the baseball team at Tuscaloosa for several years. His brother, Luke, a catcher, played 20 seasons, then turned to managing and put one up for mankind — he produced the only pennant ever won by the St. Louis Browns in 1944. Another record that can’t ever be broken, but 114 strikeouts in a 1,902-game career of a .312 hitter? Let me see somebody top that!
Permalink | Comments (7) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Furman Bisher
Ex-Falcon Mathis dreams of being GM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
No offense to Rich McKay, but Terance Mathis wants his job.
More specifically, Mathis wants to replace anybody in the future with the job of his eternal dreams, and that job involves serving as general manager of the Falcons. Not only that, Mathis expects to have that job long enough to keep the Falcons among the NFL elite, and he told Arthur Blank as much soon after the former Home Depot king bought the club five years ago.
“My thing is this: I think there needs to be a new breed of general manager out there, and I’m that guy,” said Mathis, 40, the former Falcons wide receiver and Redan High School standout, speaking with the same passion he used to slice through defenders for 13 NFL seasons. “I can’t tell you everything I want to do as a general manager. But after being on the field, and getting released when nobody would return my phone calls, I know there needs to be a connection with players. The NFL is a business, but you’re messing with people’s lives. If you don’t have that connection, you won’t be successful as a franchise.”
Now all Mathis needs is for McKay to retire or to move on. Neither is likely at the moment. As a result, Mathis continues with the Baltimore Ravens during his first stint as a coaching and scouting intern. His primary role is schooling the Ravens’ wide receivers at their training camp in Westminster, Md., but his secondary role is studying the guy living his eternal dream.
Ozzie Newsome.
“He’s gone from being a player to a coach, and then he went into scouting, and now he’s the Ravens’ general manager, so I know I’m on the right path,” Mathis said of Newsome, who became the league’s first African-American general manager five years ago. Mathis has huddled with Newsome as often as possible. Added Mathis, “I’ll tell you how well the Ravens draft and pick up free agents. I don’t know how they cut guys. The ones they cut, you can make another team, and they would win eight or nine games. So I’m just picking the brains of Ozzie, scouts, coaches. That’s my whole job right now.”
Then, when Mathis’ internship expires before the start of the regular season, he wants to become an assistant coach in the NFL or the college ranks. He plans to follow in Newsome’s cleat steps after that as a scout, and you already know what Mathis wants to do after that. “No one is going to just say, ‘Hey. Come on in and be our general manager.’ You have to earn your way,” Mathis said. “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.”
If nothing else, Mathis is consistent with his goal and his game plan.
For instance: When Blank delivered his first words at Flowery Branch in early 2002 to the players he inherited, Mathis was among those listening with fellow wide receiver Tony Martin. Afterward, Blank strolled through the locker room. That’s when Martin leaned over to Mathis and spoke loudly enough for the new boss to hear every syllable: “Tell him what you said. Go ahead. Tell him.”
Since Mathis is the owner of a famously blunt tongue, he didn’t need much prodding. He stood before Blank with a strong voice to say, “I’m going to be your next general manager of this team.”
And Blank’s reaction? “He kind of looked at me, giggled, and then he went on his way,” said Mathis, who didn’t become the Falcons general manager back then. In fact, Mathis wasn’t even a Falcons player a few days later. After eight seasons of moving toward becoming the team’s all-time leader in receptions and touchdown catches, he was released for salary-cap reasons. He played the 2002 season with the Pittsburgh Steelers before he eventually retired to do some local broadcasting and to dabble as a potential NASCAR owner.
Those weren’t parts of Mathis’ eternal dream, though. “If it takes me five years, 10 years. Whatever. I’m going to get there as the Falcons GM sooner or later,” Mathis said, with another strong voice.
Permalink | Comments (21) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Terence Moore
