No. 93 Ozzie Smith
Ozzie Smith was the greatest defensive player I ever saw. This is not to downplay the sheer awesomeness of Andrelton Simmons, Andruw Jones, Adri¨¢n Beltr¨¦, or Nolan Arenado, among many others defensive maestros. It's just that, to me, the Wizard invented a whole new way to play defense. He made jaw-dropping plays so often that you couldn't take your eyes off him.
He was so good that when watching a Cardinals game, you would turn the channel when they were on offense
There are numbers that show his defensive radiance. In 1980, while playing for San Diego, he had 621 assists, a record that will likely never be broken. Why will it never be broken? Because many more balls were put in play in 1980; now, with the strikeout, shortstops rarely get even 500 assists. In 2019, Oakland's Marcus Semien had the most shortstop assists in baseball with 436¡ª185 shy of Ozzie, more than one per game.
But the wonder only begins with his 1980 record season. In 1981, the strike season, Ozzie actually had a higher range factor than he did in 1980. If not for the strike, he would have broken his own record.
Then he was traded to St. Louis. And in 1982, he had an even higher range factor than he'd had in either 1980 or 1981. This was a shortstop playing at a different level. He led the league in assists eight times and finished second another four times. By Baseball Reference's defensive WAR, his fielding was worth an astonishing 44 Wins Above Replacement. Nobody is close.
Defensive WAR
Ozzie Smith, 44.2
Mark Belanger, 39.5
Brooks Robinson, 39.1
Cal Ripken, 35.7
Joe Tinker, 34.3
There are two Ozzie stories I want to tell here. The first comes from September 23, 1996, less than a week before he played his last big-league game. I was a 29-year-old columnist for the Cincinnati Post,an afternoon newspaper back in the days when such things still existed. It goes without saying that the Postno longer exists.
My job that day was to try to sum up Ozzie Smith's genius, and someone said to me: "Just watch him take infield practice. You'll get all you need just from that."
So, I watched. And this is what I wrote:
The baseballs roll slowly at first. The game will not begin for a couple of hours still, and all around Ozzie Smith, baseballs shoot out like fireworks. People hit them, throw them, bunt them, chase them, a hundred baseballs dance around the diamond. Ozzie Smith focuses on one ball, the one that rolls toward him.
Ozzie Smith is getting ready to perform even though there is no one in the crowd.
"Here we go," St. Louis Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan says.
Here we go. In baseball, great players come and go like favorite songs. They show up for a while, some hit 400 home runs or strike out 3,000 batters, and then they fade into a happy memory. Folk heroes come along less often. Ozzie Smith is one of those folk heroes. He grows better in memory.
His legend has little to do with his own numbers; it comes from numbers that were not recorded. Everybody in the National League would have hit .300if not for Ozzie. Everybody would have broken Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak if not for Ozzie. Think of a play. There are countless to choose from. There was the time he dove one way, the ball skipped the other way, so he caught it barehanded and threw out the runner. There was the time when he flipped the ball behind his back to start a double play. There was the time he snared a line drive 15 feet to the right of second base. Then there's the time¡­
The guy stole hits from everybody, including the Beatles. Late at night, in dark bars, baseball players still sit over empty beer bottles and tell sad stories of the hits Ozzie Smith took away.
"Here we go," the Wizard says.
He fields a grounder and, without looking, throws it to first base. Then, he does it again. Again. The balls begin to come at him more often, one every 10 seconds, then once every five, and each time the baseballs spin a little faster, they skid and screech along the turf, buzzing as they approach. He catches each one softly, as if he's picking them with tweezers.
And each time, he makes perfect throws to first base without even looking up. It seems utterly impossible. He stares down, throws the ball to his left, as if he's tossing away a whiskey bottle. Each time, the ball plops softly in the first baseman's glove, which never moves. Smith rushes to his right, scoops the ball, flings it away, it lands in the first baseman's glove. He bounds to his left, plucks the ball out of the air, flings it away, it lands in the first baseman's glove.
"Are you peeking?" Duncan asks.
"For 15 years," Smith says.
The coach bounces the ball hard against the turf so that it jumps high in the air. Smith waits for it to come down and catches it on the short hop. Again. Again. It looks like he's trying to catch water from a geyser. Smith rushes in, twirls his glove in front of his chest, like a man waving away mosquitoes. Somehow, he catches the ball. He throws it without looking and in one motion, it lands in the first baseman's glove.
The ball bounces higher, higher, it seems to leap angrily off the turf, attacking Smith, and Smith continues to grab the ball with that same motion, then comes the same nonchalant throw, the same soft landing in the first baseman's glove.
"Hit it up," Smith yells at the coach. The coach hits pop-ups behind Ozzie Smith. He turns his back, runs to where he figures the ball will land, and with his back to home plate lets the ball fall into his glove like an NFL receiver. Another pop-up. Again, Smith turns his back and catches it over his head.
