The Scintillating ’70s

Tom Seaver had the best season in the major leagues in the 1970s, three of the top 10, and led National League pitchers five times according to a points system that rates players according to how they ranked in 12 categories.

Jim Rice had the best season among major league hitters in the 1970s, ranked in the top 10 twice and led American League hitters twice. 

By Phil Ellenbecker

  My latest look the top seasons and players of the decade in Major League Baseball delves into the 1970s.

  Here’s the drill: The “study” consisted of pulling out a Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia and looking over the listing of league leaders in several categories for each year.  The top five were listed in some instances, the top four in others – don’t ask me how that line was drawn. The major categories almost all included the top five. In a couple instances just the top three were listed. Sometimes less than two. I think a large number of players tied had something to do with less than four, and space limitations came into play. I gave five points for the top ranking, four for second and so on down. Where just four were listed, it went 5-4-3-2. If there was a tie, I divided the total number of points between the rankings by the number of players who were tied. Example: Three players tied for second – 4+3+2=9 divided by 3=3 points for each player.

  The categories: hitting -- batting average, total bases, hits, runs, slugging average, RBIs, walks, doubles, homers, steals, homer-percentage, triples; pitching  – winning percentage, saves, hits/nine innings/, strikeouts/nine innings, ERA, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, wins, complete games, walks/nine innings, games pitched.

  What I came up with I think gives a fairly representative presentation of the top players and seasons. There are enough categories included to give a balance between the counting stats that reward durability and reliability and the rate stats that address pure performance. Offense takes in power, speed, batting eye and contact; pitching -- power, control, durability and dominance (i.e., shutouts). Mind you, the numbers, other than the rankings I assigned, don’t matter here, just how the players ranked in comparison with their peers. Which I think is the best way to rate players, how they rate relative to others. The 48 homers Willie Stargell hit in 1971 and Dave Kingman hit in 1979 to lead the National League don’t matter anymore than the 32 that four different players hit to lead their leagues; they were simply the best over their peers in that particular year in that particular category.

Top 10 pitching seasons

1. Steve Carlton, 1972, 39

2 (tie). Tom Seaver, 1973, and Ron Guidry, 1978, 33

4 Tom Seaver, 1975, 32 1/2

5 (tie). Ferguson Jenkins, 1975, and Jim Palmer, 1975, 31

7 (tie). Tom Seaver, 1971, Andy Messersmith, 1975, and J.R. Richard, 1979, 30

10. Vida Blue, 1971, 29 1/2

Top 10 batting seasons

1. Jim Rice, 1978, 41

2. George Foster, 1977, 35

3. Dick Allen, 1972, 33 1/2

4. Dave Parker, 1978, 32 ½

5. Reggie Jackson, 1973, 31 1/2

6 Rod Carew, 1977, 30 1/2

7. Carl Yastrzemski, 1970, 30

8 (tie). Willie Stargell,  1973, and Mike Schmidt, 1974, 29

10 (tie). Jim Rice, 1979, 28 1/2

     Among my admittedly nonauthoritative observations and conclusions:

n  Tom was indeed Terrific during the 1970s. Tom Seaver posted three of the top 10 pitching seasons – tied for second in 1973, fourth in 1975 and tied for seventh in 1971.

n  Steve Carlton’s stupendous 1972 season, when at the age of 27 with 27 wins he had 46 percent of Philadelphia’s 59 wins, rates as the top season of the decade with 41 points, three points off Sandy Koufax’s 1965 that is the top mark in the three decades I’ve surveyed. Carlton easily outdistanced Seaver’s ’72 and Ron Guidry’s ’78 with 33, and Seaver’s 32 ½ in 1974.

n  While some have doubted Jim Rice’s Hall of Fame bona fides (he was not elected by the writers until his 15^th and final year of eligibility), these lists show he was clearly a premier hitter in the 1970s. He had the best season in the major leagues of the decade with 41 points and also had the 10^th best. George Foster’s 1977 came in second at 35 followed by Dick Allen’s 1972 at 33½. Foster was helped by a 52-homer season in 1977. That was the first 50-homer season in the major leagues since Willie Mays’ 52 in 1965.

n  Rice and Rod Carew had two league-leading seasons apiece to top the American League. Carew, who never hit more than 14 homers in a season,  shows you don’t have to be a power hitter to rate high. He had the seventh-best season in the majors in the ‘70s, in 1977, when he tied his career high in homers while hitting .388, highest in the majors since Ted Williams’ .388 in 1957.

n  Billy Williams and Mike Schmidt had two league-leading seasons each to lead the NL. Williams’ came in 1970 and 1972, years in which Johnny Bench won the NL MVP Award and strong arguments were made for Williams. In fact Williams was named the Sporting News’ Major Player of the Year and NL Player of the Year in ’72. Schmidt’s league-leading ’74 established him as a player to watch for years to come after  a rookie season in which he’d batted .196.

