“I like that guy you have in Houston, Bagwell; he is a short, little shit just like you,” said Moose Skowron as he looked and gestured at my brother seated next to him at a table in the neighborhood bar named after him, Call Me Moose on Chicago’s south side, a couple of decades ago. Jeff Bagwell was generously listed at 6-foot-even, though he always seemed short for a first basemen. My brother, I, and a buddy were spending that late September afternoon with Skowron, whose co-owner was the friend of our father’s, watching and discussing baseball and football. It was a great day of sports talk with someone who had five World Series rings, mostly as the first baseman for the Yankees, and a pallbearer at Mickey Mantle’s funeral. Not a bad way to work off a well-earned hangover following a week of experiencing the clean, well-lighted places of Chicago, including the bleachers of Wrigley Field a couple times.
Though it will come up at times during the discussions of Bagwell’s career this weekend, I don’t believe that he is given enough credit for being an all-around ballplayer. He was a very good fielder, one of the best defensive first basemen of his era – certainly the best of the right-handed ones – even if he was not as slick as someone like Mark Grace of the Cubs. He came up as a third basemen, after all, and a pretty good one at that. His excellent defensive abilities stand in contrast to fellow Hall of Fame first baseman and sharer of his birthdate (May 27, 1968), Frank Thomas of the White Sox, a modern day Dr. Strangeglove – to impugn the original bearer of that nickname, Dick Stuart, who wasn’t as limited in the field as Thomas.
Even more impressive to me than his fielding was his base running. Not his base stealing, for which he did steal over 200 bases at a respectable 72% success rate, but his running of the bases. He always seemed to traverse the bases with the minimum of distance, cornering each bag perfectly and, most importantly, getting the most bases possible per play, taking the extra base when warranted, with rarely an error in base running in his entire career. From fans who watched both, his base-running prowess drew comparison with the legendary base running skills of the even more legendary Joe DiMaggio. With his base running, fielding and all around great baseball sense, he was as productive as he could be outside of the batter’s box, and a joy to watch as an Astros fan that I did countless times in the Dome, Enron Field and MinuteMaid.
And he wasn’t a bat hitter, either.
Though it will come up at times during the discussions of Bagwell’s career this weekend, I don’t believe that he is given enough credit for being an all-around ballplayer. He was a very good fielder, one of the best defensive first basemen of his era – certainly the best of the right-handed ones – even if he was not as slick as someone like Mark Grace of the Cubs. He came up as a third basemen, after all, and a pretty good one at that. His excellent defensive abilities stand in contrast to fellow Hall of Fame first baseman and sharer of his birthdate (May 27, 1968), Frank Thomas of the White Sox, a modern day Dr. Strangeglove – to impugn the original bearer of that nickname, Dick Stuart, who wasn’t as limited in the field as Thomas.
Even more impressive to me than his fielding was his base running. Not his base stealing, for which he did steal over 200 bases at a respectable 72% success rate, but his running of the bases. He always seemed to traverse the bases with the minimum of distance, cornering each bag perfectly and, most importantly, getting the most bases possible per play, taking the extra base when warranted, with rarely an error in base running in his entire career. From fans who watched both, his base-running prowess drew comparison with the legendary base running skills of the even more legendary Joe DiMaggio. With his base running, fielding and all around great baseball sense, he was as productive as he could be outside of the batter’s box, and a joy to watch as an Astros fan that I did countless times in the Dome, Enron Field and MinuteMaid.
And he wasn’t a bat hitter, either.
