Hardball and Kingman
Posted: December 2nd, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 98 Comments »
Well, the new Hardball Times Baseball Annual is out, and of course it has all sorts of good stuff even if they did go slumming this year and have me write up a little essay. Fortunately, there are all kinds of other great things in there — Rob Neyer talking about the greatest mid-season acquisitions ever, Craig Calcaterra on the Mitchell Report, Craig Brown on Pete Rose the free agent*, well, I can’t list all of the stories. I will say that one of the most fascinating bits in there is about Dodger Stadium and how it’s actually an excellent home run park … if you are a home run hitter. Interesting stuff. You should check it out.
*09/09/09
One of my favorite pieces in there was written by John Walsh. It’s called “The Sweet Taste of Revenge.†Walsh basically wanted to answer the question: Do batters hit better after they have been dissed? That is do hitters outperform themselves when someone is intentionally walked in front of them? In a way, I think that he was asking: Is anger a positive emotion in baseball? Or: Does motivation make someone a better hitter? The whole article is excellent and the conclusions are interesting, but I’m not going to go into those — you need to buy the book.
No, the point here is that the study made me think a little bit more about one of my favorite players: Dave Kingman.
I readily admit that I am disturbingly fascinated by Dave Kingman — more fascinated than anyone should be about a man who famously sent a live rat to a reporter. Mostly it comes down to my theory: I think Kingman could have been a great player only he did not particularly want to be a great player.
My main proof for this is the 1979 baseball season. Kingman was playing for the Chicago Cubs that year. And I had always heard that in the months before that season, Kingman decided he finally would show everyone just how great he could be if he actually tried. Up to that point, Kingman had been one of the most absurd players in baseball history — he hit a lot of home runs, and he struck out an obscene number of times, and he got hurt a lot, and he only played defense in the loosest definition of the word, and he was traded and waived three times in the same year (and released at the end of that year). He also seemed to have a unique ability to make everybody really despise him.
Dave Kingman (from 1971-78): .232/.299/.485, 204 homers, 110 errors, 964 Ks in 3052 at-bats.
Now look, you would need a whole team of psychiatrists to figure out what happened to Dave Kingman. He was a remarkable athlete. He actually began his college career as a pitcher at USC and he had a very strong arm throughout most of his big league career. He was 6-foot-6, he was freakishly strong*, and in his younger days he could run. In 1972, his first full year with the San Francisco Giants, he hit 29 homers in 472 at-bats — sixth in the National League — he stole 16 bases, he was not yet unwilling to walk, and according to news reports of the time he even showed some defensive promise at third base. He was just 23.
*In 1994, when the Cincinnati Bengals were a struggling football team — good thing that has changed — they drafted Dan Wilkinson, a defensive tackle out of Ohio State with the first pick in the draft. As soon as Wilkinson was drafted (and people started sacrilegiously calling him “Big Daddyâ€), the strength coach announced that Wilkinson was “freakishly strong.†We would often talk about the meaning of that bold quote in the press box when watching him get shoved around — how could this happen to a man of freakish strength? Could it be that other teams had offensive linemen who were freakishly stronger? Mutantly strong? Whimsically strong? Or was Wilkinson’s freakish strength only observable in non-football ways — could Wilkinson, say, pick up school busses? Could he tear the doors off of refrigerators? Could he lift a sled with all of the presents and food in Whoville?** It remained a mystery. After a while, Wilkinson called Cincinnati a racist city and got himself traded to Washington, where he played for some years and was released, signed with Detroit, played for two years and was released, signed with Miami, played one year and then could not be located when the Dolphins wanted to trade him. So they released him.
**Meaning he would have the strength of ten Grinches, plus two.
It’s hard to say what happened then. Maybe it was his personality — Kingman, by all indications, did not like people. I’ve always suspected he did not like baseball either — or at least many parts of baseball. I think he liked hitting 500-foot home runs. It was the other stuff that seemed to bore him or irritate him or whatever. He just did not seem wired for a game that demanded he play well with others and pay attention when he was not swinging for the fences and perform for fans who seemed to demand quite a lot for the price of their ticket. Kingman talked often about fishing; that was the sport that suited his temperament. He could do it alone. And if he had a bad day, he would eat sandwiches.
But maybe there were other things involved too beyond Kingman’s personality quirks. It seems to me the Giants turned on him fast. I don’t know all the details, of course, but it seems to me that 1972 was a year to build on — instead, Kingman started ‘73 on the bench, was mostly a pinch-runner or pinch-hitter. Twice, the Giants put him in games to pitch. That does not seem like a team that had much faith in a man’s talents.
In 1973, Kingman did many of the good things he did had done in ‘72 — he hit 24 homers in 305 at-bats and he was still walking at an pretty good rate — but you could see that his game was beginning to deteriorate. He struck out 122 times in those 305 at-bats. His defense at third base very suddenly went tragic. Kingman might or might not have responded any better to a positive environment — no one will know — but clearly the Giants and Kingman brought out the worst in each other. After an even more frustrating season in ‘74, the Giants sold Kingman to the Mets for $150,000.
And in New York, the much-publicized Dave Kingman character came out — here was the moody Kingman who swung hard at everything, who almost never walked, who pulled everything, who hit 500-foot home runs and 325-foot pop-ups, who ran the bases like a child coming in for dinner, who played defense not just poorly but with utter disdain. He did mash 36 and 37 home runs his two full years with the Mets, and Shea was a terrible hitters park. Those home runs seemed to be the only things that intrigued him at all about baseball. The Mets traded him in ‘77, the Padres waived him, the Angels traded him and the Yankees let him go.*
*It’s worth noting that the Yankees were only up 2.5 games when they traded Randy Stein and cash for for Kingman on Sept. 15 of that year. Kong banged home runs in each of his first two games — both victories — and hit four homers in eight games as the Yankees held on and went on to win the World Series. The Yankees still didn’t want him back.
All of which takes us back to 1979, and this new attitude from Dave Kingman. “Man it sure would be fun to get a full year of baseball in,†he told reporters during spring training that year. And this: “I’m working on a lot of things I’ve never worked on before.†He talked about hitting the ball the other way. He talked about focusing more on each at bat. He talked about staying healthy. He talked about wanting to show people something.
Then Kingman went on to have four amazing months. Here were Kingman’s numbers through 85 games:
307 at-bats, 67 runs, 94 hits, 35 homers, 79 RBIs, .306/.378/.691
Now, sure, there have been better stretches than that in baseball history, but I suspect none by a player with the pedigree of Dave Kingman. To give you an idea about that .691 slugging percentage — it was a few points higher than Mickey Mantle’s slugging percentage in 1961. It was unreal.
Now, true, some of this was because of the hitting-convenience of Wrigley Field — he hit 315 at Wrigley that season — but much of it just seemed to be Kingman making the point that if, sure, if he WANTED to be a great player, if such things actually interested him, then sure he could do that. He proved the point even more convincingly on July 27 and 28 of that season when he faced his former team, the Mets. Kingman never did say publicly that he wanted to get back at the Mets for trading him or mistreating him or whatever. On a Friday night, though, he hit two home runs against the Mets. On Saturday, he hit three more.