George Foster's 1977 season ranked second in the major leagues in the 1970s, helped by a 52-homer season, the first 50-homer season since Willie Mays' 52 in 1965.

J.R. Richard led National League pitchers in 1978 and 1979, tying for the seventh-best mark in the decade with his '79. His career tragically ended midway through the next season when he suffered a stroke.

n  Seaver led the NL in points five times in the decade, including three straight at one stretch. J.R. Richard was the other multi-NL leader with two seasons back-to-back closing out the decade. His 1979 tied for seventh on the majors' top 10 list. Sadly, Richard suffered a stroke midway through the 1980 season, prematurely ending what looked to be an all-time great career.

n  Nolan Ryan was the AL’s league leader three times. No other AL pitcher led more than once.

Willie and/or The Duke

Willie Mays, a center fielder virtually his entire career, moved over to right field in the 1956 All-Star Game, giving way to Duke Snider in the fifth inning.

Duke Snider, like Willie Mays a center fielder most of his career, moved to right in the 1954 All-Star Game when Mays entered the game in the fourth inning and took over center.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider (Willie, Mickey & the Duke in Terry Cashman's song "Talkin' Baseball"). That was the raging argument facing New York baseball fans in the 1950s, stating their case for which center fielder was the best in the city.

  While that was a tough one to settle orally -- they were about equally dominant over their peers -- it was resolved, in a sense, between the two National League center fielders in the mid-'50s at the ballot box for the All-Star Game, then controlled by the fans. And whom did they pick? The People's Cherce (as Brooklyn fan favorite Dixie Walker was referred to in the '40s) in 1954 and 1955 was the Dodgers' Snider, chosen to start both years over the Giants' Mays. Then in 1956 both gave way to Cincinnati's Gus Bell, as Reds fans set the stage for their next year's ballot-box stuffing by voting in five players. All eight Reds position players were voted in for the '57 game. (Commissioner Ford Frick stepped in and replaced three Reds with Mays, Hank Aaron and Stan Musial).

  NL manager Walter Alston in 1954 and '56 found a way to get around having to decide between Mays and Snider and get both in the game at the same time. In 1954 in Cleveland, Alston played musical chairs by inserting Mays in the game in the bottom of the fourth inning and moving Snider from center to right, Musial right to left. 

   Snider finished the game 3-for-4 with two runs scored, Mays 1-for-2 with a run in a game won by the AL11-9.

    In 1956 in Washington, it was a slightly different form of musical chairs with the same players. Mays pinch hit for Bell in the top of the fourth and belted a two-run homer, then moved into center field. Snider batted for starting left fielder Frank Robinson in the fifth, then took over center, with Mays moving to right and Musial from right to left.

  Mays finished the game 1-for-3 with a run and two RBIs courtesy the homer. Snider was 0-for-3. The NL won 7-3.

  In 1955 in Milwaukee, with Mays' manager Leo Durocher in charge, Snider started and was replaced by Mays in the top of the sixth. Mays ended up with more trips to the plate when the game went into extra innings and finished 2-for-3 with two runs scored, while Snider was 0-for-2.

  The NL ended up winning the game 6-5 on Musial's leadoff homer in the bottom of the 12th, capping an NL comeback from a 5-0 deficit.

   Willie took over center for the NL beginning in '57, as Snider didn't play in another All-Star Game until 1963, his penultimate season in the major leagues. Mays --  who according to baseball-almanac.com holds All-Star career records for at-bats, extra-base hits, hits, runs, stolen bases, total bases and triples --  started 14 straight All-Star Games in center from 1957 to 1962, including the two games each year for the players' pension fund from 1959-1962,

  For the record, Snider, according to retrosheet.org,, played only 24 games off center field in his first 12 seasons of an 18-year career, but beginning in 1959 he began to see more time in right and left than in center.

