Red Sox Hall of Fame member Jimmy Piersall dead at 87.
- Thread starter sabrhagen99
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Piersall the best Red Sox center fielder? I don't think so. Bradley's the best I have ever seen. Jacoby Ellsbury was pretty good too, and you could make a case for the Fred Lynn of 1975.
I remember Piersall as one of the few signs of life on the soporific Red Sox teams of the 50's. He hit (led the AL with 40 doubles one year), fielded brilliantly, stole bases, argued with the umpires, fought with opposing players and generally acted like he cared.
In one game I saw he hit the ball over the left field wall but it was called foul. He argued vehemently with the umpire. Then he stepped back into the batter's box and in the same at bat - it might have been the next pitch - he hit a home run for real.
After Joe Cronin left to become president of the American League, Tom Yawkey took over briefly and traded Piersall to Cleveland where he had three decent years and led the Indians into a pennant race in 1959. After baseball he had a long career on Chicago radio doing play by play and talk radio.
RIP, Jimmy.
I remember Piersall as one of the few signs of life on the soporific Red Sox teams of the 50's. He hit (led the AL with 40 doubles one year), fielded brilliantly, stole bases, argued with the umpires, fought with opposing players and generally acted like he cared.
In one game I saw he hit the ball over the left field wall but it was called foul. He argued vehemently with the umpire. Then he stepped back into the batter's box and in the same at bat - it might have been the next pitch - he hit a home run for real.
After Joe Cronin left to become president of the American League, Tom Yawkey took over briefly and traded Piersall to Cleveland where he had three decent years and led the Indians into a pennant race in 1959. After baseball he had a long career on Chicago radio doing play by play and talk radio.
RIP, Jimmy.
As a kid I read everything I could find on baseball. Everything about Piersall was about his mental illness, or his quips about mental illness. I wasn't until the online word came along I found out he was a very good player.
I obviously never saw him play but his D-WAR for 1955 & 1956 of 3.2 & 2.6 are mind-boggling - much higher than the supposed best CF'ers of the day.
FWIW
FWIW
I know what you mean. I try to embellish what little I remember about his play by reading articles about him and they always come back to his mental condition and emotional behavior. One article said he was really good at studying hitters and coming up with his own positioning and helping the other outfielders with where they should play. He had a gun of an arm, we know that. I want to say he played shallow and ran down a lot of balls, but can't find anything. Paul Blair, for example, was famous for playing very shallow.
I don't know why the Sox traded him...had they had enough of his antics? They didn't have a logjam in the outfield, especially with Ted nearing the end. They had Jackie Jensen, Ted, Jimmy, and a bunch of Ted's "caddies" like Keough, Stephens and Geiger. Yaz wasn't there yet.
Growing up in the '50s besides Ted, Piersall was my guy because he played OF (like me); had a strong arm (like me) and was named Jimmy (like me).
RIP Jimmy.
RIP Jimmy.