During the 1961-62 baseball season, the great Wilt Chamberlain averaged, AVERAGED, 48.5 minutes per game while playing in a league leading 80 games. Since an NBA game is only 48 minutes long, you must be asking if this is a misprint. No, it is not. Wilt played every minute of every game, plus most of the overtime minutes. In fact, the Big Dipper led the league in minutes played nine of his first twelve seasons (the three seasons he didn't lead the league, he still averaged a healthy 45.2 minutes per game in the games he played). Over his 14-year career, Wilt averaged 45.8 minutes per game, a still standing NBA record (which will probably never be broken), while still finding time to roll through thousands of admiring female fans like a combine harvesting the summer wheat.
Wilt, always on the shortlist for the GOAT, was no slouch. No "load management" for him. What brought this topic on was my friend Mark and I were laughing about Charles Barkley tagging Anthony Davis with the unfortunate, but accurate, nickname "Street Clothes". Love him or hate him, Sir Charles tells it like it is.
That led to a quick discussion about who would be on the current "Street Clothes NBA team". Neither Mark nor I are NBA fans. We don't watch any games, and I probably couldn't name more than 10-15 current players, but we both immediately rattled off the same six players for our imaginary Street Clothes team: Davis, of course, plus Zion Williamson, Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid and the king of load management, Kawhi Leonard. We designated Kyrie Irving as sixth man. Some of those players do suffer injuries. A few of them are probably just happy to not play and collect their hefty paychecks. Most of them are soft as Charmin. I doubt any of them have the mettle to last in the generation that produced Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Nate Thurmond, Willis Reed, Bob Lanier, Wal Bellamy, Wes Unseld, Sam Lacey, Zelmo Beatty and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Those men were hard. They were warriors who often played through the sprains, bruises and muscle pulls that sideline today's soft boys.
Barkley didn't stop with Street Clothes. He followed that up with this beautiful rant: "You gonna make $70 million a year and can't play basketball 3 or 4 days a week? They fly private. They have the best medical staff ever created. People working in the steel mill every day, I'm pretty sure they tired too, but they go to work every day." Barkley can walk the walk. The Round Mound averaged 72 games (and 37 minutes per) during the first 14 years of his 16-year career. Not Wilt numbers, but still solid. And Chuck mixed it up. No standing at the three-point line and chucking threes for Barkley. He carried the mail every night.
This got me thinking about who would be on the current Street Clothes baseball team. First, a couple of disclaimers. I don't think pitchers count. When a pitcher blows out his elbow or shoulder, has surgery, does the necessary hard work of rehab, THEN comes back to pitch again, I have nothing but respect. To have one (or more) Tommy John surgeries, then come back and throw 90-100 MPH and throw sliders and curves, things that a human arm is not built to do, whew. Those guys are tough. So, for the oft-injured pitchers like Jacob DeGrom, Chris Sale, Stephen Strasburg, and Joe Musgrove, a tip of the cap and best wishes on your rehab.
In fact, I'm not sure that comparing NBA players to MLB players is even a fair comparison. I think they are built different mentally. I think that Ben Simmons and Zion Williamson might be just as happy never playing in another NBA game. I don't think I can say that about very many MLB players. Same with hockey and football players. Those guys take a terrific beating and if they're not on the field or the ice, it's driving them nuts. Major League Baseball players seem to be that way. They too are anxious to get back on the field once they are physically able, and sometimes to their detriment, before they are ready.
So instead of calling this the Street Clothes Team, let's rename it the Oft-Injured Team.
Let's start in the outfield. There's a fair amount of tragedy in this list starting with Mike Trout. Trout is a phenomenal talent, one of the best I've seen in my lifetime. Unfortunately, his body has been breaking down. But when he's healthy and right, he's one of the best. Ronald Acuna is another otherworldly talent who seems destined to follow the Trout path. Same with Minnesota's Byron Buxton. Those guys are fantastic when they're on the field, which unfortunately is not often enough.
Giancarlo Stanton is a physical marvel but has only averaged 84 games per season over the last six years. Of course, he's hurt again, so he makes the list. When healthy, Stanton can do some damage, as the Royals found out last season. Our final outfielder would be Fernando Tatis Jr., another physical marvel who can't seem to play an entire summer. Tatis has only averaged 103 games per summer in his five years of playing. He missed the entire 2022 season due to injury and a PED suspension.
