http://shop.sportsworldcards.com/new-york-giants—ron-johnson-180-topps-1974-nfl-american-football-trading-card-8998-p.asp

As a kid I thought how cool is that where brothers can play the two separate sports.

pete said…
During my pre- and lower-school days, the Mets so owned New York that I was barely aware of the Yankees’ existence, except from the occasional Jake Gibbs or Jim Lyttle who would show up in a pack of cards. My family and friends were all Mets fans.

Shortly thereafter, with the emergence of the fiendish Steinbrenner and signing of Catfish Hunter they began their next dastardly march toward world domination and it became clear that we would quickly learn what we know now.

The Yankees were EVIL.

Their fans were worse.

There was no Sanctuary.

‘Twas ever thus…

4:22 PM

Jon said…
Alex Johnson had a rep as a clubhouse cancer that rivaled his contempo,Dick Allen. I remember that Yankees Red Sox fight. It was on TV (which wasn’t always the case for games inthat era.) For whatever reason, I never minded Piniella. But I couldn’t stand any of the other Yankees.

4:38 PM

Anonymous said…
I like the writing here, but this entry is just plain lazy.

As this link shows (a link easily found via Google),
http://tinyurl.com/2wq5pe

Alex Johnson had anything but a forgettable career. After he retired, I think that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

6:05 PM

Josh Wilker said…
Hey Anonymous,

Thanks for the feedback. I guess my thing is to come at this stuff from a pronounced subjective point of view, in this case the point-of-view of a kid who had not yet learned any of the back-story about Alex Johnson (which I’ve since learned, at least to some extent). It’s more important to me for the most part in these essays to Google my own memory than Google the internet (although I generally do that with these posts, too, and perhaps I should have done that here, though I don’t know if it would have changed anything). I still think he’s got to be at least in the conversation about the least-known batting champions, and I also think his itinerant career is going to make him more obscure than a comparable player who stuck around long enough for hometown fans to build an attachment to him.

6:36 PM

Anonymous said…
Alex Johnson’s career wasn’t as forgettable as, say Cecil Upshaw’s, but he’s more anonymous than most batting title winners, as Josh wrote.

11:48 AM

Josh Wilker said…
There’s not really enough chatter here to actually call it a discussion, but I just have to say that even to have a fraction of a discussion develop regarding the relative anonymity of baseball players of the mid- to late-1970s (e.g., Cecil Upshaw vs. Alex Johnson) is very, very pleasing to me. Even the fact that there’s not that much chatter, that it’s not really a discussion, is pleasing. It suggests a near-empty stadium, a few lone figures scattered throughout the stands, a game of no import, players few if any will remember.

It feels like home to me.

I am inspired by this feeling, and am now considering the establishment of the negative image of the Hall of Fame (cue the heraldic kazoos)…

The Hall of Anonymity.

And just to bring this back in the meandering direction of the not-quite-discussion, I think “anonymous” is right (and who would know better than he?): Alex Johnson is not worthy of a Etch-a-Sketch plaque in The Hall of Anonymity. Maybe he could appear, blurrily, with Pete Runnels, Billy Goodman, and others that, fittingly, I cannot think of right now (and am too lazy to look up), in a special exhibit on little-known batting champs.

p.s. When I was younger, possibly even into high school, I thought “Anonymous” was the actual name of a prolific poet from antiquity.

2:36 PM

Anonymous said…
Thanks, Josh. Put I would have been nowhere without the writings of Ibid. He spoke to me more than any of the others.

2:50 PM

Anonymous said…
My no-talent brother Alan Smithee has been riding on my coattails far too long.

11:07 AM