Remembering the Baseball Card Stats

There was a time in my life when I would tag along with my mom on the weekly grocery store run.  The only reason I can think of that I didn’t throw a complete tantrum (other than the fact that I respected my parents, of course) is that I knew there was a good to great chance I would be leaving the store with a $0.50 pack of Topps baseball cards in my hands.  Obviously, the first thing I had to do was throw the rock-hard piece of old bubble gum out in the trash as we left.  Looking back, that was the definition of “living the dream.”  My brothers and I spent hours and hours collecting, examining, and playing with every baseball card we collected – which I can now say was way too many cards than I should have ever made my mom buy for me.  Sorry mom.

We knew every statistic, every lineup, and every detail about every player and team in baseball.  The highlight of my non-grocery-store-visit days was the delivery of the daily newspaper.  I remember reading through and analyzing every box score in baseball from the night before, quickly learning the regular lineups, and how each player did by those 4 stats listed: at bats, runs, hits, and runs batted in.  The game was simple; it was universal.  Batters were known by their batting average, home runs, runs batted in, and stolen bases.  Pitchers remembered for their earned run average, win-loss record, strike outs, and saves.  What ever happened to the baseball card stats?

1994 Topps Kirby Puckett

New statistical categories have taken over the baseball world.  No longer do we focus on batting average and earned run average to determine how well a player is performing.  Stats like “wins above replacement (WAR)”, “batting average on balls in play (BABIP)”, and “on-base plus slugging (OPS)” have overtaken the landscape of baseball statistics.  Now, I understand how these statistics can give us a much deeper understanding of the all the little intricacies of our beloved game.  They can give us much more insight as to how a player is performing in very specific areas of the game compared to his teammate or opponent.

I am not trying to say that these stats are bad for the game, but for the average fan out there – and even many die-hard fans – what happened to the baseball card stats?  I absolutely love the history that the National Pastime brings to the table, and there are no stats that hold so strong through the decades than the baseball stats.  Joe Mauer had an absolutely amazing season in 2009 hitting .365.  Let’s consider now one of the greatest hitters of all time: Ty Cobb.  Cobb’s career batting average was .367!  I don’t know what Cobb’s WAR or BABIP was, but I do know that Joe Mauer’s best hitting year was nearly equal to the average year of the great Ty Cobb.  This takes nothing away for my favorite Cretin-Durham-Hall grad, and I would argue that this comparison makes Mauer’s feat even more impressive.  After Cobb’s rookie season in 1905, he rattled off 23 consecutive seasons hitting over .300 to end his career, including 3 seasons above .400.  Joe Mauer matched one of the greatest hitters of all time, at bat for at bat, in 2009.  If Joe can stay healthy for the next 10-15 years, it will be very interesting to see how their careers compare at the end of the day.

Again, I don’t want to take away from the detail that has recently been put in to baseball stats, but let’s not forget the baseball card stats.  I love statistics just as much as the next guy, and it's always been a huge part of the game; maybe I am just a little hard-headed or old fashioned (I'm not even 30 yet, how can that be?) But, there’s something to be said about a statistic that can be measured over the course of more than 100 years, and give us insight into the great history of this game.  Maybe someday we will even be able to draw a comparison to Ty Cobb’s record of 35 steals of home plate.

I look forward to all the statistical geniouses out there that are going to tear me apart for this one.  That's ok - that's what is so great about sports.  We all have our opinion, likes, and dislikes.  I just happen to love my basic baseball card stats still!