Only 21 players in big league history have more than 250 home runs and 250 stolen bases. These include some of the best players ever such as Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Joe Morgan and Rickey Henderson, some other merely great or very good players like Bobby Bonds, Robin Yount and Craig Biggio and a few players like Alfonso Soriano who were only briefly great. A more select subset of these players are the eight who also had 1,000 or more career walks. These are the players who not only had impressive tools, but were genuinely great hitters as well. This group includes three Hall of Famers,…

Four and a half years ago the 2007 season ended in disappointment for the New York Yankees as, for the third year in a row, they got eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Like most Yankee teams during those years, their offense — led by Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Hideki Matsui — was much better than their pitching, which other than another standout year from Mariano Rivera and strong years by Andy Pettitte and Chien-Ming Wang, was not very strong. Overall the Yankees led the league in runs scored while finishing 8th in ERA.

Following their defeat in 2007, the…

Johnny Damon who is still a useful player, if no longer a star, will be playing for the Cleveland Indians this year while he will continue his quest for 3,000 hits.  Damon is now only 277 hits away from that milestone.  Although he got almost 300 hits during 2010 and 2011, it is likely that if Damon continues to play it will be in a reduced role, but that he will still pick up his 3,000th sometime in 2014, after at least two more full seasons.

If Damon gets his 3,000th hit, his candidacy for the Hall of Fame will have to be revisited and taken seriously.  There are currently 28 players…