Spring training allows for every baseball fan to hope for the best.
Everyone’s favorite team may have a chance, but there is always a prognosticator to mess things up.
Pre-season predictions are as old as newspapers and magazines. It’s what writers do with their time before the season gets underway.
Growing up the in the 1970s, one of my favorite sources for predictions was the Street and Smith Baseball Yearbooks.
The covers of the magazines were always the best. My favorite shots were of Hank Aaron and Mark Fidrych.
Aaron was featured on the 1974 cover and Fidrych in 1977. These magazines included everything a young fan needed from rosters, stats, schedules and career leaders.
Reading this kind of magazine today offers a “real time” glance at historical information with 40 or 50 years of perspective, which can be quite interesting.
The Predictions
It’s always fun to go back and look to see how the writer’s did with their predictions.
In the 1974 edition, Joe Trimble of the New York Daily News handled the American League story, while Richard Dozer of the Chicago Tribune picked the National League races.
Trimble’s selections were on target with the Oakland A’s taking the AL West and the Baltimore Orioles finishing on top the the AL East. The A’s would go on to beat the Orioles in the playoffs and eventually win their third straight world series as they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games.
Dozer split his choices with the Pittsburgh Pirates winning the NL East, while his other selection, the Cincinnati Reds, ended up in second place behind the Dodgers in the NL West. The selection of the Reds over the Dodgers can be forgiven as one of the two teams won the division every year in the 1970s, except in 1971 when San Francisco Giants were able to climb to the top. The Reds were also just a year away from back-to-back world championships.
The Stories
The biggest headline going into the 1974 season was the home run chase by Aaron. The slugger finished 1973 with 713 career long balls, just one behind Babe Ruth.
Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal composed the lengthy feature about Aaron and Ruth with career comparisons.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is where Bisher discusses that some people felt as if Aaron’s home run chase should have ended when he reached 8,399 at bats to match the standard established by Ruth.
The situation seems very similar to the “*” that was involved in the single season home run mark of 61 by Roger Maris in 1961. With that in mind, it’s not difficult to understand that Aaron received a lot of hate mail for a variety of reasons during this time of his career.
Ruth’s records were considered by many to be sacred. It’s still sad to think that was happening during what was a monumental achievement.
The Miss
Perhaps the biggest miss in the predictions was with the Texas Rangers. Trimble had the team finishing in sixth.
Here is what Trimble wrote as he started discussing the Rangers.
“The Rangers are the worst team in baseball and can be counted out of the race in the AL West before there is a race.”
Oops, the Rangers finished second under manager Billy Martin in the division with an 86-74 record.
In the preview, Jeff Burroughs is mentioned the Rangers best asset, which ended up being true as the outfielder was named the AL Most Valuable Player. Burroughs made the first of his two all-star teams, while hitting 25 homers and driving a league-best 118 runs.
Prior to the 1974 season, the Rangers traded for future Hall of Fame member Fergie Jenkins. In the last two paragraphs of the Rangers section of the preview, it’s mentioned that Jenkins had won 20 games for six straight years for the “inferior” Chicago Cubs teams before he was 14-16 in 1973.
Jenkins ended up leading the AL with a 25-12 record and 29 complete games. He finished second in the voting for the AL Cy Young Award behind Oakland’s Catfish Hunter.
Also missing was any mention of 1974 AL Rookie of the Year Mike Hargrove, who batted .323 with four homers and 66 RBI.
A quote in the story from Martin sums it up best.
“I have friends (in baseball) who tell me not to expect much this year. They mean well but that is the same thing I heard before going to Minnesota and Detroit.”
Martin got close with the Rangers after leading the Twins and Tigers to division titles. He later would win two AL pennants with the New York Yankees and the World Series in 1977. He would also get the A’s in the post-season during the strike year of 1981.
Ultimately, pre-season predictions are just a guessing game. It’s always fun this time of year to pick the winners and hope to be correct.