Wouldn't you agree?

But I feel the .301 average was better.

Huh?

Well it's a matter of context really. In 1929 Riggs Stephenson batted .362. However the league batting average that year in the NL was .294. The aforementioned Mr. Stephenson had the advantage (as well) of hitting in Wrigley Field. He ultimately finished fifth among NL batsmen.

That .301 BA belongs to Carl Yazstremski. In 1968 he won the AL batting crown. He also hit left handed at Fenway Park and the Junior Circuit hit a collective .230. It doesn't take a math whiz to figure that Yaz was a much better hitter in relation to the rest of the league than Stephenson was. There were four hitters who were better in that one category.

Nobody was better than Yaz that year.

The point is ... numbers don't necessarily tell the whole story. You have to adjust numbers from era to era to get a (semi) firm grasp on how good a player is or was in a given year.

But the thing that you never have to adjust for is winning. It means exactly the same thing whether it's in 1905, 1933, 1950, 1972, 1985 or 1996. If you win the World Series, it means you were the top team that year. That's what baseball should be about ... winning.

Isn't it?

So another area you can focus on is championship calibre players. The guys who were key contributors on championship clubs.

Would you consider that a fairly good definition of a Hall-of-Famer? No I'm not talking about a phenom who had a career year when his team won a single championship. I'm talking about a player with a championship pedigree.

Without mentioning any names, I'm talking about a player who ... was the undisputed ace of a pitching staff that won five straight World Championships.

Does that sound like Hall-of-Fame material?

I'm talking about ... Vic Raschi.

Let's look at the record ...

... big game pitcher, Raschi often gets overlooked because he pitched for some excellent Yankee teams. Many have felt that his 132-66 won-loss ledger was due to the outstanding run support that he received while pitching in pinstripes and his lifetime era of 3.72 would seem to bear this out.

But ... a casual look behind the numbers reveals that Raschi truly was a dominant performer, a true champion and therefore deserving a plaque at the Hall.

To begin with, the ERA ... Raschi was unconcerned about any other stat other than getting a win for the Yanks. He was often guilty of getting sloppy when given a big lead. He felt that if he received ten or twelve runs of support, so what if he gave up five or six runs? When the Yankees needed the big win, they looked to the ragin' Raschi to get it for them, and more often than not he got it for them. Alvin Dark made the (in)famous comment about newly minted Hall-of-Famer Orlando Cepeda "I'm sick and tired of having players who lead the league in HR and RBI but are doing nothing to help us win." Whether or not this comment about Cepeda is fair is moot. We all know of players who are more concerned with their personal stats than in helping the team as a whole.

That was never Victor John Angelo Raschi's problem.

Some examples ...

He pitched the pennant clincher against the Bosox on the last day of the 1949 season. In that game the Yankees and Boston were tied for the lead and this one game would decide who would play in the World Series and who would get the best tee times. Raschi pitched eight innings of pressure packed shut-out ball preserving a 1-0 lead. When the Yankees provided a five run cushion with four markers in the bottom of the eighth, Raschi coughed up three meaningless runs in the ninth as he sometimes did, yet finished off the Beantowners without further incident. In the Fall Classic that year he went 1-1 with an ERA of 4.30 against Brooklyn, but, again, these numbers are misleading. His loss in game two was the result of a 1-0 whitewashing by spitballer Preacher Roe. His somewhat inflated earned run mark in the series was due to the 10-0 lead the Yankees handed him in the clincher and once again let up somewhat in the 7th frame. Regardless, Raschi won the game with the World Series attached to it.

The following year when the Bronx Bombers dismantled the "Whiz Kids" Philadelphia Phillies, Raschi got things rolling by blanking the Phillies by tossing a 1-0 shut-out.

In 1952 with the Yankees down 3-2 to the Dodgers going back to Ebbets Field, the Yankees needed this win to stay alive. Again they looked to Raschi.

Again he delivered the goods.

His World Series ledger in the Yanks magnificent five year run between 1949-1953 reads 5-3 with an 2.24 ERA in 58 2/3 innings pitched. The latter mark inflated somewhat by the four cheap runs he gave up in Game Five of the '49 series, throw out that one inning and his ERA is 1.67.

When you compare that with his regular season ERAs you get the distinct impression that the Yanks weren't carrying him. When needed, when it was important, he was very stingy with opposing hitters.

Would you define that as a "big game pitcher?"

I would.

In regular season play, he was as dominating a pitcher as there was in the American League. Between the years 1948-1952 he posted marks of 19-8, 21-10, 21-8, 21-10 and 16-6. If you want to get picky about his ERA, consider that Hall-of-Famers Red Ruffing (3.80), Waite Hoyt (3.59), Herb Pennock (3.60) and Early Wynn (3.54) are all in about the same neighborhood. But let's keep one thing in mind. Raschi didn't pitch for "fancy stats" ... he pitched for rings.

Yes ... there are some knocks you can make against Raschi ... his career was short. He won only 132 games. That would be the lowest amount among Hall-of-Fame starters, his ERA wasn't terrific in context of time and place.

Maybe the problem with Raschi is that, although he pitched in ten seasons, only nine could be considered "full" seasons. However that didn't prevent Addie Joss from election to baseball's shrine. Joss got in because of his impressive stats (160-97; 1.89 ERA ... during the deadball era) but the Tribe won exactly zero pennants with Joss. Joss was a winner, but Raschi was a champion.

Isn't that what being a HOFer is all about?