A day off to explain some groupings
January 10, 2024
As stated in the introductory post to this strange writing project of mine, the baseball players’ cards that I’ve collected from the 1970s fall broadly into two boxes: one for those who are still living among us in 2024, and one for those who are not. Each box is further subdivided into three groups, and explaining what they are—and how I have named them—will be the focus of today’s piece.
First, the dead guys. They are the growth area as this project goes along, because there are currently 182 players inside the box. The age at which each player passed away, as determined by Google and Baseball-Reference.com, determines which of the three subgroups they are kept with inside the dead players’ box.
Any former player who died before reaching age 70 is kept in a group which I have dubbed the Order of Lyman Bostock (or OLB for short). Danny Frisella and Mike Miley fall into this group, as does Tug McGraw, Dave Roberts, John Milner, Rob Picciolo, Billy Champion, and Paul Lindblad.
Looking at what’s been presented so far, a reader could conclude that there will be a stream of players who met with an early demise, but this will not the case when it’s over. As this group is about 16%, or one sixth of the total number of players I have, think of them as the yellow wedge in the image shown above.
The next group of players inside the dead box is what I refer to as the Jimmy Buffett Society (or JBS for short). Its original name was the Christine McVie Society, because I once saw an internet meme displaying two pictures of her side by side: one of her during the 70s, and the other when she was in her 70s. And she looked great in both pictures.
When she passed away in late 2022 at the age of 79, it was right around the time that I was trying to figure out what to do with the old baseball cards I had acquired over the years. It’s probably not too much to say that she inspired this project, such as it is. But since she was British by birth, I was never convinced that she had much of an interest in baseball.
When Jimmy Buffett passed away at the age of 76 in September of 2023, I didn’t have to wonder if he was a baseball fan. In fact, I had all the photographic proof I needed. So the Christine McVie Society was promptly renamed after a long-time (and also long-suffering) Cubs fan, instead.
The JBS is made up of players from the 1970s who passed away while in their 70s, between the ages of 70 and 79. So far only Larry Biittner, Bob Bailey, and Nate Colbert fit this category, but the eventual number, at least of the moment, stands at just under 10% of the total players in the two boxes. Think of them as about half of the orange pie wedge shown above.
The third group in the dead box, and the rarest of all groups to this point, is what I call the Tina Turner League, or TTL for short. Tina Turner died in 2023 at the age of 83. A player from the 70s who dies while in his 80s (or beyond) is in this group, and we’ve not met any of them to this point. Last year Brooks Robinson made it in at the age of 86 and we’ll discuss him, along with all the others, as this year moves along.
Currently there are just 13 players in the TTL, or around 2% of the total number of players. Think of it as most (but not quite all) of what’s left of the orange pie wedge above.
This post is already long enough for today, but keep in mind these three groupings of dead players—the OLB, the JBS, and the TTL— will be coming up again and again, for the duration of this project.
Until tomorrow….