Anyway, he cooled off the last couple months of the 1979 season — he still ended up with by far his best season, a massive offensive season really. He hit .288/.343/.613 with 48 homers and 115 RBIs. He led the league in OPS, which is pretty telling because he never before or since finished in the Top FIFTEEN in OPS in either league. He had made his statement.
Kingman had injuries in 1980, and by 1981 he was back to being the same old Dave Kingman. I don’t know if it’s right, but I always had this theory that Kingman had proved his point, and he grew bored again. He just went back to bashing a bunch of of home runs — that seemed the be the one thing he liked doing. You know Kingman hit 35 home runs the last season of his career — that’s a record, most homers for a final season. It’s a telling record: Usually someone who hits 35 home runs will be brought back by some team. But by 1986 everyone was sick of Kingman, and Kingman was sick of everybody, and it was all best left alone.
OK, so what does any of this have to do with John Walsh’s study? (no, I haven’t forgotten about that). Well, as soon as I saw what he was doing — studying how batters do when the batter in front of them is intentionally walked — I thought of Kingman.
To me Dave Kingman had everything a baseball player needs to great, everything except a reason. And in those all-too-rare moments when he had a reason — when he was facing an old team that wronged him, when everyone seemed to have given up on him, when he played at Fenway Park with that beautiful Green Monster out there* — he was great.
*I’ve written this before, but Kingman only started 18 games at Fenway Park in his career. He hit 13 home runs.
So, Walsh found that 64 times in his career, a pitcher/manager intentionally walked someone in front of Dave Kingman. How did Kingman do in those angry moments, when once again he was given a reason to be great. I think the numbers tell a whole story.
Kingman hit .407 with 11 homers in those 64 plate appearances.
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And of course, Dave Kingman is the answer to my favorite baseball trivia question: “Who was the only player to lead the league in HRs without hitting his weight?” (1982, 37 HRs, .204 BA)
This is why we need sportswriters, because there’s a story behind the observable numbers. I didn’t know Dave Kingman from Rob Deer, but now he’s a more intriguing character. Thanks Joe.
Gorman Thomas is another one of these kind of guys–5 times hit below .200 and yet had a 13 year career. When I worked at Remington’s across from the stadium, we sold filet mignon by the ounce, and Gorman came in one night and ate a 40 ounce filet. That didn’t help his problem of hitting his weight, but wow–could he mash the ball. Sometimes….when he felt like it? I don’t know….but people saw something there for a long time.
He was very nice to me that night as well–met a lot of ballplayers, and he was one of the nicest.
Again as a Met fan I recall both sets of Kingman years — mostly home runs & strikeouts — and how Bob Murphy always called him “Sky King” instead of the detested “Kong”. I think we all understood he was the kind of guy you had to tiptoe around. It’s also true, on the other hand, that especially in ‘76 he was basically the whole offense.
Then in ‘83 (Sky King, the Sequel) he was playing 1b every day and hitting about .210 when they traded for Keith Hernandez. Kingman started 6 games after that, last one on July 28, and hit .172-1-6 in that stretch. Mets went from 22-36 (.379) to 46-58 (.442), and that was the beginning of the emergence from underground.
Of course they didn’t really get good until he was gone all the way…
Dave Kingman was always one of my favorite players growing up. I loved that all or nothing attitude that he had. I saw him hit one of the Top 5 longest home runs I ever saw personally one year at Shea. It was unbelievable how far he could hit the ball.
With his low batting average, poor defense and outstanding power is Adam Dunn the new Dave Kingman? JP Ricciardi even said (foolishly) he was one of those guys that maybe doesn’t like baseball all that much. Just like what you wrote about Kingman. Hmm.
Kingman had one other weird, freakish skill–he was a helluva bunter. It may have been because nobody would expect a slugger to be a good bunter–and his speed helped, too. But every so often he’d lay down an absolutely perfect bunt for a base hit, or to move a runner over.
I know it’s old and totally played out but….Just ask Tommy Lasorda (perhaps the biggest jack-ass I’ve ever met from MLB) what he thought of Dave Kingman’s performance!
I don’t agree with the Adam Dunn comparison at all B.E. And for the simple reason that Dunn has excellent patience at the plate. Kingman’s career high obp is .343, while Dunn has never obp’d lower than .354, and currently has a career obp of .381. Comparing Kingman to Dunn is borderline crazy and quite insulting to Dunn, with no disrespect intended towards Kingman.
Who was the reporter he sent the rat to and whatever became of them (both the reporter and the rat)?
B.E.Earl: I was going to post how I remembered Kingman hitting the longest HR I ever saw at Shea. It was a day game and it went over the left center field fence, over the chain link fence at the back of the area where they added bleachers years later, over the side walk and onto the roof of a bus parked along the curb. Amazing. Was this the shot you saw?
Great post Joe. I always liked Kingman despite his obvious failings.
Kingman was a loser. He sent the rat to a female reporter (Susan Fornoff of The Sacramento Bee). It wasn’t his only encounter with a female member of the press. While a Met, Kingman was fined for verbally abusing a female reporter. Dude was a straight up jerk. Sure he had tons of talent – but what a waste. Add him to the list of mighta-beens…
Mike
I was about 12 years old and watching my Cardinals at Busch Stadium. It was 1974 or 75. Benches cleared. The rookie, Keith Hernandez, ran towards the pile. He was met by Dave Kingman. Kingman picked Hernandez up, held him high, then body-slammed him. It was awesome.
I recall one game (I think against the Dodgers) where the Met Kong hit the LONGEST foul ball I’ve ever seen. The very next pitch he hit it even farther. IIRC, that is the one Joe is referring to.
Ah yes, 1979. The year the voters decided that Ray Knight, with his 120 OPS+ and middling defense, was the fifth most valuable player in the National League when, in reality, he may have only been the fifth-best player on the Reds. The year Joe Niekro and his 117 ERA+ and 119/107 K/BB ratio was deemed the sixth most valuable player in the league.
I guess that’s how Kingmen led the league in OPS and finished out of the top-10 in the MVP voting.
“there have been better stretches than that in baseball history, but I suspect none by a player with the pedigree of Dave Kingman.”
I’d like to make a small modification to that statement by adding, “or without the use of performance enhancing drugs.”
I guess I didn’t really realize how dramatic Kingman’s 1979 season was. He was 30 years old in 1979. His BR comps for Most Similar By Age:
Thru Age 29: Pete “straightcashhomey.net” Incaviglia
Thru Age 30: Mark McGwire
I don’t see a comparison to Adam Dunn either (AD is way too patient). Nor Gorman Thomas (Gorman played CF fairly well and actually cared about winning).
I would say Pete Incaviglia, Rob Deer, the NY Mets version of George Foster (egad, they had both of them in the lineup for all of 1982 and part of 1983, yuck), maybe Dean Palmer all seem to be more like Kong as a player. Bo Jackson would fit too, except for the incredible athleticism and the presumption that Bo cared a lot about baseball, given the fact that he really didn’t have to play it and did anyway. The high HR, seldom walk, high K guys are the most like him. Throw in bad defense and you have Kong to a tee. (and a bad personality)
According to baseballreference.com, no one is very similar to Kong (the closest comp rate is Greg Vaughn at .868, not very similar). I guess Greg Vaughn probably is the closest we have seen recently.
