Thirty Years of Homer at the Bat

Evidently it has been thirty years since the first airing of Homer at the Bat.

At the time I certainly would have guessed that at least Ken Griffey Jr. would have outlasted the Simpsons, but such was not the case. FWIW, one of my daughters has been obsessively watching the Simpsons and many of the later seasons are not as bad as commonly attributed. Here’s how the contributors finished out their careers:

• Wade Boggs (91.4 WAR, retired 1999)
• Jose Canseco (42.5 WAR, retired 2001)
• Roger Clemens (138.7 WAR, retired 2007)
• Ken Griffey Jr. (83.8 WAR, retired 2010)
• Don Mattingly (42.4 WAR, retired 1995)
• Steve Sax (25.6 WAR, retired 1994)
• Mike Scioscia (26.1 WAR, retired 1992)
• Ozzie Smith (76.9 WAR, retired 1996)
• Darryl Strawberry (42.4 WAR, retired 1999)

Altogether it’s an interesting group… an inner circle hall of famer who’s not in the Hall of Fame, three solid HOFers, three excellent players who at times looked like good candidates (Strawberry and Canseco surely would have been favored for the HOF at the time of the airing), and two quality contributors, one of whom has made his mark as a manager. No howlingly bad choices.