Previous to Thursday, it was hard to pick out the dumbest thing ever published on ESPN.com's Page 2. Maybe it was when Derek Jeter was ranked the third-most overrated current athlete, citing his high salary (which admittedly is the highest for a four-time World Series champ who is also a merchandising and branding dream). Then the idiots ranked Yankee Stadium 21st among MLB ballparks, below the Florida Marlins' home, Pro Player Stadium, which got higher points for trading up on seat location. Hello! When the house is packed, it's hard to sneak up to the front row.
But Thursday's Daily Quickie takes the cake for idiocy. According to whatever genius writes it, "In 10 years, Sammy Sosa will be more highly regarded than Mickey Mantle."
Then I read this line and almost burst a blood vessel in my head: Regarding Mantle's myth... "His good luck to be on a Yankees dynasty (kind of like Derek Jeter)..."
Holy fucking shit, I haven't read anything so stupid since Gene Wojciechowski wrote off Syracuse in the NCAA hoops final, giving the title to Kansas and ignoring the fact that the Orangemen had just defeated two Big 12 teams ranked ahead of Kansas, making All-Americans look All-Ordinary in the process. Stupid, stupid column.
OK, back to baseball ... not only were Mantle and Jeter lucky enough to play for 11 (that's 11!) World Series champions, but they were both the best players on those dynasties. I've got too much to go on this Mantle-Sosa thing to spend too much time on Jeter, but let me remind you that his career batting average is .317 with enough at-bats to be halfway to 3,000 hits. Don't blame him because A-Rod and Nomar were born. He's still an all-timer at short. (In 1999, he hit .349, with 24 HRs, 102 RBIs, 134 runs and 19 SBs. The year after, only .339. This year, .320.)
Mickey Mantle's career stats | Sammy Sosa's career stats
Let me preface by saying that Sosa is a great player. A first-ballot Hall of Famer, but his is not the Mick, and here's why
• Mantle won the Triple Crown in 1956 with numbers (.353 , 52, 130) that are staggering now and even more so then. Sosa has never led the league in batting, and has never led in homers and RBIs in the same season.
• Aside from that batting title, Mantle finished among the AL's top five in batting on five other occasions. Sosa had placed in the top 10 once — at No. 8 with a .328 batting average in 2001.
• Mantle won three AL MVP awards, finished second three times and ranked in the top five in voting nine times. Sosa has won one MVP, finished second once and otherwise never finished in the top seven.
• Mantle, a feared slugger who was walked nearly 1,000 more times than Sosa, ranked in the AL's top five in on-base percentage 12 times. Sosa once.
• Mantle led the league in homers four times to Sosa's two. He ranked in the top five in homers nine times to Sosa's eight. Mantle led the AL in runs six times, while Sosa has led his league thrice.
• Mantle was an All-Star 14 years in a row and 16 overall. Sosa has made six All-Star teams, the same as Harold Baines.
• Mantle hit two or more home runs in six different World Series, finishing with a record 18 overall. Sosa hit .182 with no home runs or RBIs in his only playoff series appearance, a three-game sweep by the Braves in 1998.
Sosa may have plenty of more productive years ahead of him. I really don't know how much cork he's got left for those "batting practice" bats. But it's clear Mantle dominated baseball in ways Sosa has not done.
What Sosa has absolutely no chance of doing is supplanting Mantle as a baseball icon. Wanna guess why center field for the Yanks is the No. 1 sports gig? I'll give you half of the equation: Joe. D. You figure out the rest. Mantle was the baseball icon in the '50s and '60s. No player drew more visiting fans from more remote areas of the country than he. Fathers used to call the Yankees to make sure the often-ailing slugger was in the lineup before trekking for hours, across state lines, so their sons could see him play.
When Mantle retired, he was third on the all-time home run list. (List of lifetime home run leaders through history). He was a god, not a cartoon character/poster child of the 'roid-raging new millennium.
As someone who has been active in the trading card industry since even before it's boom in the late '80s, I can say without equivocation that Mantle has always been the crown jewel of the collectible industry. With supply as a constant and demand the only variable, he buries all other players in terms of popularity. Ted Williams and Pete Rose were always big. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa had that 1998 love-fest. But Mantle is in a class by himself — 55-year-old men still have his cards in their wallets — and he will not, as the Daily Quickie wrongly claims, be eclipsed by Sosa in the all-time Pantheon.
Easy there. Page 2 delights in baiting Yankee fans. Caple hasn't done 2 columns in a row without taking a cheap shot. I don't know anyone outside of Chicago that would even mention Sosa in the same breath as Mantle
Posted by Dave K at September 26, 2003 9:05 AM