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10/01/2005: Fond rememberances....
Over at Get Up, Baby! Dan interrupts a post on the current travails of Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter in order to talk about a Cardinals luminary of the past:
Was I the only one unaware that Slats Marion was still alive? That's cool; it's like when I found out that a band I had just gotten into was about to play a big reunion show, except in that case it was sold out thirty minutes after ticket sales opened. I don't know what parallel one can draw between that and an old ballplayer, and quite honestly it disturbed me to consider for more than a few seconds. But what kind of bad luck is it to be a slick-fielding, average hitting shortstop for a team that, thirty years later, would feature another luminary; you know who I'm talking about, of course: Garry Templeton.For those of you who aren't obsessive Cardinals fans, I won't spoil the joke of which shortstop caused everyone to forget who Marty Marion was, other than to provide a not-so-subtle link to somewhere you can satisfy your curiosity if you can't figure it out on your own.
Or maybe it's Royce Clayton. Anyway, I think Slats (88 this December) gets a bum rap; on a lot of other teams, an eight-time all star and one-time MVP would be a beloved icon. On the Cardinals, he's... the other brilliant defensive shortstop. Curse you, Tripp Cromer! (To commemorate Marty Marion being alive, by the way, expect some sort of profile on him soon.)
Anyway, Dan's mentioning Marion caught my eye because, in My Real Life™ I'm conducting a replay of the 1944 MLB season in Out of the Park Baseball 6.5, managing the St. Louis Cardinals (of course), and Marion's my starting shortstop. As usual, he's providing exemplary defense, but he's not even hitting for league average, keeping himself barely over the strict Mendoza line (i.e., a .215 average; Slats is, in my replay, right now hitting at a .217 clip). At least the season's still young (only 11 games into a 154 game season), and Marty has a good chance to redeem himself before the season's over.
Len on 10.01.05 @ 05:41 PM CST