On the infield, we have Kris Bryant, a player I once thought was headed to Cooperstown, but now seems headed to the Denver Church softball league. Joining him at third base is Anthony Rendon, who had some productive years with the Nationals before signing a huge contract with the cursed Angels. Rendon, taken with the sixth pick of the 2011 draft (one selection after the Royals took Bubba Starling). He signed a seven-year, $245 million free agent contract with the Angels in December of 2019. He's averaged 51 games per season for Los Angeles since signing and is facing another lengthy rehab after off-season hip surgery. The Angels must be counting down the number of days until this albatross of a contract expires.
Let's take a detour and look at the horrific incompetence that has managed the Washington Nationals in the past decade. Over a period of years, they had Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Bryce Harper, Ryan Zimmerman, Jayson Werth, Trea Turner, Rendon, Jordan Zimmermann, Tanner Roark, Daniel Murphy and Juan Soto. Somehow, they only managed to win one World Series with that massive collection of talent. They had a chance in 2012, but opted to load manage Strasburg, shutting him down late in the season, which effectively killed their World Series chances. It didn't matter. Strasburg eventually got hurt again. The lesson? Strike while the iron is hot. Players age out. Players get injured. Do you think Strasburg would have liked to have had a chance to win a title in 2012. I'm guessing yes.
Across the infield, you have Shohei Ohtani, who has had his share of injuries in his short, brilliant career. It was difficult to find middle infielders for this list. Corey Seager? Why not. He's only eclipsed 150 games in a season twice in his ten-year career. Dustin Pedroia would have been there, but he's been retired a few years. No one can claim that Pedroia was soft. When he played, he was all guts, max effort and flying dirt. He's the kind of guy that would probably still be playing had his body not worn out.
The Royals aren't immune to injured players. Steve Busby's brilliant career was cut short with arm injuries. Same with Roger Nelson. Had today's surgical techniques been available, those two could have had longer careers. One can dream of what might have been. Mike Sweeney lost a lot of games to a balky back and other assorted injuries. When he was healthy, he was a fantastic and productive hitter.
Juan Gonzalez was one of the most painful examples. In 2004, the Royals were desperate for a hard-hitting, middle-of-the-order bat. Sound familiar? They ponied up $4 million for one season of Gonzalez, a former two-time MVP. Gonzalez made it 33 games before he injured his back, then Juan was gone. I wonder if the Royals brass even got a thank you card for topping off his retirement fund?
More recently there is the sad case of Adalberto Mondesi. Mondesi seemed to have a world of talent, but the Royals badly mismanaged his career, promoting him to Kansas City before he proved he could hit minor-league pitching (he couldn't). The team doubled down on their stupidity by having the kid make his debut during the World Series. Talk about pressure. Mondesi was badly overmatched his first two seasons, summers which he would have been far better off learning to hit AA or AAA pitching. He put it together for a short time in the 2018 and 2019 seasons, but still only averaged 89 games each summer.
Then came the pandemic season of 2020. Mondesi got off to a terrible start, slashing .179/.209/.231 in his first 37 games. He looked like he rather be anywhere than the ballpark. Then something clicked. He was on fire over his last 22 games and was unstoppable over the final 11, slashing .476/.522/.833. Short of George Brett, I've never seen another Royal player go on a heater like that. It gave me hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd turned the corner. Unfortunately, that corner led to a brick wall.
He lost most of 2021 to oblique and hamstring injuries. He played in just 15 games in 2022 before blowing out his left knee while stepping back to first base on a pickoff attempt. The Royals finally gave up on him, trading him to the Red Sox. He never played a game for Boston and has been out of baseball since that last game with the Royals. I doubt we'll ever see him in uniform again.
Were players tougher in the old days? I think they were, if only because the money wasn't as good and if they wanted to keep their job (and paycheck), they manned up and played. Today a guy like Rendon has already made north of $215 million and has another $77 million coming whether he plays or not. Good for him. Not good for the Angels organization or their fans, but that's another story. When you have that kind of comfort, what's your motivation?
The sad part is, the Anthony Rendons of the world are hurting future free agents. Teams will be reluctant to drop big bucks on an aging money pit of a player. I want my team to be competitive, but I also want them to be smart. There's no need to vomit cash on an aging player just because you have some extra money in the till, especially when you can more than likely find a suitable replacement in Omaha for fewer bucks. Give a young player the chance. The Royals famously didn't think Whit Merrifield was a legitimate major leaguer, which unfortunately led to the Omar Infante era. This is probably unfair to Infante, who always seemed to give max effort, but the reality is his production wasn't worth the $30 million that the Royals showered on him.
What this means is that future free agents (in any sport) that are over the age of 32 are more than likely to be consigned to signing shorter, incentive-laden deals. Of course, there'll always be an owner, or three, who will continue to throw lottery type money at an aging star, hoping they can reclaim their former glory. Caveat emptor John Sherman.