Great writing and construction, as usual.
But I want to comment on the poll. Once again, we see peak v. total value, but not in the sense of seasons. More like pitchers vs. everyday players.
There is no doubt that (starting) pitchers are more valuable than everyday players, on a per-game basis. When used, they matter more. But they can’t be used as often.
For me, this is the shaving v. flossying debate. I don’t floss every day. I don’t floss as much as I shave, and frankly, I think that the average floss rate of your readers is likely much lower than the average shaving rate*. Flossy is worse, but we don’t have to do it as often. So, shaving compiles more unenjoyable time, but it spreads it out more. Flossing is less time, even if it is worse time.
Yeah, there are some people who floss every day, or even after every meal. But most people don’t come vaguely close to that. Ask your dentist. In fact, a friend of mine who happens to be a dentist once told me that flossing actually matter more than brushing. And yet, most people don’t floss, at least not regularly.
So, what do we mean by valuable is like what we mean by least enjoyable? Does quality matter more? Or quantity?
Plus, I wonder how many people who don’t floss rated it as their least enjoyable body activity? If it’s so bad that you don’t even do it, how does that factor in?
So Dave Kingman passed his low-batting average, no patience, tons of power torch to Rob Deer, who in turn passed it to…I’m kind of stumped here. Greg Vaughan?
Alex – great comment
I too have heard the “flossing’s more important than brushing” thing, but i think that’s kind of like saying “living in the woods and never coming in contact with plastic or any other synthetic product is more important than not smoking when it comes to cancer.” That may be true, but since it’s never going to happen, I’ll just focus on the preventive measures that are reasonable.
And yes, I believe flossing everyday to be a hardship on par with living a Unabomber style lifestyle in the woods.
Tommy Lasorda had his own opinions about Dave Kingman’s performance.
“So Dave Kingman passed his low-batting average, no patience, tons of power torch to Rob Deer, who in turn passed it to…I’m kind of stumped here. Greg Vaughan?”
No, both Deer and Vaughan would take a walk. I’d say Kingman passed the torch to Pete Incaviglia, who then handed it off to Preston Wilson.
Gate:
And Greg Vaughn to . . . I don’t know, how about Alphonso Soriano (yeah, probably too high of an average and he does a couple other things well or he used to, like run). But lots of power, few walks, very indifferent defense.
If Ryan Braun were in the Christmas Carol, Dave Kingman would be the future the last ghost shows him.
Jose Guillen has kind of the basic Kingman package, but he apparently traded 40 points of slugging for 40 points of average…and maybe a little extra crazy thrown in on the side.
I’ll bet Dave Kingman’s baseball reference page has had more hits today than in the rest of its history combined.
Rob Deer was plenty patient. It’s what made him an acceptable major league ballplayer (barely, but still) and gave him a career OBP over 100 pts. higher than his career BA.
Baseball-Reference.com, learn it, love it, USE IT.
Jon Stewart, in his younger comedic days, had a great line about flossing. To paraphrase: I complain that flossing takes too long and is too much of a pain, therefore I don’t do it. Yet I manage to find time to toss off three times a day.
My sentiments exactly.
What has always intrigued me is the extreme similarity of Kingman’s career BA/OBA/SA numbers with that of another player:
Kingman: .236/.305/.478
Doppleganger: .239/.309/.473
Kingman: 6′6″, 210
Doppleganger: 6′4″, 220
Kingman: Apparently a jerk
Doppleganger: Apparently one of the nicest guys around.
And who was that? Ron Kittle, who had his own highly atypical year (in which he was, I think, platooned), for Chicago in 1989: .302/.385/.556.
I retract my earlier statements about Deer and Vaughn, Paul White was right on the button here. Kingman’s career isolated patience (OBP minus BA) is not as bad as I thought .066. Vaughn’s was .095. Deer’s was .104. Preston Wilson’s was .065. Incavaglia’s was .064. Soriano’s currently is pathetic at .047. Bo’s was .059.
I think it’s actually a disservice to Kingman to compare him to Rob Deer. 442 career HRs in the majors vs. 230. Rob Deer wishes he had Kingman’s career.
One bit of trivia I always liked about Kingman…in that 1977 season he became the first (only?) player ever to play in (then) all 4 divisions in one season, playing, in order, for the Mets, Padres, Angels and Yankees.
As far as him being a jerk, I recall a story from Davey Johnson’s book “Bats,” which is mostly about the Mets’ 1985 season but has a few chapters recounting Davey’s rise as a manager through the Mets’ minors and the 1984 season. He mentions that Kingman sent him a congratulatory note (or maybe a telegram) when Davey got the Mets job in the offseason between 1983 and 1984. Then the Mets released Kingman in January and Davey never got around to thanking him for the telegram.
Also, Kingman hit a HR into the Phillies’ bullpen in the first game I ever attended, April 13, 1982 (Opening Day) at Shea Stadium. I think he hit it off Steve Carlton but I don’t remember the inning and there was a rain delay so I’m not really sure if Carlton was still in the game.
I did use baseball reference for my ill fated Kingman/Deer comparison. Sadly, I just quickly scanned Deer’s obp’s rather than his walk total leading to my spurious claim.
Baseball-reference.com don’t do bad baseball research. People do bad people research.
Bill C.
According to the box score on the afore mentioned baseball reference.com, that HR on 4/13/82 was hit off Steve Carlton, with 2 on and 2 out in the 5th, increasing the Mets lead from 2-1 to 5-1 in a game they eventually won 5-2.
On flossing and shaving….
Flossing is considerably worse. I tried to floss on a near-daily basis once – it lasted for all of two months. It’s such a pain in the neck, and the worst part of it is that it takes awhile. If flossing were equally uncomfortable, but could be done as quickly as brushing, I would do it a lot more often.
Shaving is, to me, no more than a small nuisance. Of course I have spotty facial hair and work in a very casual office, so I can get away with shaving rather infrequently (couple times a week, sometimes less).
I just realized I worded that badly….I meant to say….if flossing could be done as quickly as brushing, I’d do it more often, even though it’s much more uncomfortable.
Wasn’t part of the reason no one wanted Kingman in 1987 the fact that all the owners colluded? That was a wacky free agent year. Tim Raines won a batting title in 1986 and was regarded as a great leadoff man, yet he received no contract offers and had to wait until May 1 to re-sign with the Expos since they didn’t offer him arbitration.
Adam Dunn is a fine player. His walks make him valuable to players wanting to drive him in and his power makes him valuable to folks on base in front of him. He doesn’t cause trouble in the club house and by all accounts is a good team mate. Just because he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, or perhaps put in the conditioning necessary to move from a fine player (one every team in baseball would be glad to have on its roster) to a near All-Star does not mean that he isn’t miles better than Dave Kingman. Aside from one insane GM, who has apologized for his remarks, Dunn seems to be an asset to his team. Note that even when the Reds were loaded at OF/1B, Dunn was kept.
