I have written an article about how good Reuschel was using sabermetrics. Here is the link

http://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2009/06/rick-reuschel-for-hall-of-fame.html

Personally I think Rick Reuschel is the most underrated pitcher of all time, then Phil Niekro, Bucky Walters and Rick Ferrell. But Grove is a top ten guy who does poorly on these kind of lists even by so called rabid baseball fans. Most underrated superstar pitcher no question. The Mel OTT of the the pitching world.

I think 3 things that hurt Grove’s image:

1-His team (Philadelphia Athletics) doesn’t exist anymore. No one in Philadelphia cares about the A’s anymore and Oakland doesn’t seem romotely interested in celebrating their Philadelphia past. He went to the Red Sox at the tail end of his career. Odds are if he were a Yankee, Dodger,Giant or Cardinal or had spent his entire career with the Red Sox his legacy would be enhanced and celebrated.

2-He pitched during a great hitter’s era. Kind of like the great hitters of the 60’s. this hurts Walters and Ferrell as well. So traditional stats like ERA don’t really show how great he was.

3-He pitched in a time period where there isn’t much film footage available to show how great he was, no t.v. no video etc. And what’s available in film are little scratchy black and white clips.

And all this talk about Felix Millan, what about Felix Mantilla?

Whitey Ford was a fairly dominant lefthander. And a quite a winner as well.

Joe – a few columns back was the mention of pitchers with low BB counts, did not Bret Saberhagan have a year where he only walked like 15 guys or something?

Speaking of lefties who struck out the side on 9 pitches, Royal’s lefty Danny Jackson did it in the ‘85 series. (The same inning where Brett flew into the dugout after a foul ball-that was strike one)

I like the fact one reader did bring up what Sandy was doing before Dodger Stadium became his home. It does bother me that his critics only mention his peak being the Dodger Stadium years. Having watched baseball for 40 years now, his 65 World Series performance of back to back shutouts on two days rest with the final shutout coming in game seven on the road is probably why he is still so revered. A team that consisted of 65 MVP Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Harmon Killebrew, and slugging Bobby Allison was no walk in the park. Kind of funny that Bobby Allison had an OPS+ of 163 in 1964 and came in 32nd in the MVP voting.

Lefty Grove’s numbers have always boggled my mind, so I enjoyed this story.

Just curious if anyone knows, what was the difference in salary in those days between a minor league time like the Orioles and the big leagues under Connie Mack for an elite player like Grove?

One final note about Clemente…When one would watch him play rightfield (especially in the odd-shaped rightfield of Forbes Field) his mesmerizing throws like arrows coming in from his territory to nail baserunners was as exhilarating an athletic feat as I can remember when I was a teen. (He could hit a little bit, too (but mostly for average) – but not like the powerful Frank Robinson or Henry Aaron.