The coaches turn to watch him. A few players turn. Ozzie Smith, 41 years old, keeps catching the baseball over his shoulder, blind, and it is a magic trick.
And then, all at once, the symphony is over. Ozzie Smith has performed enough. He rushes around the field to pick up a few stray baseballs, and even that he does with style. He slaps his glove to the ground, and the ball ends up in the pocket.
That's when it happens. Teammate Gary Gaetti in the batting cage rips a line drive right at Ozzie, and there's no way for the Wizard to see it. His eyes are looking somewhere else. The ball comes right at his head, and there's no time to warn him, no time for him to see, no time for anything at all. Ozzie Smith reaches down to pick up a baseball. Then, at the last possible instant, without looking, he raises his arm, catches the line drive, and calmly discards the baseball with all the rest.
"Eyes everywhere," Duncan says, and he shakes his head.
Ozzie Smith was not a great hitter. He did become a pretty useful one, though, as the years went along. From 1985 to 1992, eight seasons, he had a good .361 on-base percentage. He stole 300 bases.
But he hit with no power at all¡ªhe finished his career with a lower slugging percentage than on-base percentage, a rare thing (especially rare in his case because Smith's .337 on-base percentage wasn't all that good). Of the 87 players with more than 10,000 big-league plate appearances, Ozzie Smith has by far the lowest slugging percentage.
Lowest SLG (10,000 PAs)
Ozzie Smith, .328
Rabbit Maranville, .340
Luis Aparicio, .343
Omar Vizquel, .352
Nellie Fox, .363
But Ozzie Smith did have a pretty famous extra-base hit that you might recall.
A couple of years ago, I worked with my friend Jon Hock on a movie we called Generations of the Game. It now plays multiple times every day at the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was one of the most fun things I've ever done¡ªI mean, my job was to go around the country and interview Hall of Famers (and future Hall of Famers) about what baseball and the Hall means to them.
As part of this, I went to St. Louis to interview Ozzie Smith at his office. He was a fantastic interview, like always. He talked about how much he loved playing defense. He talked about some of his most famous plays. Of course, we also talked about the home run he hit in Game 5 of the 1985 NLCS. That came in the bottom of the ninth inning, one out, the series tied, the game tied. Smith hit it off the Dodgers' reliever Tom Niedenfuer. It is one of the most surprising home runs in baseball history.
And as Ozzie remembered it, he began to echo the famous Jack Buck call from that home run.
"Smith corks one down the line," he said, and I could feel the goose bumps.
"It could go," he said (Buck actually said "it may go," but it's the same thing).
"Go crazy, folks, go crazy!" Ozzie shouted. "The Cardinals have won the game by the score of 3¨C2 on a home run by the Wizard!"
Here we were in a generic office in St. Louis, but for a moment it was like we were at Busch Stadium all those years ago. The joy on his face, even after all these years, was so evident, so palpable¡ªif you happen to come to Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame, look for it in the movie. Ozzie Smith played the game with irrepressible joy. He still feels it. That is his superpower.
No. 92 Bullet Rogan
There's a decent chance that even if you're a devoted baseball fan¡ªeven if you're fascinated by the Negro Leagues¡ªyou've never heard of Bullet Rogan. I had not heard of him until I was having breakfast one day with my friend, the legendary Negro Leagues player, manager, and storyteller Buck O'Neil. Buck called him "Bullet Joe Rogan," though his name was probably not Joe. It was probably Charles Wilber Rogan. To be fair, much of Bullet Rogan's life is a mystery.
Anyway, we were talking about Negro Leaguers who belonged in the Hall of Fame, and Buck began to talk about Bullet Joe. He said that Rogan threw about as hard as Satchel Paige, was perhaps the best fielding pitcher in baseball history, was a world-class center fielder, and could handle the bat better than anyone he'd ever seen.
Bullet Joe sounded to me more like a comic book superhero than a man.
I began to investigate. It was not easy. Rogan began his baseball career during World War I, before the official Negro Leagues began. He played the bulk of his career in the 1920s, a time period often ignored in the Negro Leagues books. He died in 1967, before Robert Peterson's groundbreaking book, Only the Ball Was White,launched interest in Negro Leagues baseball.
But there are clues left behind about Rogan's brilliance. For instance, the Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel called Rogan the best all-around player in the world and one of the best¡ªif not the best¡ªpitcher who ever lived. Rogan's catcher and manager Frank Duncan called Rogan the best lowball hitter he ever saw. A teammate named George Carr said that Rogan was the smartest pitcher he ever saw; he never threw the same pitch to the same hitter twice.
After watching a 48-year-old Bullet Rogan crack three hits against his all-star barnstorming team, Bob Feller said: "I can't imagine how good he must have been when he was young."
What can we do with such words? What can we do when left only with legend?