Posted: March 5 07, 8:01 am
You know, this past Friday night my Dad and I watched for the first time the DVD of game one of the 1968 world series. First time I've seen Gibson pitch -- extremely entertaining (and extremely impressive). Anyhow, the other player who really impressed me was <cringing> Tim McCarver.*** You might laugh, but I was thinking of Garagiola.
There was a discussion on this forum recently about whether catchers in "the olden days" were better at controlling the running game, the same, or worse than catchers today. Well, in the first inning McCarver made what felt like a 1.5 g2g throw (I'm surely exaggerating, but it felt that quick) to nail a would-be stealer. It was eye-popping. I turned to my dad and asked him if mccarver was viewed as one of the great defensive catchers of the time; he said no, McCarver was viewed as about average or slightly better.
He said "in fact, this guy (Detroit's Bill Freehan) was considered to be much better defensively than McCarver." During one at-bat, McLane threw consecutive pitch-outs to Julian Javier; on the second one Brock went anyway and beat a very quick but high throw fairly easily. During the game Freehan threw I think three to second that ALL showed a very quick release, but all of them sailed; one to center field, the other two playable but high and a little off the bag. Uncharacteristic, said Dad.
I also was stunned -- stunned, I say -- by McCarver's baserunning speed. He hit one in the gap and at the instant I was expecting that he "should" have been halfway between first and second to end with an easy double, the announcer said he had rounded second and was going for third. Which he made easily.
Anyhow, just an interesting aside. To your point about Garagiola, I always thought he was the opposite -- another one who people assumed MUST have been a great defensive catcher, BECAUSE he was so bad offensively. Was he considered poor defensively but actually was good?