  Mays, meanwhile, didn't play an outfield position other than center field until 1965 (he did have five infield stints in '62 and '63). He finished his 22-year career with only 28 games total at the other two outfield positions, according to retrosheet.org, although he did play 78 games at first base over his final six seasons.
  

Koufax KOs Yanks

Sandy Koufax set a World Series record with 15 strikeouts and pitched a six-hitter in leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 5-2 win over the New York Yankees in the opening game of the 1963 World Series.

John Roseboro gave his batterymate a big lift in the third inning of Game 1 with a three-run homer.

By Phil Ellenbecker

   "How the fuck are you supposed to able to hit that shit?"

   Can't pin this quote down for an exact citation, but I seem to recall it coming from the 1963 World Series, when Mickey Mantle turned around to Los Angeles Dodgers catcher John Roseboro and expressed his exasperation at facing Sandy Koufax.

  The left-hander, amid perhaps the greatest five-season stretch for a pitcher in major league history, had the New York Yankees almost completely bamboozled during that Series, going 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA and 23 strikeouts over 18 innings as the Dodgers upended the mighty Yankees in a four-game sweep.

  Koufax was especially bamboozling in Game 1 at Dodger Stadium, setting a World Series record with 15 strikeouts in a 5-2 Dodger win. He struck out the first five batters he faced, six of the first seven and struck out the side again in the fourth inning as New York went 12 up and 12 down to start the game.

  All but one Yankee position player struck out against Koufax. Only Clete Boyer was able to get bat on ball each time up. Losing pitcher Whitey Ford managed a pop-up, but the three pinch hitters who took his spot in the batting order each struck out, including Harry Bright to end the game.

  Bobby Richadson also struck out three times. That's the Bobby Richardson who struck out only 22 times during the regular season, finishing second in the American League in at-bats per strikeout. He led the league in that stat the following three years.

  Besides all the K's, Koufax coaxed six pop outs out of the Yanks, three in foul territory. That's a clear indication that the Bronx Bombers weren't getting around on Sandy this day, even when their bats grazed Sandy's pitches.

  Koufax did encounter some trouble. With two out in the fifth, back-to-back singles by Elston Howard and Joe Joe Pepiton broke up the perfect game. Boyer then hit a hot shot up the middle, but a diving stab by second baseman Dick Tracewski saved a run, limiting Boyer to a single and leaving the Yankees with the bases loaded when Koufax struck out pinch hitter Hector Lopez.

  Tom Tresh broke up the shutout by unloading a two-run homer in the eighth.

  But regardless of what threats the Yankees made, they were largely moot after the Dodgers built a 5-0 lead through three innings.

  Bill "Moose" Skowron, in his first year with the Dodgers after coming over from the Yankees, whom he helped win seven AL pennants and four World Series titles, got Los Angeles on the scoreboard with one out in the second when he singled in Frank Howard, who'd doubled. After a single by Tracewski, Roseboro bumped the margin to 4-0 with a three-run homer.

  Moose, who'd been traded by the Yankees for Stan Williams, was loose again in the third with a two-out single that plated Willie Davis, making it 5-0.

  More than enough for Koufax, who threw a six-hitter with three walks.

  Sandy came back four days later at Yankee Stadium with another six-hitter, with eight strikeouts and no walks, in a 2-1 Dodgers win that closed out the sweep. 

  P.S. Bob Gibson broke Koufax's record with 17 strikeouts for St. Louis in the 1968 World Series opener. That record still stands.

The Fabulous ’50s

Robin Roberts had three seasons in the top 10, including the top two, to lead major league pitchers in the 1950s, and for four straight seasons he led the National League.

Duke Snider led major league hitters in the 1950s with three seasons in the top 10 in the author's point system that rewards top-five finishes in 12 categories.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  Looking for something to do amid the idleness of my unemployment, I decided to undertake an unscientific “study” of Major League Baseball in the 1950s to determine the best players of the decade and the best individual seasons by those players.

  The “study” conducted of pulling out a Macmillan Baseball Encyclopedia and looking over the listing of league leaders in several categories for each year.  The top five were listed in some instances, the top four in others – don’t ask me how that line was drawn. The major categories almost all included the top five. In a couple instances just the top three were listed. I think large number of players tied had something to do with less than four, and space limitations came into play. I gave five points for the top ranking, four for second and so on down. Where just four were listed, it went 5-4-3-2. If there was a tie, I divided the total number of points between the rankings by the number of players who were tied. Example: Three players tied for second – 4+3+2=9 divided by 3=3 points for each player.