Dave Kingman, on the other hand, was a sexist jerk who left a series of clubhouses grateful to get rid of him. I suspect that his raw talent before MLB always had him near or at the center of attention, as a pitcher and as a slugger, and then in MLB, when he merely was very good as a hitter (and not used as a pitcher any more) he changed his game to become/stay the center of attention. And those changes, in favor of marquis value homers, came at the expense of overall value: walks, hits, defense. And since he never learned maturity and seems never to have been a big fan of the team, he just got worse and worse.
There have been few more poisonous influences in the locker room than Kingman. The things he did to alienate the press cost his employers lots of ticket sales and bad publicity. And those were all choices. Consider: shall I go to the effort and expense to mail a reporter a rat, knowing it will cause bad press for my employer, or will I just do nothing? Doing nothing would have been easier and smarter. That’s why Kingman was gone after hitting 35 homers and guys like Mike Sweeney are still pinch hitting. I think it was Sparky Anderson who said that on every team there are 15 guys who like the manager, 5 who don’t, and 5 who haven’t made up their minds, and it’s the manager’s job to keep the 5 uncommitteds away from the 5 negatives. Well, Kingman was always a negative, and you have to be pretty good to keep your bench warming job if you are also a trouble maker. Kingman might have been that good earlier in his career, and certainly was in 1979, but mostly wasn’t worth it.
It wasn’t just Kingman’s stats that made him freakish — he was so tall and thin, like a baseball-sized Manute Bol, that he looked like a praying mantis trying to field fly balls. But I remember a home run he hit that landed on the residential street beyond Wrigley Field’s left-field fence and just kept bouncing out of sight. I’ll bet it ended up 800 feet from the plate by the time it stopped rolling.
My best Kingman memory was in Wrigley, but it came when he was with the Padres. Kingman, wearing that awful taco-brown Padres jersey, came in spikes high to break up a double play, and the Cubs’ infielder, Mick Kelleher, who must have been a foot shorter, jumped on Kingman as he laid on the ground, and started swinging. It looked like a little kid rough-housing with his dad. And the Cubs poured out of the dugout to help Kelleher, while the Padres sort of ambled over. I always thought they looked a little annoyed to have to help this jerk.
I remember when Kong was nearing the end of his career and trying to get 500 homers (he finished a bit short, 442)…..the observation was made that no one who had hit 500 homers was NOT in the Hall of Fame….I SO rooted for him to get those homers just to see what a quandary it would put the HOF voters….this was what passed for HOF controversy in the pre Rose, Bonds and Clemens years. Interesting about his Fenway numbers, I always wanted the Sox to get him, he could have been the 2nd coming of Dr. Strangeglove, Dick Stuart
“Wasn’t part of the reason no one wanted Kingman in 1987 the fact that all the owners colluded?”
Ohhhh, no, you nasty cynic. It was a series of 26 unique and individual team decisions that only mirrored one another by sheer coincidence.
Just like Barry Bonds in ‘08. Exhibit A: The Mets (1 game out of the postseason) chose not to jeopardize the progress of their promising leftfielders, including Marlon Anderson and Trot Nixon.
Man, his defensive numbers at third base are atrocious. 48 errors in what is essentially a season’s worth of games (154). .906 fielding percentage. I think I read somewhere that a lot of his errors at 3rd were throwing errors. I think I would have worn a hard hat if I was sitting behind first base at old Candlestick Park.
Actually, when Kingman reached 400, every player who had ever hit 400 was in the Hall, and I remember some people believing that those numbers would somehow force voters to put him in. Funny how even 500 doesn’t get you in now, right Mark McGwire? Right, Rafael Palmeiro?
Actually, Ryan Howard also led the league in home runs while not batting his weight, at least once (2008: 48 HRs, .251 BA, 255 listed weight). A cynic might suggest that he’s done it twice, depending on the accuracy of his listed weight in 2006 (.313 BA, 230 listed weight).
Howard is obviously a much better hitter (and human) than Kingman, but I’m fascinated with the power-to-weight ratio issues framed by Concerned Citizen.
Seems to me the new Royals first baseman put up an awfully Kingmanesque line last year.
Dear God I hate shaving. I hate shaving so much that I put it off as long as I can, basically causing me to go around looking like a Geico caveman most of the time.
Then when the itching finally gets to me so badly that I can’t help but shave, I’m ofcourse irritated by the fact that I waited so long to shave, because now the hair is all coarse and tough and clingy, and won’t come off very easily, and your blade is full of tough clingy hair after the first scrape, and it won’t come out, and you know you really should replace that blade but dammit, you just replaced it last week and these things are freaking expensive and then you scrape yourself with the stuffed blade and the bleeding on your face always takes fourteen hours to stop and… AARRRGGGHHHHH.
On the other hand… true story, a (cute) friend of mine once asked me why I didn’t shave very often and I told her it’s because I hate shaving. To which she replied “Well, at least you don’t have to shave your legs, it’s just your face!”
To which I replied that you have to shave a face much more often than legs and besides, legs are easier to shave anyways. She didn’t believe me, so I made her an offer that she could shave my face if I could shave her legs.
She said yes (thank you God, thank you God, thank you God) and that lead to a very very very pleasant evening. The cuts on my face really didn’t hurt that much anyways.
But still. Blegh. Shaving.
What were we talking about again? Oh, the Hardball Times.
Also, Joe, 09/09/09? Really? Jeez, you take longer to wrap things up than Battlestar Galactica!
The only people I don’t want to meet more than Dave Kingman are the eight folks so far who rated taking a shower/bath as their least enjoyable bodily activity.
It always struck me that Dave Kingman was the spiritual heir to Dick Stuart (a.k.a. “Doctor Strangeglove”) who famously, one season, hit 42 homers and committed 29 errors at first base. Though their careers only barely overlapped, there was a popular riddle of the day: “What do Michael Jackson and Dick Stuart have in common?” Answer: They both wear a glove on one hand for no apparent reason.
Former K.C. Royals rookie-of-the-year (1994) Bob Hamelin seemed ready to ascend to this throne, but his career flamed out far too quickly.
I’ll throw out an imperfect comparison: J.D. Drew. Drew’s had a little more success than Kingman, and he’s still got some years to go, but they both have the thing of being phenomenal when they feel like it… they just usually don’t feel like it. Watching J.D. Drew when he’s sulky or unmotivated is like hanging out with someone who claims to be having an ok time, but doesn’t look it at all, and you keep asking things like “is there something else you’d rather be doing?” and they just shrug. He’s like glory days Griffey Jr. without the fun.
So who was the anti-Kingman? good field, no power, pretty patient, high average, known for being a good clubhouse presence.
I think it would be Ozzie – if Ozzie had hit for a higher average.
If you ignore the clubhouse stuff, Wade Boggs might be a candidate. Although his defense wasn’t as good as Kingman’s was bad.
> I think it was Sparky Anderson who said that on every team there
> are 15 guys who like the manager, 5 who don’t, and 5 who
> haven’t made up their minds, and it’s the manager’s job to keep
> the 5 uncommitteds away from the 5 negatives.
