Happy 77th to Rod Carew!
A big happy birthday to Rod Carew, who turns his magical number of 77 today.
Most baseball fans probably know that 1977 was Carew’s greatest season. He hit .388 that year, and he might have hit .400 had he been willing to take more pitches and draw more walks. “But then,” he said, as that season ended, “that wouldn’t be my style, wouldn’t be Rod Carew. I do like to swing the bat.”
But there’s something else statistically about that season that makes it special: Carew was not a power hitter; that wasn’t his game. Even in 1977, he hit just 14 home runs (which actually tied his career high).
But even with 14 home runs, Rod Carew still had a 1.019 OPS in 1977.
That’s utterly incredible. It doesn’t even seem mathematically possible. In the last 95 years, only one player in baseball has had a 1.000 OPS with fewer than 15 home runs. And that one player is, yes, Rod Carew in 1977.
Before Carew, you have to go all the way back to 1927 and Hall of Famer Harry Heilmann. Before him, you have to go back to Tris Speaker and Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson, you know, back in the Deadball days, when baseball was very, very different.
How did Carew do it? Well, he may have had only 14 homers, but he still slugged .570, thanks in large part to a league-leading 16 triples. And though he didn’t like walking much, opposing managers didn’t give him much choice in ’77 — they intentionally walked him a league-leading 15 times.
Put that together with his hitting genius, and you have a .449 on-base percentage (led league), that .570 slugging percentage (second only to Jim Rice) and he was the only player in the league with a 1.000 OPS. What a season. What a player. I think often about Carew saying that his favorite song is the National Anthem because every time he heard it, he knew he was going to get two hits.
I was ten in 77 living just outside Bloomington and watched countless games at the old Met. My last sports hero. I have a blowup copy of his 79 Topps card on my office wall.
Carew is a recipient of a heart & kidney transplant. In his honor, register to be a donor with your state’s DMV or donatelife.org. You won’t need ‘em when you’re gone and you can save the life of a HOFer like Carew or Harold Baines or even me.
To borrow from a great "little" and underrated film title, 1977 remains "My Favorite Year" in regard to baseball. One, my team, the White Sox (aka "The South Side Hitmen"), relied on Bill Veeck's "rent a player" approach (e.g., trading away Goose Gossage, Bucky Dent, and Terry Forster to get Richie Zisk and Oscar Gamble) to, in the words of the late, great, Roger Angell, "ignore just about every aspect of the game and concentrate on hitting the stuffing out of the ball." Two, the mesmerizing ride that the roller-coaster Yankees took to the World Series (that ESPN captured very well in their 7 part series "The Bronx is Burning") made for all sorts of hot comedy and high drama. Finally, three, Rod Carew! Just wow--watching him at the plate, waving his magic wand of a bat, put me in the immediate here and now. No other batter (on an opposing team) gave me more joy to watch hit than Rod Carew!