One of These Things is not like the Others!

What does it mean to be a hall-of-famer in a professional sport? Does it mean you put up Hall-of-fame worthy numbers? Do you have to be an innovater of your sport? What does it actually take to be considered one of the best ever to play your sport? When I think of players that don't belong, one man comes to mind immediately and I have been saying it for years. Why is Joe Namath in the Hall of Fame? Sure his name is famous, people know who he is, but does he belong?? What if he never called that improbable superbowl win over the Colts? Would he have made it, I think not.

Lets look at strictly stats right now. Some people say Namath was a winner...not true, his overall record as a starting quarterback, 63-63-4, a .500 record? Doesn't look Hall-of-Fame worthy, but ok he must have had some nice stats though right? Once again, not true. He threw for 173 touchdowns in his career, not a horrible amount, but compared to the 220 interceptions he threw, not impressive at all. Does a quarterback that threw more interceptions than TD's deserve to be in the HOF? Just for kicks let me also say that his career passer rating is 65.5 and completion percentage is just 50.1% Hmmm...NFL Fans, still think he belongs?

Let's do some playful comparisons, Drew Bledsoe, a quarterback many have considered average? His record 98-95, TD's 251, yards 44,611 (sorry I forgot to mention Namath didn't even throw for 28,000 yards). Bledsoe also has a career passer rating of 77.1. By Namath's standards, Bledsoe should be a Hall-of-Famer without question, but is he by yours? Jeff George, Tim Couch, and Jeff Garcia all have higher career passer ratings than Namath. Are they Hall-of-Famers? If you believe they are then maybe my argument here is flawed and I apologize for throwing this man under the bus.

If he lost that superbowl, is he a Hall-of-Famer?

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What if the Expos Weren't Struck Out?

Ken Griffey Jr. probably summed up the 1994 season the best when he said " We picked a bad season to have a good year" Nobody felt this pain any worse than the Montreal Expos. Currently at the time of the strike they had the best record in the majors at 74-40 and were on pace for 105 wins, the best record in franchise history and before this they had only made it to the postseason one other time and that was in 1981.

The team was stacked with talent, players like Moises Alou, Larry Walker, Pedro Martinez, Marquis Grissom, Jeff Fassero, were all hitting their primes and playing well. They were 6 games ahead of the Braves and most baseball writers were on the bandwagon picking them to go to the World Series.

But as this blog of mine has clearly shown, things don't always go the way we think they should or the way we hope they will. The final 47 games of the year were cancelled along with the postseason and World Series. The great effort put forth by the Expos was forgotten because nothing became of it. Would this have saved this dying franchise? Would it have given them a fanbase to put them back on the map again? This strike severley dampened the notion to get a new stadium in Montreal and local ownership groups decided not to invest enough for the team to retain its best players.

Some may say that winning a World Series might not have done a whole lot for the already diminishing franchise in Canada, but I think otherwise. Winning does a lot more than you think. With a new stadium and high interest sprung back on the team because of their success, I think it would have only made sense for ownership to have invested in the team and keep the stars. Who knows, Pedro could have been a 3 time NL Cy Young award winner and Moises Alou and Larry Walker would have provided plenty of punch in the lineup. The Expos could still be around today.

Just as another little side note about the 1994 season though this is slightly off topic from the Expos, this season was looking quite astounding for all statistics. People don't normally remember but Matt Williams was actually on pace to top Roger Maris' record of 61 homeruns he had 43 at the time of the strike. Also Tony Gwynn was batting .394 and had a legitimate shot at being the first man since Ted Williams to top an average .400.

Picture Courtesy of Major League Baseball

To have been or not to have been, that is the question...

All this lovely talk about Alex Rodriguez and steroids made me think to myself, what if A-Rod was traded to the Red Sox in 2003 for Manny Ramirez and Nomar Garciaparra. To some this may seem like I just made this "what if" up, but in actuality this trade was going to happen and could have if the players union allowed A-rod to take less money which he was willing to do. What would have become of this deal? Alex Rodriguez a Boston Red Sox Shortstop! Yikes... I'm sure any Red Sox fan must cringe at the thought that this could've been.

Now from a straight up stats perspective, which I always like to take in these opinons of mine. Fenway Park would have been a great place for A-Rod and I am quite sure he would have excelled as a regular season batter like he always seems to do. Manny and Nomar on the otherhand would have actually given the Texas Rangers a very large boost to their lineup especially considering in 03' Nomar hit .301 with 28 HRS and 105 RBIs and Manny went .325 with 37 HRS and 104 RBIs. Playing in Texas those stats could have actually seen an increase. The potential for a David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez 3-4 in the lineup would have been just as comparable to the Ramirez, Ortiz duo and the loss of Nomar in 2003 would have been crucial. The Red Sox offense would still be very effective and they would have still made the playoffs.