I had remembered this as Casey Stengel, and more starkly as half-and-half (keep the haters away from those who haven’t made up their minds).
Here’s a quick search I found:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/thiel/388616_thiel20.html
“But little has changed since the day when legendary manager Casey Stengel observed his primary responsibility was to ‘keep half the team that hates me away from the half that haven’t made up their minds.’”
“Kingman hit .407 with 11 homers in those 64 plate appearances.”
Which is a small sample size and doesn’t really mean anything. That said, I’m guessing from the gist of your column that the HBT article does, in fact, draw the conclusion that players hit better when they’re “Angry” for some reason.
And this is the thing that many many many Sabr-haters will always rail on. “Do you really think that a player can’t motivate himself for something, or can’t have a great day, or can’t WILL himself to a great at-bat or can’t get angry and hit a towering homerun?!!!!”
You can practically feel the spittle flying out of their mouth, across the Internets, and hit you in the face.
And ofcourse players can do that, and WILL do that. Maybe a guy like Kingman really was pissed off that they intentionally walked the guy in front of him to get to him. “Oh yeah? Eat this!”
The discussion, ofcourse, is whether such a person can do such a thing AT WILL, at any one moment. And the conclusion of all data to that research is, no they can’t. And this is why there is no such thing as a clutch hitter, even though there are hitters who have hit very well in the clutch at times.
And Sabr-Haters never get that. I wonder why.
> I think it was Sparky Anderson who said that on every team there
> are 15 guys who like the manager, 5 who don’t, and 5 who
> haven’t made up their minds, and it’s the manager’s job to keep
> the 5 uncommitteds away from the 5 negatives.
A little off-topic, but apparently this is what Tom Coughlin decided to do with the Giants. Rather than waste his time focussing on the negative players (like pretty much every other coach does), which pisses off his good players and makes the neutral players dip towards the negative, either to get the attention themselves or because they think that that’s the way to go, he (Coughlin) focusses ONLY on the good players, and just completely ignores the negative ones.
Which is why we really haven’t heard anything about Plax until the idiot shot himself in the leg. Coughlin doesn’t give him the time of day.
You gotta admit, it’s pretty smart.
“No, both Deer and Vaughan would take a walk. I’d say Kingman passed the torch to Pete Incaviglia, who then handed it off to Preston Wilson.”
Who has most definitely passed it on to Mark Reynolds. I don’t think it gets more all-or-nothing than this guy. I know 2008 was only his second year in the pros but look at these stats:
.239/.320/.458 – A little bit better in OBP, but pretty comparable to Kingman’s early years.
204 Strikeouts – MLB Single-season record. No one had ever broken 200 before Reynolds did it. He accomplished the feat in 606 PA. He struck out a little more than once every three plate appearances. Ouch.
35 Errors – I realize that errors aren’t the best way to measure fielding, but damn. That is 12(!!) more errors than anyone else in baseball. To put it in even better perspective, Reynold’s 35 errors is 52% of the number of errors the Houston Astros had for the ENTIRE SEASON.
2.25 Range Factor/9 innings – The only regular third basemen to have lower RFs were Aramis Ramirez and Edwin Encarnacion – not really Gold Glove caliber.
64 BB – Not too shabby until you realize the guy struck out 204 times.
59 XBH – This is my best guess as to why the Diamondbacks continued to play Reynolds. He finished with 28 HR, 28 2B, and 3 3B. And yet he finished with an OPS+ of 96.
Vin-
How long does it take you to brush your teeth? I’ve heard you’ve got to brush your teeth a miniumum of 2 minutes for the toothpaste to have an effect. So, of course, I brush my teeth for 2 minutes.
I just timed how long it takes me to floss (painstaking research, but someone had to do it): right around 2 minutes.
So, for me at least, it takes about the same time. And yet I hate flossing much more than I do brushing my teeth. I think this has to do with the fact that flossing takes two hands and you have to pay attention to what you’re doing. And who really wants to pay attention to everything involved with flossing? At least when brushing my teeth I can read the paper or put some things away with my free hand. But while flossing I’m faced with the unavoidable existential misery that comes with this experience.
So, Vin, my point: I think it’s the having to pay attention and not being able to do anything else that makes flossing so onerous…..not the time it takes. But maybe that’s because I’m brushing for two minutes…..
“And if he had a bad day, he would eat sandwiches.”
That might be my new favorite sentence.
Brian – agreed. It has a Leeroy Jenkins simplicity to it. “Well, at least I have chicken.”
i can’t stand shaving. i do it maybe once or twice a week. doesn’t help that i have a moustache that gets in the way of shaving. i floss every day. sometimes the moustache gets in the way of flossing, but much less so than shaving.
mark reynolds is an absolute wonder. but let’s not overlook the fact that this past season, 3 of the 4 highest season strikeout totals were rung up (MR with his 204!!!!!, howard with 199, and jack cust with 197). the high K phenomena continues to impress me; no one had topped bobby bonds’ 189 Ks until 2004, and now it has been done 6 times.
I grew a goatee, so I would have less to shave.
I think the evidence that Kingman was colluded against is pretty strong. I’m pretty sure that in the lawsuit that followed the collusion, Kingman was awarded more money than any other player. I think the odds are good that he would have made 500 homers if not for collusion, and in those pre-PED days, I think that number would have at least opened up some debate as to his merits as a hall of famer.
It’s funny that Joe remembers his interest in fishing. I remember that too. I also remember hearing rumors at that time that he was a big marijuana smoker, and that was a big part of his “fishing trips.” I have no idea if there was any truth to this though. I don’t usually think of marijuana as the drug of choice for big obnoxious jocks though, so maybe there’s nothing to this.
Despite his shortcomings, I was a fan years ago. As a Met fan in the 70’s, I was amazed by his home run hitting. I don’t really recall the Mets of his era having anyone who could hit any besides him. John Milner hit a few each year, but I’m not sure he ever hit more than twenty.
I remember a game that I attended in the 70’s where John Matlack got into a fight with Kingman after the game. I think that Kingman made an error, or a really lame effort in rightfield, and Matlack had had enough. Despite all the homers, I think this is probably my strongest childhood memory of Kingman.
I’m not so sure if everyone should be so hard on those 1979 MVP and Cy Young award voters. After all, stats like OPS+ and ERA+ weren’t around yet, and Bill James’ Baseball Abstract was only two years old and had very few readers.
Nate
I don’t know if you can let the media off that easy Nate. They still had the triple crown stats, and Kingman’s were really good: a league-leading 48 home runs, 115 RBI, and his .288 BA was better than Stargell’s.
P.S. It really is amazing that Stragell won the MVP that year with a .281 BA, 32 HR, and 82 RBI. He wasn’t particularly close to being as valuable as the co-MVP Keith Hernandez, or Dave Winfield, or Lance Parrish, or even his teammate Dave Parker.
I guess I was referring to Albanate
Stargell should have won in ‘73, so I guess it was a makeup call.