  The categories: offense -- batting average, total bases, hits, runs, slugging average, RBIs, walks, doubles, homers, steals, homer-percentage, triples; defense – winning percentage, saves, hits/nine innings/, strikeouts/nine innings, ERA, strikeouts, shutouts, innings pitched, wins, complete games, walks/nine innings, games pitched.

  What I came up with I think gives a fairly representative presentation of the top players and seasons. There are enough categories included to give a balance between the counting stats that reward durability and reliability, and the rate stats that address pure performance. Offense takes in power, speed, batting eye and contact; pitching -- power, control, durability and dominance (i.e., shutouts).   Mind you, the numbers, other than the rankings I assigned, don’t matter here, just how the players ranked in comparison with their peers. Which I think is the best way to rate players, how they rate relative to others. The 56 homers Mickey Mantle hit in 1956 don’t matter any more than the 32 Larry Doby hit  in 1952 and ’54; they were simply the best over their peers in that particular year in that particular category.

  This was a fun project to do, as I delved year by year into players legendary, familiar, surprising and unfamiliar; reading history unfold and feeling a true sense of who stood out and who didn’t.

Top 10 pitching seasons

1, Robin Roberts, 1952, 31

2, Robin Roberts, 1954, 30                                                                                                                         3 (tie). Johnny Antonelli, 1954, and Bobby Shantz, 1952, 29 ½

5 (tie). Billy Pierce, 1953, and Robin Roberts, 1953, 28

7 (tie). Warren Spahn, 1952, Allie Reynolds, 1952, Robin Roberts, 1953, and Warren Spahn 1958, 27

Top 10 batting seasons

1, Mickey Mantle, 1956, 44

2. Willie Mays, 1955, 40                                                                                                                                     

3. Al Rosen, 1953, 36

4. Duke Snider, 1954, 33 ½

5 (tie). Ernie Banks, 1958, and Hank Aaron, 1959, 34

7. Duke Snider, 1953, 33 ½

8, Hank Aaron, 1957, 33

9. Ralph Kiner, 1951, 32 ½

10. Duke Snider, 1956, 32
Among my admittedly nonauthoritative observations and conclusions:

n  As much as we make of batting titles, or  used to, batting average among the categories has the least do with overall batting excellence. Oftentimes people who would appear on the batting average list wouldn’t appear elsewhere or rarely elsewhere.

n  Robin Roberts was definitely the most dominant pitcher of the 1950s by these metrics, compiling the most points in the National League in four consecutive seasons,  1952-1955. He also had the top point totals, with 31 in 1952 and 30 in 1954. Warren Spahn was the only other pitcher in either league make the top 10 more than once, tied for seventh in 1952 and 1958. And the pitching was far more dominant in the early ’50s, with only two seasons in the top 10 from 1955 on.

Mickey Mantle had the best season among major league hitters in the 1950s according the author's point system. He also topped American League hitters in four straight seasons.

n  Somewhat surprisingly, Duke Snider had the most top-10 seasons among the batters with three, in 1953, 1954 and 1956. This gives Snider some ballast in the argument that he was in the same class, at least offensively, as Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle, the other two New York center fielders of the decade included in the trio (“Willie, Mickey and the Duke,” in song) that Big Apple fans compared and constrasted and argued about during this time. Mays and Mantle had only one top-10 season apiece. However, those were the top seasons of the decade, Mantle topping the list with 44 in his 1956 Triple Crown year and Mays second at 40 in 1955, one year after winning the NL MVP award. (Mays was fourth in ’55 MVP voting although his ’55 was better by this system than his ’54, when he scored 29). Hank Aaron was the only other player in the top 10 more than once, in 1957 and 1958. Which tells you a lot about why the Milwaukee Braves reached the World Series both those years and nearly won both of them.

n  Roberts’ point total led the NL four straight years, 1952-55. Spain had second-most NL-leading seasons among pitchers with three. Snider led the league most among batters with three, followed by Ralph Kiner and Aaron with two apiece.

n  Starting in 1955, Mantle led AL batters for four straights seasons

, tying with Williams for first in 1957. Williams was the other multiple league leader in the AL with two. Among the pitchers, 10 different pitchers topped the standings in the decade.

