I didn’t never EVER want to have to write this, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.
- long unhappy sigh
Jeff Bagwell had to remove himself from the game because of pain in his shoulder. Again. I’ve watched him “throw” – and to be honest, I throw a LOT better than he does right now. Heck, my KIDS throw a lot better than he does right now. He’s not hitting well or hitting for power and it looks to me like he’s barely following through with his right arm when he does swing. He hit a ball to the warning track the other day and it looked to me like the shock and pain went clear down to his feet.
The man gave it his best shot, but sometimes trying your best just don’t do the job. I gotta take my hat off to Drayton McLane for being man enough to give Baggy his last shot, in spite of the fact that it might could cost him with the insurance company. And now I wanna take my hat off to Baggy for being a man and thanking Drayton for giving him a chance and then going out on top.
Truth be told, I think Baggy knows his shoulder will NOT hold up to playing ML ball – seems to me I see it in his face. And a friend who is at ST said Baggy looked pretty down to him too.
I do believe him when he said he wanted to earn the 17 mill that IS coming to him. But not even the 25th man on a team can have so few skills even for the ML minimum.
I know it’s hard to admit you can’t do it when the spirit is willing but the flesh is not. But a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do…
Tags: Houston Astros, MLB
Time to move on to the tributes and the testimonials.
And it should an interesting five-year countdown to Jeff’s eligibility for Cooperstown. Some may think he’s borderline now; my guess is that after the verdict has been passed on some of the Steroid Era’s most egregious offenders, Jeff’ll look as no-doubt as they come.
Plus, he’ll have the Dizzy Dean/Sandy Koufax cut down-before-their-natural-end thing going for him . . . .
I plan on being at the induction ceremonies.
Gotta admire both Bagwell and the Astros on how they handled this situation. Looks like everyone can move on without any regrets.
Hint to Drayton – take some of that insurance settlement and throw Baggy a big thank you party. Maybe before, during, and after the game with St. Louis on July 8th. If humility is an issue, try making a sizable donation to Baggy’s favorite charity.
anyone who thinks bagwell is a borderline candidate knows NOTHING about baggy’s career.
i firmly believe that he is a no doubt hall of famer, and that got ZERO to do with whether or not any other ballplayer used steroids.
it would be a freaking insult to jeff to say well he should go in because other guys with a lot of HRs are under a cloud of suspiscion of drug use. jeff is a LOT more than some mo vaughn/mcgwire HR hitter – he was a genuine 5 tool player almost his entire career.
lisa
agree with lisa, though i don’t have a vote and we’ll see what the people who do have one have to say about it. fortunately, he won an mvp (one small benefit of the ’94 strike right after he broke his hand) and the steals and defense add luster to his candidacy. ya gotta look at the other first basemen of the time, also, because the hall don’t like to put too many people in from one position in one era. bags looks pretty good on that front. i hope he goes on the dl; he’ll get his money, drayton will probably get his, and everyone will walk arm in arm all the way to the bank.
meanwhile, lance doesn’t have to stumble around the outfield and we can see luke or chris (or maybe willy t) out there with preston and jason.
More surgery for Bags. sigh. He’s grasping at straws. Can’t criticize him, though — this same determination to get back is what made him the great player his was. Let’s not forget that the ‘stros made the playoffs by one game, and he came back in September to get us the game winning hit when the docs told him there was no way he would play last year after the surgery.
I wish I could believe this surgery will do the trick, but I don’t think so and I suspect Bags doesn’t, either. Someone has a famous quote that goes something like:
The regret you feel for mistakes you make ebbs with time, but the regret for things you didn’t do never goes away.
Jeff has to know that there was NOTHING he could have done to fix his shoulder for one more season. He’ll know after this surgery.
Bagwell’s a HOF’er.
He and Biggio were the faces of the Astros for years, and 7 of the 10 most similar hitters (according to Baseball Reference) to Bagwell are HOF’ers, and a couple of the others are probable future HOF’ers.
re: Bagwell & the Hall of Fame
I agree with Ms. Gray, Jeff Bagwell is a without a doubt first ballot Hall of Famer.
In addition to all the winshares and incredible offensive statistics he accumulated during his career, one should note that for almost ten of those years he played in the absolute worst hitter’s park of all time, the old Houston Astrodome. While I don’t have the algorithm right here to correct his stats, I think a simple home and away split correction for those ten years will show that Bagwell’s numbers are even bigger than we now give him credit for.
And was he a winner??? You bet he was. The Astros won a number of division titles, wild cards and ultimately, in the end, got to the World Series where they almost pulled of an incredible upset against a heavily favored Chisox team. And at times during the playoffs and Series, the ghost of Bagwell rose up and delivered key hits, as did Biggio, Berkman and others from the key members of this Astro’s team.
In the end, they’ll all go in–Clemens, Bagwell, Biggio, Berkman, Andy Pettite, all of the key players.
This Astros team had and does have, stars.
–Art Kyriazis, Philly
I said it on the Birthday post and I’ll repeat it here.
Jeff Bagwell deserves to go to the Hall Of Fame. I watched him as an opponent all those years and I can truthfully say that we in the stands were aware of where he was was in the line-up, ZZ Top look notwithstanding.
He was a solid leatherman and a credit to baseball as well. And that won’t hurt.