Creston,
You seem to be conflating this with the “clutch hitting” discussion, but this strikes me as a different question. The clutch discussion takes a player’s established level of performance, and asks whether that player can somehow reach an even higher level when the game situation demands it. The “anger” question seems to be more an issue of workplace temperament — are there some players for whom a negative personal stimulus can bring about a positive response?
It wouldn’t surprise me to find out this is true in some cases — we’ve all worked with people who are internally motivated and perform well on a daily basis, and with others who shine only when challenged, and then go back to slacking.
I’d like to nominate Kyle Farnsworth as the contemporary heir to Kingman. If you convert “500 foot HRs” to “98 MPH fastballs for swinging strike threes”, Farns is the complete Kong package.
Antoniomo -
I spend about two minutes brushing my teeth, as well. But it takes me like ten minutes to floss. Maybe I’m a bad flosser, or maybe I’m just overly neurotic about it.
In the late 1970s, the late, great Mike Royko of the Chicago Sun-Times was so ticked at Kingman’s attitude toward reporters that he announced he was changing his allegiance from his childhood favorite Cubs to the White Sox. Royko said, “I’d prefer an owner with a wooden leg (Bill Veeck) to a left fielder with a wooden head.”
I’m a lot like Dave Kingman and I never floss…
I’m exactly the type of LH hitting platoon guy small market AL teams should be using to fill a DH/1B/3B/LF. Seriously, Seattle, Oakland, and Minnesota couldn’t shell out $1 mil to give me the 350 ABs that went to Jose Vidro, Emil Brown, or Mike Lamb? I must be a jerk like Kingman too…
I’m with you. Kingman has always fascinated me, although I didn’t really ever like him. The man had a roid-rage personality before there was roids. He took offense to everything, including his nicknames, King Kong, or even the more sedate Sky King, which most players would have embraced. When people talk about the players who could hit the ball the farthest, I’ll always mention Kingman, simply because the McGwire’s and Mantle’s are the easy answers. While most will pause for a second when I mention his name as a possibility, no one who ever saw him questioned my response. He could hit them as far as anyone I’ve seen.
I always wished he played for a couple more seasons and hit 500 HRs, because he would have been the first player to break the automotic entry to the HOF for reaching that milestone.
I also wish his clone could appear today. With the thinner-handled bats, tighter baseballs, tighter strikezones, smaller parks, and the stigma of strike-outs long gone, I have no idea what he woud do today. As a regular DH, he’d be 50-60 HR guy at his best, but I’m still not sure he’d hit more than .230!
Question:
Does Joe ever have not-bad songs stuck in his head? Ever?
Bill C:
I thought I had another guy who played in all four divisions in one year, but I was wrong. However, since there’s an interesting quirk involved, I’ll mention it anyway:
Johnny LeMaster played for the Giants, Indians, and Pirates in 1985. The interesting thing? All three of those teams finished LAST in 1985. (I had thought he also played for Oakland in ‘85, which would have completed the four-division circuit but he didn’t get there until ‘86. Too bad he didn’t play for Texas in ‘85…)
“…Johnny LeMaster played for the Giants, Indians, and Pirates in 1985. The interesting thing? All three of those teams finished LAST in 1985….”
At least partly because each of them thought it was a good idea to have Johnnie LeMaster on their team.
I first started watching baseball on a regular basis in the late ’70s in eastern Iowa, getting the weekend Cubs feeds from WGN, and would marvel at how Kingman would hit balls out of Wrigley with ONE HAND. He’d get fooled, wave his arm, and POW, out onto Waveland.
This reminds me of another thing that Joe brings up occasionally, about associating players with a particular club. To me, Kingman will always be a Cub because that’s where I first remember seeing him play. Same with Bill Buckner. Ivan DeJesus and Manny Trillo, even though they were traded to the Phillies for Larry Bowa and Ryne Sandberg. Willie Hernandez, even though his best years were with Detroit, came up as a Cub. Bruce Sutter is always a Cub to me.
(Likewise, I think of Rusty Staub as a Tiger, even though he only spent 3-4 years there in the late ’70s. Weird how that works.)
Most similar seasons to Dave Kingman’s 1979:
+———–+———–+——–+——+——+——+——+——+——+——–+——–+——–+——–+——–+——————+
| namefirst | namelast | yearid | bb | _1b | _2b | _3b | hr | sb | ipouts | avg | obp | slg | lwruns | rundist |
+———–+———–+——–+——+——+——+——+——+——+——–+——–+——–+——–+——–+——————+
| Dave | Kingman | 1979 | 45 | 81 | 19 | 5 | 48 | 4 | 379 | 0.2876 | 0.3432 | 0.6128 | 43.05 | 0 |
| Willie | McCovey | 1963 | 50 | 90 | 19 | 5 | 44 | 1 | 406 | 0.2801 | 0.3388 | 0.5656 | 35.41 | 10.1027619985824 |
| Juan | Gonzalez | 1997 | 33 | 89 | 24 | 3 | 42 | 0 | 375 | 0.2964 | 0.3375 | 0.5891 | 36.01 | 11.0843673703103 |
| Gus | Zernial | 1953 | 57 | 92 | 21 | 3 | 42 | 4 | 398 | 0.2842 | 0.3507 | 0.5594 | 38.22 | 12.023314850739 |
| Mark | McGwire | 1987 | 71 | 80 | 28 | 4 | 49 | 1 | 396 | 0.2890 | 0.3694 | 0.6176 | 53.17 | 12.1083524890879 |
| Juan | Gonzalez | 1996 | 45 | 88 | 33 | 2 | 47 | 2 | 371 | 0.3142 | 0.3669 | 0.6433 | 54.07 | 12.1412437583635 |
| Jermaine | Dye | 2006 | 59 | 96 | 27 | 3 | 44 | 7 | 369 | 0.3154 | 0.3829 | 0.6215 | 56.68 | 12.3962453993135 |
| Cy | Williams | 1923 | 59 | 91 | 22 | 3 | 41 | 11 | 378 | 0.2935 | 0.3636 | 0.5757 | 45.09 | 12.4169239346949 |
| Harmon | Killebrew | 1963 | 72 | 70 | 18 | 0 | 45 | 0 | 382 | 0.2583 | 0.3492 | 0.5553 | 34.38 | 12.4946508554661 |
| Juan | Gonzalez | 1993 | 37 | 86 | 33 | 1 | 46 | 4 | 370 | 0.3097 | 0.3543 | 0.6325 | 48.86 | 12.8087353005673 |
| Ken | Griffey | 1996 | 78 | 88 | 26 | 2 | 49 | 16 | 380 | 0.3028 | 0.3900 | 0.6275 | 64.16 | 13.598099131864 |
+———–+———–+——–+——+——+——+——+——+——+——–+——–+——–+——–+——–+——————+
After Kingman’s 35, there’s quite a drop before other big home run totals in final seasons- only 13 others hit at least 20 in their final season, but none reached 30:
29 Ted Williams
29 Mark McGwire
28 Barry Bonds
25 Hank Greenberg
Other sudden endings with 20+ include Albert Belle, Kirby Puckett, Phil Nevin (3 teams in his last year), Paul O’Neill, Will Clark, Dave Nilsson.
What I can’t stand is flossing a chicken.
