[mechanicalman]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

A great big thanks for everyone taking the time to post their opinions. I am old enough to have seen and did see plenty of Mantle still in his prime in the very early '60's, along with Mays, Aaron, Koufax, Clemente and living in the Detroit area, a great deal of Kaline, who was a legend here, status wise at that time. With regard to one post above, Kaline is pretty well-remembered for his part in the '68 World Series. Tigers' manager Mayo Smith, knowing he needed a bit more to take on the very tough '68 Cardinals, moved Mickey Stanley from center field to shortstop (thereby relegating the excellent fielding, but no-hit Ray Oyler--.171 BA--to the bench) in order to get the aging Kaline's bat in the lineup (Northrup and Horton were in right and left, and both had excellent years) for his first and only World Series after he had been injured for the better part of the season. And Al did us proud, quite proud, hitting .379, and leading the Tigers in a World Series where the Bengals came back to win from a 3 games to one deficit.

I personally had both Kaline and Clemente in the middle tier of HOF'ers performance-wise, as objectively as I could ascertain them to be. But I have to admit that the preceding posts confirm my much more recent observations that Clemente has indeed become a legendary icon in the sport, and that metamorphisis isn't done yet!

The movie should be tremendous, and I also hope they title it, "21."

Thanks guys,

Larry

Great post, Larry. And Go Tigers!