In the long run though, without Manny and with A-Rod. I don't see the 86 year drought coming to an end. For all the garbage Red Sox fans gave Manny for being himself, he was very clutch and ended up being the first World Series MVP for the Red Sox since 1918. A-Rod would not have been able to replace that kind of production come playoff time.

This trade would have been quite detrimental to Boston, much more than it seemed at the time. Red Sox fans everywhere should thank the players union every chance they get because without them, Boston would still be screaming for the head of Bill Buckner.

Picture Courtesy of the Boston Globe

What if David Tyree Wasn't Helped by Divine Intervention?! HAH!

Ok so this is probably the most biased topic I have spoken about so far, but regardless its interesting to ponder. Snapshot time, the New England Patriots are squaring off against the New York Giants in the Superbowl. New England is 18-0 and having the greatest season ever put together by a team in sports history, New York on the other hand surprised everyone by even making it to the Superbowl. It was David vs Goliath, except this Goliath was on steroids! The Patriots looked unbeatable in every sense and seemed like the team of destiny, but not everything works out the way we want it to. David Tyree, an unknown reciever normally caught fighting for playing time, made quite possibly the greatest catch in superbowl history. It started with a great escape from the blitz by Eli Manning, then the flustered quarterback threw a high pass that Tyree reached for and pulled against his helmet, holding on to for dear life as he hit the ground. This extended the final scoring drive for the Giants when it seemed like the game was going to be all over and shattered all the New England confidence. The Giants went on to win 17-14 in one of the greatest upsets ever.

Now what if Tyree drops this pass? It was 3rd down and woul have brought up an extremely difficult 4th and 5 for the Giants to try to convert. Also the momentum was all on the Patriots side so another stop would have been highly likely. The 14-10 win would have made the Patriots 19-0, the greatest season in sports history would have been completed. No debates about the greatest team in team sports history should even taken place after this win. The total domination in a league chock-full of great talent at the time made the Patriots season look that much more unbelievable. Now though, with this one defeat, the one time they did not bring it all to the table, they go down as just another team. Not winning a championship ruined an otherwise extraordinary season and its very disappointing. Though it did make some 3rd world countries quite happy, with all the 19-0 t-shirts being sent to them. We'll always rememeber the greatest team ever to not win a title.

Picture Courtesy of Newsday

The Greatest Basketball Player of All-Time, a Blazer?

NBA teams can only win a championship if they have a great big-man. This notion used to be widely believed throughout the league without a doubt and teams would always do whatever they could to get a great big-man in order to compete for a title. For the most part this was true though, the great Celtics had Bill Russell, the Lakers had Kareem, the 76er's had Moses Malone, the Blazers had Bill Walton, championships seemed to have a direct correlation to All-star Center. This concept is usually the number one reason most people do not fault the Portland Trailblazers in 1984 for taking Sam Bowie, the big man from Kentucky, second overall in the draft over Michael Jordan. Obviously looking back upon it we can see that it was one of the most incredible missed opportunities in team sports history, but what can you do.

This brings up the question though, what if the Blazers did select Michael Jordan? Where would it have brought their franchise and would he have had as much success?

Well first of all drafting him wouldn't really have made the most sense, since in the 83'-84' season Portland was already grooming a rookie shooting guard/forward by the name of Clyde Drexler. If anything the drafting of Jordan could have very likely pushed back the development of Drexler more than anything. The starting shooting guard, Jim Paxson was a 20 point scorer and could play small forward. Also Michael Jordan was a much more capable and productive rookie than Drexler and would have pushed back his playing time. Though the common fan might drool over the thought of a Jordan, Drexler combination on the floor for the Blazers during the late 80's and early 90's, it was much more likely that Drexler would have been traded for a big man. Jordan would have basically been in the same type of situation he was in throughout his career in Chicago, though he would not have had Scottie Pippen.

So Jordan with the Blazers... 6 championships? 5 MVP awards? 10 Scoring titles? The championship total would have been likely to drop, though the MVP years and Scoring titles would have probably gone up since he would have been asked to do a lot more without the presence of another top 50 NBA player. I'm a statistics junkie as you may noticed through my other posts, so for Jordan could not resist playing some what could have been. I came up with a 33.2 ppg, 5.6 asts, 6.2 rbds, for his career. Number player of all-time still, oh yes...

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