Vin-
Yeah, okay, I can see how ten minutes of flossing would be beyond excruciating. You get extra points for being able to do that.
Not that I’m a huge J.D. Drew fan, but he at least adds to his team’s chance of winning by having a strong and accurate arm, playing defense well enough to sometimes be used in center field, and being very patient at the plate. Kingman is the rare player who started out knowing how to walk and seemingly losing that skill as his career progressed (Adrian Beltre is another such, although not as extremely). From ‘72-74, Kingman’s walks exceeded 1/10 his at bats (my general rule of thumb for adequate patience), then he was below (generally well below) it from 75-80, in ‘81 had the best walk year of his career, and then was kind of random the rest of the way. Most players learn how to work walks as they age. Beltre was well above that mark in 1999-2000 (his first two full seasons) and then collapsed, although in 2008 he did improve a chunk. J.D.Drew has been above 1:10 his entire career, and twice went above 1:5. Harmon Killebrew (cited as being perhaps similar to Kingman) was a wal,king machine, approaching 3:10 in his biggest walk season. But Juan Gonzalez is a decent comp, similar career homer totals, under 1:10 walks. Gonzalez sure got a lot more respect, though, as evidenced by his two MVPs (both with OPS+ under 150); Kingman’s 1979 was quite comparable (OPS+ 146) but he couldn’t crack the top ten for MVP.
Joe – where is the all-star ballot poll?
Rob Deer turned in some of my favorite HR/RBI seasons: 32/64, 25/64, 21/55 etc. The king of the solo HR.
Joe.
Next Season is the 40th anniversary of MLB lowering the mound and shrinking the strike zone (it says so on my National Baseball Hall of Fame desk calender that I got in our family wide $20 max. gift exchange lottery).
Would this be an interesting theme TBWL (to be written later)?
Another Kingman story. Supposedly he was negotiating his first contract with the general manager of the Cubs. The GM had a reputation as a pretty tough bargainer. After fighting about over some other demands, Kingman asked for a clause giving him a large bonus if he broke the club RBI record. The GM said “no problem†and wrote it into the contract on the spot. Kingman was surprised at how easily he had gotten that, and asked what the club record actually was. The GM said it was 190.
@Richard Aronson — Thanks for the great summary of Kingman’s “talents”. Truly one of the most obnoxious players in MLB history.
@Brent — Yes, his fielding was UNBELIEVABLY atrocious. I don’t know about how many were throwing errors, but he sucked at every position he played. His career fielding % at 3B was .906 (no, that’s not a typo); at 1B, .985, and in the OF, .957. I know F-Pct is not the most indicative stat in BB, but still…
Just for some context and reference: Dick Stuart, generally considered the worst-fielding first basemen of all time, fielded at a .982 clip. Lonnie “Skates” Smith (so nicknamed because, according to a teammate, he played the outfield like he was wearing skates — my all-time favorite baseball nickname, after Bob “Death to Flying Things” Ferguson) fielded at a .980 clip in the outfield.
In 1972, he played 59 games at 3B, and made 14 errors. Just in case people thought that was a fluke, he followed it up with 18 errors in 60 games in 1973. And then, when you thought he couldn’t get any worse, the next year he made 12 errors In only 21 games at 3B, with a fielding percentage of .797!
In fact, one of my all-time favorite weird BB stats is that in one of his early years (hard to tell, since my memory isn’t perfect and I can’t quickly find seasonal leaders in errors by position), he came within (IIRC) 3 or 4 judiciously distributed errors of leading the NL in errors at 3B, 1B, and OF — in the SAME SEASON!
And just think — he was apparently a worse person, based on my recollections and those of other posters in this thread, than he was a fielder.
What a jerk (to put it politely).
I guess no one remembers how in the late 70s Sports Illustrated described Kingman in an article about that season’s free agents, but I never forgot:
“Hits the ball high, far and seldom. Catches it occasionally.”
@Richard Aronson — Forgot to mention that I first heard the 15/5/5 ratio described by Casey Stengel (not to say that Sparky didn’t also say it). In fact, he said that keeping the 5 undecideds away from the 5 haters was the MOST important part of his job.
@David (different one ) — That Michael Jackson/one glove joke couldn’t have been told about Dr. Strangeglove, as his career bascially ended in 1966, and the Jackson 5 didn’t release their first Motown single until 1969. Actually, I believe it was originally told about the LA Dodgers entire infield of the mid-70s to early 80s (Guerrero, Sax, Russell, Garvey).
On that topic: when Guerrero was being interviewed after LA won the 1981 WS, he was asked what he was thinking about when the Dodgers had two outs in the 9th of the last game. His response: “Don’t hit it to me.” When asked if he thought anything else, he replied: “Don’t hit it to Sax.”
[...] Uncategorized — Dave Studeman @ 2:10 pm Joe Posnanski reads the Hardball Times Annual and starts reminiscing about Dave Kingman. Just another offbeat reason you should order your copy today.Order the Hardball Times Annual 2009 [...]
Joe, apologies if you planned to link to this later/as I post…
But for anyone here to read Joe’s writing, go to BronxBanter and read his “Yankee Stadium Memory”. If you don’t know where to go to see Alex’s blog, go to Rob Neyer’s latest post on ESPN.com’s MLB page, where he links to it. It is a work of art…a brilliantly wonderful memory that sums up everything that is special about Joe’s writing…
I was a young kid growing up when Kingman was playing for my beloved Mets. I loved to watch him play…his homeruns were spectacular but so were his outs…he could hit pop ups to the infield that took so long to come down that you could eat a sandwich (on a bad day) and his strikeouts were just amazing…all of them swinging…and Kingman nearly falling over from the strength and wildness of his swing…always leaving me thinking that if he had just made contact that surely it would have been a massive home run. I have no memories of his interactions with reporters or his personality but he was as exciting an at bat as any player I’ve ever seen.
Hey Joe -
I noticed that the guys from The Hardball Times have a special plea on their site to buy the Annual from ACTA Sports… perhaps they’d appreciate it if you linked there instead of Amazon?
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/its-the-2009-hardball-times-baseball-annual/
http://www.actasports.com/detail.html?id=079
Hope I’m not sticking my nose in where it isn’t wanted, just thought it might be useful to point out…
@LB
I like Adam Dunn’s OBP as well. I was just wondering if he will be remembered like Kingman when it is all said and done. That’s all.
@JO’C
I think the game you are referring to was in ‘71 when he was with the Giants visiting the Mets. He hit the Giants team bus in the parking lot. No…the game I saw was later on when he joined the Mets the first time around. I don’t exactly remember where the ball landed, but I remember everyone around me all saying that it was the longest HR they had ever seen at Shea. And the pitch before the HR…he hit the longest foul ball into the leftfield upper deck that I had ever seen. I think Tommy Agee is the only player to hit a fair ball into the upper deck in left field at Shea, but this foul ball was pretty damn close.
@Pete R – Even more impressive than Paul O’Neill’s 21 HR in his last year in the bigs was his 22 SB that year. A career high. And he was only caught 3 times. What the hell was going on there?
