Joe Posnanski's Top 100 Players in Baseball

I don't know if he's the only guy ever to accomplish that, but definitely strange. I thought he would have been part of the '84 game, but he did get off to a so-so start: .273/.349/.483, 12 HR, 46 RBI. (The Tigers were 57-27 at the break.)

(Chet Lemon made it; .307/.377/.540, 12 HR, 51 RBI. Close, but clearly better.)

Gibby w/o a moustache is so weird

Typical Posnanski: he starts the most-famous countdown, gets six entries posted, then begins a pre-season countdown of the teams, #30-1 (for me, not nearly as interesting; there are a zillion pre-season rankings). So he seems to have put most-famous aside for at least three weeks. He did that a few times with the Top 100--took him three or four years to complete.

Resumption. #45, Manny:

He was supernatural with two outs and runners in scoring position. The highest OPS ever in such situations with at least 1,000 plate appearances:

1. Babe Ruth, 1.203
2. Ted Williams, 1.128
3. Lou Gehrig, 1.065
4. Jimmie Foxx, 1.056
5. Manny Ramirez, 1.050

And when asked how he did it, MannyBManny said: “I don’t know. I just hit.”

He did just hit. The rest of the game held little interest for him. But in that way, he wasn’t really much different from another Red Sox leftfielder named Ted Williams. He was flakier than Ted and less profane than Ted and just plain odder than Ted. It’s unlikely that Ted Williams would have delayed a game looking for his diamond earring in the infield dirt or smiled after getting picked off in the World Series or left the outfield in the middle of the game to go the bathroom or run back to first base after stealing second or dived to cut off Johnny Damon’s throw for no apparent reason or kept a water bottle in his pocket...

Millar: (Julian Tavarez and Manny) had this drink. It was like whiskey and it was this Latin cocktail they’d shake up in this old bottle, like a big old Perrier bottle. They put all this stuff in it: a shot of whiskey, honey, lemon. Well, Manny had the idea of throwing in Viagara pills and didn’t tell anybody. We were all taking shots of this stuff and it was like: “Let’s go play!”

Arroyo: Manny loved a laugh.

Leskanic: You know how they have the Silver Slugger award? I told him that this year they were going to give out a Silver Glove award. So we all spray-painted his glove silver and hung it in his locker. He said: “Lesky, I told you I was going to win the Silver Glove award!”

McCarty: For all the s— he took about his defense, he really worked at it.

Garciaparra: Manny put in the work.

Leskanic: We would go out and have some drinks together. All his drinks had Red Bull. I’d say: “Manny, every time I see you, you’ve got a Red Bull in your hand. Why do you drink so much Red Bull?” And he would say in his dreams he could take longer batting practice because of the energy.

Millar: Only Manny.

Arroyo: Manny was so cheap, when we would check out of a hotel, all his incidentals he would freaking send to Edgar Rentería’s bill every time. You’d see Edgar arguing with the hotel manager that he didn’t have all this food.

Leskanic: That’s true! Terry Adams was checking out, and I was right behind him. Terry was like: “I didn’t get four massages. I wasn’t even here for four days, how the hell would I get four massages?” Manny put it on his bill!

Foulke: Manny would do the same thing to Julian (Tavarez). Julian knew him really well. He’d go into his wallet and get money out.

Leskanic: Schilling made these “why not us” T-shirts. Manny took them all, put them all in his locker, 25 shirts, and he wore a different one home every night.

Arroyo: Manny would open up his man purse and he’d have $10,000 in there.

Leskanic: I just loved the guy.

Most of today's entry was about how little MVP support he garnered during an astounding seven-year run.

I often think of Manny as my favourite player

Why do you drink so much Red Bull?” And he would say in his dreams he could take longer batting practice because of the energy.

In his dreams

he is batting practice viking

manny ramirez (best player)

Down to #6 on the pre-season rundown that put the famous-player countdown on hold (I get the feeling he was rushing to get rundown finished before Opening Day and missed). In his Astros entry for today, there's this little bit--I've had this same theory for a while and have posted about it somewhere on ILX:

OK, I’ve been wanting to unveil this thought I have about 1970s sitcoms, and maybe I can pull it off here. Maybe not. But I’ll try. So you probably know that 1970s sitcoms were, pretty much without exception, filmed in front of a live studio audience. Well, one of the features of this is that after a show had been on the air for a while, the studio audience would cheer the mere appearance of Fonzie or Latka or Laverne.

But what struck me, even as a kid, is that the longer the show would go on, the more characters the studio audience would cheer for simply showing up. I mean, it was one thing when the audience cheered for the Fonz. It was quite another when they cheered for Ralph Malph. That, to me, that was living proof that a show was going on too long--the fans started applauding simply because they recognized someone from the old show. Hey, look, it’s Chachi!

this is a classic clemenza post, ty <3

but has joe posnanski ever been in a live studio audience? i mean, they literally prompt you to applaud! also does he really think 70s sitcom producers adhered strictly to audience reactions rather than using canned laughs when it suited their purposes?

Happy Days was the worst offender by far.

The first two seasons of Happy Days (1974–75) were filmed using a single-camera setup and laugh track. One episode of season two ("Fonzie Gets Married") was filmed in front of a studio audience with three cameras as a test run. From the third season on (1975–84), the show was a three-camera production in front of a live audience (with a cast member, usually Tom Bosley, announcing in voice-over, "Happy Days is filmed before a live audience" at the start of most episodes), giving these later seasons a markedly different style. A laugh track was still used during post-production to smooth over live reactions.

A laugh-track, yeah, but I don't know whether the entrance applause for characters was coaxed or not. It's almost a moot point as to how embarrassing it was to hear that watching at home.

It lives (77 days dormant, according to Posnanski): #43 on the fame countdown, Clayton Kershaw. (I messed up somewhere above.)