After posting in the Biggest Upsets thread I got to thinking about my three favorite ballplayers:
Mookie Wilson
Thurman Munson
Roberto Clemente
These certainly were not the best ballplayers ever for sure. They were just guys who were active back when I used to watch sports on TV a lot.
Mookie was always smiling, he ran hard as hell to first base, and he hit some triples. He always seemed to get on base when the Mets were desperate for a run. He never hit 300 (career BA 274) but he had 71 triples and 327 stolen bases. I admit he wasn't that great, I just liked him.
Munson was a leader and a great captain. He busted his butt all the time. But the thing I liked most about Thurman was that when you were DESPERATE for a run, and you had a man on second, there was nobody better at putting the bat on the ball and dropping it into center field. They guy delivered, and he hit in the post season. He batted 292 lifetime in 11 seasons (a catcher!) and 357 in the post season.
Roberto had all kinds of great numbers. His lifetime BA was 317, and he led the league in that stat four times. He won the Golden Glove the last 12 years of his career/life. (He was kind of a whiner too.) But the Clemente moment I remember the most was in the 1971 World Series. A ball was hit very deep to right, he played it off the wall on one bounce, then turned and fired to third without even looking. The ball went into the third basemen's glove on a single bounce. The runner was safe, but I was absolutely stunned by the throw.
I'll throw it out to all sports - who are your three favorite athletes of all time? Why?
"You just need to go at that shit wide open, hang on, and own it." —Camp
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