Why Carlton Fisk is still my favorite Sox player, ever

[Dick Allen]

eh, look at his whole career with the Sox - his HR numbers would go up, the AVG would go down, then it would go vice versa. Looks like what most players do, they adjust. He went higher AVG in those years. Nothing in his career shouts PED's, where all his numbers across the board suddenly skyrocketed.

 

Besides, the reason I love these quotes isn't because Fisk didn't do this stuff. I think he probably didn't, but he may have. Its that he's willing to speak honestly, instead of the B.S. we get from a lot of current players. He wasn't even talking about himself anyway. though I did detect a hint of jealousy.

 

And this whole idea that "they all did it" is just silly. Just as silly as thinking none of them did. Some did, some didn't.

 

Around 1985 he had a pulled stomach muscle and really started hitting the weight room. I thought some of his age-related comments didn't make sense because in a way he was incriminating himself, not that I believe for a second he used steroids. I have no doubt steroids helped tons of players. Harold Baines hit a ton of homers after 35. I doubt he juiced. One thing to consider, however is how many pitchers throwing to these hitters they helped. It was only a few years ago almost every pitcher was hitting 90 on a regular basis.That isn't the case anymore. If Jim Parque juiced, the list of hurlers must be very long. Obviously, weight training has really evolved the past 25 years.

Edited January 21, 2010 by Dick Allen

[Milkman delivers]

I guess it depends on how much respect you have for the game of baseball and the 100+ year traditions.

 

What does that have to do with the way someone thinks of a player as a person? Ty Cobb by almost all accounts was a piece of s*** of a human being, but he was great at baseball. Since I have respect for the game, does that mean I can't think of him as an asshole?

[Milkman delivers]

And yet, you have an avatar of Brian Anderson getting all up in a Cubs player's business, even though neither were involved in the original problem. Was that Brian's business?

 

Its pretty obvious this is just a personal bias thing for you, and that's fine. Just don't make it seem like its about how the game is played or something.

 

Anderson was defending his own teammates there. That's quite a stretch.

[NorthSideSox72]

Anderson was defending his own teammates there. That's quite a stretch.

Yeah, I know.

 

[Texsox]

What does that have to do with the way someone thinks of a player as a person? Ty Cobb by almost all accounts was a piece of s*** of a human being, but he was great at baseball. Since I have respect for the game, does that mean I can't think of him as an asshole?

 

Nothing. You have to read both the post and the quoted material to understand the context in which it was written.

 

The comment was in response to a situation. That Fisk should have stayed out of another team's player's business. Fisk has said he was defending the integrity of the game or something like that. You can think he's an asshole, that's your opinion. I was defending Fisk's decision to one up Neon Deon for whatever reason. Interestingly, the original poster would have had no problem if punches were thrown, but yelling was out of line.

[chetkincaid]

Nothing. You have to read both the post and the quoted material to understand the context in which it was written.

 

The comment was in response to a situation. That Fisk should have stayed out of another team's player's business. Fisk has said he was defending the integrity of the game or something like that. You can think he's an asshole, that's your opinion. I was defending Fisk's decision to one up Neon Deon for whatever reason. Interestingly, the original poster would have had no problem if punches were thrown, but yelling was out of line.

 

 

No... I had a problem with fisk trying to "one up" Deion. How is yelling and screaming like a lil girl at an opposing teams player just because he doesn't run to first as fast as he would have defending the integrity of the game? Deion should have defended his integrity and punched fisk in his grill.

[NorthSideSox72]

No... I had a problem with fisk trying to "one up" Deion. How is yelling and screaming like a lil girl at an opposing teams player just because he doesn't run to first as fast as he would have defending the integrity of the game? Deion should have defended his integrity and punched fisk in his grill.

Is it any worse than calling a hall-of-famer a "lil girl", in the name of defending Deion friggin Sanders?

 

[chetkincaid]

Is it any worse than calling a hall-of-famer a "lil girl", in the name of defending Deion friggin Sanders?

 

 

Yeah... a hall of famer kicking and screaming like a lil girl because someone won't run as fast as they can on a routine pop up. That's worse.