Holtzman's no-no: Let the batters do the work

  By Phil Ellenbecker
 

Ken Holtzman pitched a no-hitter on Aug. 18, 1969 without striking out a single batter.

Pitch to contact.

  A once-favored pitching philosophy ("let your fielders help you") that's become somewhat passe in this age of power pitching-on-power hitting, hit-or-miss baseball.

  But there's something to be said for everyone -- fielders, fans, pitchers, maybe not hitters -- getting in on the fun with batters being put out by putting the bat on the ball. It's not boring.

  And Ken Holtzman put on a clinic of pitching to contact on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 1969, when he threw a no-hitter without the benefit of one single strikeout. The left-hander, in his fourth year in the major leagues, set the Atlanta Braves down on 12 ground outs, 12 fly outs and three pop-ups as he ran his record to 14-7.

  The only blemish on Holtzman's day before 37,514 at Wrigley Field -- amid the Cubs' ill-fated run at a National League East Division title -- were the three walks he dealt out, to Gil Garrido, Clete Boyer and Rico Carty. But in each case he disposed of the Braves in short order. One-onewalk to Garrido in the second followed by two fly outs. Two-out walk to Boyer in fourth followed by a fly out. One-one walk in the seventh to Carty followed by two more fly outs, then six more straight in the next two frames to close out the no-no.

   Facing the top of the order to finish off the no-hitter in the top of the ninth, Holtzman went around the horn and retired Felipe Alou on a pop to shortstop Don Kessinger, got Felix Millan on a grounder to Ron Santo at third, and Hank Aaron ended it when he grounded out to Glenn Beckert at short.

  Aaron did threaten Holtzman's no-hitter and shutout leading off the seventh. "Holtzman was aided by a wind that blew in from center field and kept a seventh-inning drive by Henry Aaron in the park; left fielder Billy Williams caught it at the wall," Rich Puerzer wrote in his biography of Aaron for the Society for the American Baseball Research. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/453be7e7

  What's impressive about Holtzman's outing, beyond the no-hitter itself and the no strikeouts, is that it came against a pretty potent lineup that included two Hall of Famers in Aaron and Orlando Cepeda. Not to mention Carty with a .299 lifetime batting average and Alou with a .289 lifetime average and  three All-Star selections. The Braves finished third in the NL that year in batting average and fifth in runs scored in the 12-team NL (up from 10 for the first time in that expansion year).

  And the southpaw did it against a lineup that included all but one hitter being right-handed. No platoon advantage here.

  Beckert was the busiest Cub on the day with seven assists, while Jim Hickman had six put-outs in right field. Holtzman kept everybody happy. Kessinger had three assists and Santo two, while in the outfield Williams had three put-outs in left and Don Young three in center.

  A look at retrosheet.org's play-to-play for the game reveals Holtzman, despite facing a right-handed heavy lineup most of the time, got the Braves to hit the ball to his left most of the time, with 13 outs going to second or right, six to third or left, and eight up the middle to short or center. Maybe the wind had something to do with it.

  And it wasn't as if Holtzman couldn't make 'em swing and miss. In fact he had 10 strikeouts in his next start and double-figure K's in two others. He was fifth in the league in strikeouts the next year.

  Holtzman finished 1969 with a 17-13 record and 3.58 ERA.

 Meanwhile the Cubs, who led the New York Mets by 7 1/2 games in the East following Tuesday's win, lost seven of their next nine, beginning a tailspin that saw them lose out to the Miracle Mets by eight games in the end, denying them their first postseason berth since 1945. (Holtzman stopped the beginning of their bleeding by getting the win on Aug. 23 after three straight losses).

   Holtzman came into the major leagues with ballyhoo that he couldn't quite live up to. From Puerzer's bio: "Upon his arrival in the major leagues, Ken Holtzman was promoted as the new Sandy Koufax."

  Perhaps that was just because he was a left-hander rather than a flamethrower. Nevertheless, Holtzman had a distinguished 15-year career with a 174-150 lifetime record with a 3.45 ERA. He was a mainstay on Oakland A's teams that won World Series titles in 1972-74, when Holtzman went 59-41 with a 2.85 ERA.

  Holtzman was the No. 2 man on the A's staff behind Catfish Hunter in Oakland, just he was understudy to Fergie Jenkins in Chicago.

  But on the afternoon of Aug. 19, 1969, Holtzman was front and center by getting the Atlanta Braves to get themselves out.

  Box score and play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1969/B08190CHN1969.htm