Kershaw is great, but enough with the GOAT

Let me get this straight from the start--I really like Kershaw.  I admire him.  He's a great pitcher.  One of the best of today's game.

Now, I'll blast the talking heads.  HE ISN'T THE GREATEST EVER.

Here's the thing--historically we've always considered innings eating as one of the essentials of a "best ever" type of pitcher.  Clayton pitched 7 innings last night.  That's fairly normal for pitchers today, but the Greatest Ever has to go to pitchers who aren't "fairly normal."  

Quick look.  Bob Gibson in World Series games.

Year	Age	Tm	Lg	Series	Rslt	Opp	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	GF	CG	SHO	SV	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	IBB	SO	HBP	BK	WP	BF	WHIP	H9	HR9	BB9	SO9	SO/W
1964 MVP	28	STL	NL	WS	W	NYY	2	1	.667	3.00	3	3	0	2	0	0	27.0	23	11	9	4	8	2	31	2	0	1	113	1.148	7.7	1.3	2.7	10.3	3.88
1967 MVP	31	STL	NL	WS	W	BOS	3	0	1.000	1.00	3	3	0	3	1	0	27.0	14	3	3	1	5	0	26	0	0	1	98	0.704	4.7	0.3	1.7	8.7	5.20
1968	32	STL	NL	WS	L	DET	2	1	.667	1.67	3	3	0	3	1	0	27.0	18	5	5	1	4	1	35	0	0	0	101	0.815	6.0	0.3	1.3	11.7	8.75
3 Yrs (3 Series)							7	2	.778	1.89	9	9	0	8	2	0	81.0	55	19	17	6	17	3	92	2	0	2	312	0.889	6.1	0.7	1.9	10.2	5.41
3 WS							7	2	.778	1.89	9	9	0	8	2	0	81.0	55	19	17	6	17	3	92	2	0	2	312	0.889	6.1	0.7	1.9	10.2	5.41

Note: Bob Gibson, one of the historic monsters of Stare Down pitching, pitched 8 complete games out of 9 starts.  All in all, he pitched 9 innings per game.  

Bob Gibson is ahead of Clayton Kershaw on the "Best Ever" lists in my opinion.  

Tom Seaver averaged more than 7 innings per post season game.  Overall ERA for those series was 2.77, 3 W's, 3 L's, 8 starts.

Greg Maddux.  11 W's, 14 L's, 3.27 ERA, 30 post season starts.

Nolan Ryan.  2 W's, 2 L's, 3.07 ERA, 63 K's in 58.2 IP.

Steve Carlton.  6 W's, 6 L's, 3.26 ERA, 14 post season starts.

Randy Johnson.  7 W's, 9 L's, 3.50 ERA, 16 post season starts.  132 K's in 121 IP.

These are all historic great pitchers.  All with mediocre post season records.

Now let's look at Curt Schilling, the one cast out by ESPN because they are a purely liberal political organization.

Curt.  11 W's, 2 L's, 19 starts, 19 games pitches, 4 complete games (not a lot compared to the old timers), 2.23 ERA.  

Nice!

Now, one to whom Clayton is often compared.

Sandy Koufax.  4 W's, 3 L's.  That's fairly normal.  0.95 ERA.  I'm going to write that again, to help you see that it wasn't a typo.  0.95 ERA.  0.95 ERA.  8 games started, 4 complete games.

Now, Clayton.

7 W's, 7 L's, 4.21 ERA.  What?  

18 starts, 22 games overall.  113.1 innings pitched.  So... that's an average of just over 5 innings per game pitched.  

Not a best ever.

However, Clayton does have the distinction of being the only player in the history of MLB to win the MVP award after having been in only 1/6th of his team's games.

There ya go.

The Long Ball

I just finished reading (that is, listening to) a book about the 1975 season:

"The Long Ball: The Summer of '75 -- Spaceman, Catfish, Charlie Hustle, and the Greatest World Series Ever Played"

1975 was the year that I fell in love with baseball. My family and I lived in a suburb of Cleveland at the time, so I was initiated into baseball fandom as a Cleveland Indians fan, but my grandparents, who lived in Columbus, were Reds fans. Their fandom rubbed off on me somewhere along the way, perhaps, or I was simply an Ohio fan.

At any rate, I played 2nd base, so two of my favorite players were Cleveland's Duane Kuiper and Cincinnati's Joe Morgan.

We were visiting my grandparents in Columbus while the Reds were playing the Red Sox that fall. My brothers and I got to see the twitchy batting stance of Morgan, the bizzare wind up of Luis Tiant, and the glorious energy of Pete Rose.

What a great year.

The book begins before the season and ends after it, telling lots of little stories along the way. We get glimpses of McNally's difficulties in Montreal and his sudden retirement, Catfish Hunter's free agency, Johnny Bench's preseason wedding (and post season divorce), asides about future famous people like M. C. Hammer and Ricky Henderson, and more.

It is a fun read for any long time baseball fan.