Of Cabbages and Kings and Second-Sackers, Pt. II

...here's where it really gets interesting.

Was Bobby Richardson a better fielding second baseman than Horace Clarke?  Not according to any evidence I can find.

Undeniably, Bobby Richardson was an outstanding fielder.  Baseball reference gives him a 4.9 dWAR.

He led the AL in assists by a second baseman in 1966—a year when he did NOT win a Gold Glove, a fact that might tell us something—in double-plays turned 4 times (1961-1964), in putouts twice (1961, 1964), in the new stat (don't ask), "Total Zone Runs" once (1963).

He also finished in the top five of range factor six times (once in an 8-team league, the rest in a 10-team league), and in fielding pct. six times (ditto).  Very impressive.

But no Hoss.

In pretty much every stat there is, Horace wins out.

Defensive WAR?  It's Clarke, 6.2-4.9 (despite less time in the majors)
Lifetime fielding pct. at second?  Clarke .983, Richardson .979
Assists at second?  Richardson has the edge, 3,445-3,179—but in 237 more games.
Errors?  Clarke 104—Richardson 143 (again, with those extra 237 games at second)

Year-by-year, Clarke was at the top of the AL, or close to it.

He led the AL in putouts 4 times (1968-1971) and was in the top 4 another three times.
He led the AL in assists by a second baseman six times (1967-1972), and was 3rd the next year.
He led the AL in double-plays turned twice (1969, 1972) and was was in the top 4 another five times.
Range factor?  First 4 times (1967-68, 1970, 1972), and was second twice, and fourth once.
Fielding pct.?  First in 1967, in the top five another four years.

Horace even finished in the top 5 in assists, period—all positions, in a league that included the likes of Mark Belanger, Brooks Robinson, and Luis Aparicio—four times, 1967-1971.

Now, I will be the first to say—hell, I HAVE been the first to say—that statistics simply cannot tell the whole story when it comes to fielding.

Writers who watched both men play, day-in and day-out for years, gave Bobby Richardson the highest fielding honor in the league, and never gave Horace Clarke anything.  Fair enough....though isn't this blog all about torching the Gammonites and other sportswriters for how little they know about this sport?

But what about his contemporaries, his teammates?

If you read Philip Bashe's excellent book of this Yankee era, Dog Days, you'll find several Yankees pitchers trashing Hoss's ability to turn a double-play.

There are even comments from the great Curt Blefary questioning Clarke's courage in standing in on the DP.

And yet...I can't help but wonder if this isn't one of these impressions formed after the fact, in the face of what has calcified as the conventional wisdom.

Curt Blefary, for instance, was a lead-legged loudmouth with a drinking problem, whose game had already fallen apart by the time Hoss was playing second base regularly.  How many times he even got close enough to see if Clarke stood in is highly suspect.

As for the pitchers...well, exactly how much better was Clarke supposed to do than leading the league in DPs twice and coming close to doing so several other times?

You would think from their comments that the Yanks' big problem in the "Horace Clarke Years" was their pitchers' giving up all sorts of runs thanks to shoddy fielding.

Nothing could be further from the case.  In the seven years that Horace Clarke was their starting second baseman, the Yanks usually had one of the better team ERAs in the league, and usually ranked in the first half of total DPs, finishing first one year.

In fact, the teams weren't even really that bad.  In those seven years, the Yankees had a losing record three times, but a winning record four times, including a 93-win season in 1970.

Their main problem was that they did not hit enough.

So what's going on?  Why don't we remember the "Jerry Kenney Yankees" or the "jake Gibbs Yankees" instead of the "Horace Clarke Yankees"?