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Friday, November 18, 2005 |
Sorry, Deb
I love this story, because it has elements of so many things we'd like to be true: a slumping player has the team's manager flummoxed, a kid busts in with a useful suggestion to shake things up, and the team wins. Unfortunately, I went back in Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference today and discovered that Carney Lansford only played for the Angels for three years -- 1978 through 1980 -- and in that time, Bobby Grich only played one game away from second base -- at first. Dan Ford never played a game in the infield in his major league career. In the three years that Lansford was with the Angels, the team was in contention in 1978 and 1979, winning the AL West in the latter. Lansford only had errors in consecutive games twice in those years, once on July 14, 1978 against Cleveland followed by a game the next day against Toronto, and then later that year, in two games against Boston on August 26 and 27. A two-game series with New York did, in fact, follow the Boston series, and in one of those games Lansford was out, but the Angels lost it.
The moral is, a good story is more emotionally satisfying than the truth.
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