[Thad Bosley]

Around 1985 he had a pulled stomach muscle and really started hitting the weight room. I thought some of his age-related comments didn't make sense because in a way he was incriminating himself, not that I believe for a second he used steroids.

 

It was well-documented back around 1986 or so, right after "general manager" Hawk Harrelson and Tony LaRussa tried making Fisk a left fielder, that Fisk started hitting the weight room, big time. In fact, there were always many stories about how he would lift weights for an hour or so after each game. And as a result of doing things the 'ol fashioned way by EARNING IT, he did get bigger and stronger, and that ultimately allowed him to counter the wear and tear of catching. To me, he's always been the poster child for going about conditioning the right way. I don't blame him one bit for resenting cheaters like McGuire and the like.

[Leonard Zelig]

Yeah... a hall of famer kicking and screaming like a lil girl because someone won't run as fast as they can on a routine pop up. That's worse.

 

I wonder how much you even know about what happened that day because Fisk didn't kick or scream until the next at bat when Deion turned it into a race thing which it clearly was not.

[southsider2k5]

I wonder how much you even know about what happened that day because Fisk didn't kick or scream until the next at bat when Deion turned it into a race thing which it clearly was not.

 

If he was in school with Fisk's kid, odds are he wasn't even born when it happened anyway.

[witesoxfan]

I've seen two descriptions of what happened, and both make Deion look like the bad guy. In Fisk's wiki, it says that Deion hit a flyball and didn't even run it out; if Deion's wiki, it says Deion drew a dollar sign in the dirt, then hit a flyball and loafed to 1B, and both say Fisk yelled "If you don't play it right, I'm going to kick your ass right here."

 

Even if Fisk was an asshole, he seems like he was an asshole that appreciated the game for what it was and was the ultimate competitor.

[Leonard Zelig]

I've seen two descriptions of what happened, and both make Deion look like the bad guy. In Fisk's wiki, it says that Deion hit a flyball and didn't even run it out; if Deion's wiki, it says Deion drew a dollar sign in the dirt, then hit a flyball and loafed to 1B, and both say Fisk yelled "If you don't play it right, I'm going to kick your ass right here."

 

Even if Fisk was an asshole, he seems like he was an asshole that appreciated the game for what it was and was the ultimate competitor.

 

In Sanders' next at bat, he told Fisk that "The days of slavery are over", and that's when the confrontation occurred.

[witesoxfan]

In Sanders' next at bat, he told Fisk that "The days of slavery are over", and that's when the confrontation occurred.

 

Haha, Deion Sanders is so dumb.

[Kenny Hates Prospects]

I am surprised all of these retired veterans are commenting on Big Mac so freely; I understand they are being asked to comment, but most sure aren't exactly side-stepping it.

 

It is painfully clear that a handful of guys were on something that the rest of the league wasn't using, or at the very least were using a "quantity" of something that wasn't embraced league wide.

 

BUT

 

I can't imagine there are that many Major Leaguers, that in my lifetime (28 years), were clean of ALL amphetamines, PEDS, banned substances etc.

 

And at the VERY least, most of these guys weren't exactly preaching from a pulpit about all of the drug use that was going on during this period; Now in 2010 they seem to have found their voice.

 

Lots of stones being cast by players that played or are playing in a glass ballpark.

Yeah um, how exactly is amphetamine use a performance enhancer, especially in a game as intricate in baseball? What, if you bug out do you become more adept at hitting a curveball or something? There is some story about a pitcher who said he threw a no-no on acid. I for one think that's pretty amazing, in fact way more amazing than your average no-no if true. It's hard enough just to walk to the convenience store and get a carton of orange juice without taking a detour to the forest when you're on acid. I can't imagine actually pitching a no-hitter.

 

Steroids are definitely cheating, legality aside, but some of these other things aren't. The lines do get blurry, but drug use shouldn't be considered one of the reasons for that.

[witesoxfan]

Dock Ellis

[FlaSoxxJim]

Dock Ellis

"I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate."

[Hatchetman]

i met fisk at his daughter's volleyball game one time. nice as could be. we spent about five minutes talking about baseball.

