Pages

▼

Monday, January 18, 2010

Letter to Sports Illustrated

Your January 18 Scorecard piece “By Any Measure”, touting Randy Johnson as the greatest left-handed pitcher ever, neglected to one key measure…most wins by a lefty. Warren Spahn won 363 games…60 more than Johnson. The award for the best MLB left-handed pitcher is called the Warren Spahn Award. Steve Carlton also won 327 games.

Johnson was a feared pitcher who improved with age. I often kick myself for turning down tickets to a May 2004 Braves game, that turned out to be Johnson’s perfect game. He was of the greatest lefties…top five even. Better than Koufax, perhaps…but he has plenty of competition for the greatest ever.

2 comments:

  1. Francisco Murphy12:00 PM

    Wins are quite possibly one of the most overrated measures of pitching acumen today. To compare a pitcher of THIS era against a Warren Spahn or Lefty Carlton isn't remotely fair.

    ReplyDelete
  2. David9:38 PM

    True, on both counts. Still, I think it's a stretch to call Randy Johnson the greatest lefty ever, as much as I like him. Steve Carlton was very dominating, for a much longer stretch than Johnson.

    Hey...thanks for reading!

    ReplyDelete