“When you’ve dealt with Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra and Stan Musial,” he said, “the people I’m dealing with now are kind of down the scale.”
Jim Bunning was a gifted pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and Detroit Tigers. He’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s also nuts.
Think he’ll quit to spite the GOP?
He threatened to do just that. The GOP got back behind him so fast it made Michael Steele’s head spin. The reality is Steve Beshear would have picked a Democrat to replace him, giving them 60 (if Al Franken ever gets seated that is).
Suddenly both the KY and national GOP are happy as hell to see Jim Bunning.
Eh. Considering how ‘well’ he dealth with those guys…
Career stats against Bunning:
At least he was able to hold Mantle to home runs…
You’ll notice that Musial isn’t on the list…that’s because he never faced him. Musial spent his entire career with the Cardinals…Bunning was on the Tigers for all the years that they were both in the Majors. Those two teams did not meet in the World Series over those years (1955-1963).
You beat me to it. I’d only add that the three he did face were (especially Berra and Williams) near the end of their careers when he did so. And they still cleaned his clock. But Bunning has never been too strong on the historical record, even in baseball.
About the people he is dealing with now, being “down scale”. Spoken like a true baseball jock who have never been known for their acumen. Yet, the people of Kentucky elect him to high office. Go figure
Ah yes, the pride of Kentucky…
I am convinced that Rahm “Al Neri” Emmanuel pulled a red-hot poker out of the fire and had a conversation with David Brooks’ sphincter regarding Brooks’ previous article in NYT…
Trade him to Arkansas for another senator and a politican to be named later.
I remember Bunning from his Tiger years when I was a young guy. We did not have much to go with him until 1961 (Al Kaline notwithstanding). During his years with us he was one of our main guys, but did not fare well with “the friendly confines of Tiger Stadium”, as broadcasting legend Van Patrick liked to call it. It was a hitters ball park due to its great background (dark green in those days)and reachable fences down the lines and in the power alleys. Memory does play tricks on you as you age to be sure, but what I remember about Bunning was his tendency to throw the gopher ball at precisely the wrong time. Yogi would get a key hit and RBI often. It did not ruin my day when he was traded to the Phillies. I don’t even remember who we got for him.
As to recent history, he did not endear himself to Detroiters with his stance against the Auto companies “bailout.” He actually had to cancel an appearance at a local trade center the following weekend where he was scheduled to take more Michigan dollars south by supplying his autograph in a swap for big bucks. It seems more than one of my fellow Michiganians viewed his scheduled appearance as, at best, ill-timed. I’ll try to remember him from his younger days when he could, when he was on his game, put fear in the heart of many right handed batters with his wicked side-armed fastball.