[wallyburger]

Yeah... a hall of famer kicking and screaming like a lil girl because someone won't run as fast as they can on a routine pop up. That's worse.

 

 

If Deion wanted to punch him in the grille, he had his chance and passed.

 

My passion as a Deionista began some 10 years ago, when he had a near scuffle with Carlton Fisk at home plate in Yankee Stadium during Deion's brief tour as a Yankee in 1989 and 1990. Fisk, who had been a party to many great Red Sox-Yankee games and took playing in Yankee Stadium very seriously, was by then with the White Sox. The incident started because when Deion came to bat, he would always draw a dollar sign in the dirt with his bat. That offended Fisk, who -- as he told Boston Globe baseball writer Dan Shaughnessy -- was upset because he thought when Deion did it, "He was pimping me."

 

That day Deion hit an infield pop-up and deigned not to run it out. Fisk, on that day more than any contemporary Yankee the standard bearer of the team's tradition, hated the idea that someone would wear that uniform and not play hard, and had shouted at him to run it out.

 

Deion's two-sport distractions didn't sit well with Atlanta Braves teammates in the early 1990s.

"I was burning," Fisk told Shaughnessy years later. "I was fuming for some reason. And this was a guy playing for the other team. So he comes up the next time and draws his dollar sign in the dirt and says, 'Hey, man, the days of slavery are over.' "

 

At that point the two men got in a shouting match, with Fisk telling him there was a right way and a wrong way to play the game, "and if you don't play it right, I'm going to kick your ass right here in Yankee Stadium." It's too bad he didn't -- it might have been that rare baseball time, I think, that no one would have come out of the Yankee dugout to defend a teammate.

 

from http://espn.go.com/page2/s/halberstam/010515.html

Edited January 22, 2010 by wallyburger

[Wanne]

If Deion wanted to punch him in the grille, he had his chance and passed.

 

My passion as a Deionista began some 10 years ago, when he had a near scuffle with Carlton Fisk at home plate in Yankee Stadium during Deion's brief tour as a Yankee in 1989 and 1990. Fisk, who had been a party to many great Red Sox-Yankee games and took playing in Yankee Stadium very seriously, was by then with the White Sox. The incident started because when Deion came to bat, he would always draw a dollar sign in the dirt with his bat. That offended Fisk, who -- as he told Boston Globe baseball writer Dan Shaughnessy -- was upset because he thought when Deion did it, "He was pimping me."

 

That day Deion hit an infield pop-up and deigned not to run it out. Fisk, on that day more than any contemporary Yankee the standard bearer of the team's tradition, hated the idea that someone would wear that uniform and not play hard, and had shouted at him to run it out.

 

Deion's two-sport distractions didn't sit well with Atlanta Braves teammates in the early 1990s.

"I was burning," Fisk told Shaughnessy years later. "I was fuming for some reason. And this was a guy playing for the other team. So he comes up the next time and draws his dollar sign in the dirt and says, 'Hey, man, the days of slavery are over.' "

 

At that point the two men got in a shouting match, with Fisk telling him there was a right way and a wrong way to play the game, "and if you don't play it right, I'm going to kick your ass right here in Yankee Stadium." It's too bad he didn't -- it might have been that rare baseball time, I think, that no one would have come out of the Yankee dugout to defend a teammate.

 

Classic! I loved Fisk. To this day probably my favorite Sox player ever.

 

[Texsox]

No... I had a problem with fisk trying to "one up" Deion. How is yelling and screaming like a lil girl at an opposing teams player just because he doesn't run to first as fast as he would have defending the integrity of the game? Deion should have defended his integrity and punched fisk in his grill.

 

You have a very warped sense of right and wrong.

[Pants Rowland]

"I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate."

 

One time I covered first base, and I caught the ball and tagged the base all in one motion. I said, “OOH, I just made a touchdown.”

[chetkincaid]

You have a very warped sense of right and wrong.

 

Why... Because you don't agree with me? No. IMO, I'm dead on.

[YASNY]

Why... Because you don't agree with me? No. IMO, I'm dead on.

 

IMO, you're dead wrong.

[southsider2k5]

IMO, you're dead wrong.

 

I have yet to see anyone who thinks differently in this thread.