Somewhat related to the point of the John Walsh study, my absolute, all-time favorite sports stat was something I read in one of Bill James’ early Baseball Abstracts, which I believe he revisited a couple years later: Birthday Statistics. That is, how have players (James looked at a several-year sample covering 1000+ ABs, if I remember correctly) hit on their actual birthdays. Unfortunately I can’t find that study now, but the numbers were staggeringly high, like around .400 BA with oodles of power emanating from common, everyday players.
I think back to this study when I read anything about sports and psychology and I think that maybe when we think we’re special, we are.
If anyone can pinpoint those stats, please link them here.
Jon Miller told this story during a Giants game a couple years ago–
Situation: bases loaded, 2 outs, ground ball to SF’s Kingman at first. He picks it up and throws home. But the Giants’ catcher has bolted for first to back up in case there is a throw. The ball sails to the backstop and 3 runs score.
(I’m still wondering why the catcher would vacate home there. Maybe he knew that Kingman’s chance of executing a 3-1 assist were pretty sketchy. Apparently he didn’t take into account that Kingman would forget how many outs there were.)
Kingman came out of nowhere to challenge the player with body parts as his name for the HR crown in 1984. He just killed Boston at the plate, hitting Prudential Specials every other AB. Gammons wrote about Boston trying to sign Kingman after 1986, but the negotiation started with Kingman asking for a hot tub and other renovations to the clubhouse and that pretty much ended it.
You seem to be conflating this with the “clutch hitting†discussion, but this strikes me as a different question. The clutch discussion takes a player’s established level of performance, and asks whether that player can somehow reach an even higher level when the game situation demands it. The “anger†question seems to be more an issue of workplace temperament — are there some players for whom a negative personal stimulus can bring about a positive response?
You could argue that they are two different concepts, but I think they follow pretty much the same idea.
Do emotions / stress / happiness / anger / feeling good / feeling bad etc affect a player on the field? OFCOURSE they do. Some days I go into work and feel really shitty (well, that’s most days actually), and my work is pretty subpar. Other days I’ll go into work feeling really well, and work much harder and much better.
This isn’t going to be any different for an athlete. A pitcher who was up all night to be with his wife who delivered their first child is obviously going to be on top of the moon, full of adrenaline and happiness (at least you’d hope so), and will go into Yankee Stadium six hours later and throw a two hitter. (Can’t remember who did that.)
To go a bit further, Brett Favre in the game after his dad had died the day before.
Emotions WILL affect a person’s performance. However, that effect cannot be controlled in any way, shape or form. You can’t force yourself to be happy and feeling good and then use that to play better. Similarly, while you can force yourself to be angry, it’s not going to somehow miraculously make your hitting better.
Because if Kingman really was annoyed everytime someone in front of him was intentionally walked, and he REALLY used that internal anger and fire to hit better and farther, why didn’t he just make himself angry every single time he went to the plate?
So I’m going to chalk it all up to a few extra homers in a non-meaningful sampling of at-bats that really doesn’t give us any kind of profound psychological insight into a player’s mental state.
Because if Kingman really was annoyed everytime someone in front of him was intentionally walked, and he REALLY used that internal anger and fire to hit better and farther, why didn’t he just make himself angry every single time he went to the plate?
Because then he wouldn’t have been Dave Kingman, I guess. It’s a question without a provable answer, which IMO adds to its intrigue.
I am absurdly fascinated by both Kingman and Duane Kuiper too, next you are going to tell me you want a Bo Jackson highlight DVD for Christmas also.
My favorite meet a famous person story is when I met Dave Kingman. This was in the Senior Baseball League in Florida in 1988. I bought a set of their baseball cards at the ballpark and Dave was playing that day. I waited around after the game with the groupies and little kids to meet the players. Most of them were friendly enough (either to the groupies or little kids), but Dave K. came blasting out of the clubhouse angrily signing stuff for some fans. After leaving most of them in the dust I ran after him all the way out to his waiting SUV to finally catch up to him for my signature. The first thing I noticed is he was shockingly gigantic, I had a big frame at 6′3″ and he blotted out the sun over me. But he grumbled and signed my card while acting like an asshole basically. I felt so warm and fuzzy that I got to personally experience the Kingman experience that all the writers talked about.
@David in NYC – To the point you make about the one glove quote – the Dodger infield in the time frame you specify was primarily Garvey, Lopes, Russell and Cey. The Guerrero quote wasn’t from the 1981 series. Sax wasn’t their regular 2nd baseman yet. It was still Lopes. Sax didn’t play in the final series game. I think both the quote and the Jackson line was from a close game in 1983 when Guerrero was the starting 3rd basemen and Sax was starting at 2nd. Sax and Guerrero both led the league in errors at their position and I think Sax had the yips, making a bunch of throwing errors. Also, and I think for some reason this makes the quote funnier, he referred to Sax as “Saxy” as in “Don’t hit the ball to Saxy.”
It would also make sense to be then because I’m pretty sure Jackson started wearing one glove in 1983.
And as every young Twins fan who has gazed at all the holes in the Metrodome ceiling and wondered aloud to his father whether anyone has ever hit a ball so high that it got stuck in one of them knows, the answer is, “Yes, son, Dave Kingman was the only guy to do that, and it counted as a double.”
For all that has been written thru the years, Kingman was my favorite player as a kid in the 70’s and I have personally known him since 92 and never seen a negative side. He has always been nice to me and my wife and kids. Being a father himself of 3, for whatever is written he managed to stay employed 16 years and is doing well at 60!!
[...] by Dave Studeman Joe Posnanski reads the Hardball Times Annual and starts reminiscing about Dave Kingman. Just another offbeat reason you should order your copy [...]
As a young kid growing up in Chicago, I had 2 favorites – the Cubs and Kingman. The Cubs were in Chicago and Kingman only visited a couple times a year with the Mets, Padres or Giants – depending on the year. I always knew that the Cubs got him, he’d do alot of damage. Well, they finally did and he didn’t let me down. Never. But, he let Chicago fans down in the last year or two when he was injured and hanging out on his boat instead of coming to the ballpark. I felt as if I was his only fan. So there I was, at a game in ‘80 or ‘81. Before the game he was as usual avoiding the fans who were booing him by then. I saw that he came over to the stands and I ran down there and pushed my way to the front. I pushed my scorecard and pencil in front of him and asked for an autograph. He was rude and told me I was rude as he was talking to someone (an elderly woman – maybe his grandmother, I have no idea). I was so close, but couldn’t reach my dream of an autograph. Then, in 1993 there was some sort of autographing session at a local mall. Nobody really of note interested me – until I saw the name Dave Kingman on the roster. In order to get an autograph, you would either have to pay a fee (I believe $10 or so) or, purchase a pound of Ekrich meat at a local deli and receive a coupon for an autograph. I went the meat route – a couple times – and arrived at the mall with my wife and infant daughter. I shook hands with Dave and had a picture taken of the two of us as well as a photo of him with my wife and daughter. He signed the instant photos and they’re safely tucked away in a drawer. He was very nice and very happy by this time in his life. I”m sure he’s even happier relaxing these days at his Nevada residence.