An Excerpt From "The Shortstop"
By Rob Trucks | Pro Baseball Central Author- The First Baseman | on Sunday, June 18 2006

Portrait of the Shortstop as an Athlete

By definition, every major leaguer is an athlete. And a professional athlete at that. But despite constitutional suggestions regarding the status of men, not all athletes are created equal. (I could name a few 1970s-era relief pitchers who would have difficulty extricating themselves from a fire if they lived above, say, the first floor).

Take a drive to your local Little League field—the ballpark where eight, nine, and ten year olds experience the joys of winning, the agony of being left on the bench, and the utter boredom of being placed in the outfield. (A certain right fielder from my Little League playing days was nicknamed Clover because he spent all of his defensive time looking for four-leaf clovers in the outfield grass.) Don’t bother watching the game. Look just to the left of second base. There he is. The shortstop.

There’s a better-than-even chance you’ve just found the best overall athlete on the team.

Why? Because the preponderance of balls put into Little League play will find their way to the shortstop. Outside of the pitcher’s delivery from the mound and the catcher’s attempted receipt of a near astronomical number of balls, especially among the youngest participants, the shortstop will be more active than any other player on the field.

The shortstop, not unlike the center fielder behind him, will take charge in nearly every infield situation. He will field ground balls, chase pop-ups. He will also be involved in double plays, stolen base attempts. And, outside of the third baseman, he has the longest throw on the field (but not by much if the pair are positioned correctly).

The shortstop is undeniably a skill position and, because of the required athleticism, more likely born than made. And because of the demands of the job, if the best athlete on the Little League field fails to automatically gravitate toward shortstop on his own, often his coach will assist the magnetic pull emanating from the middle infield.

A Little League shortstop must be quick, possess a strong arm, and throw right-handed. There is also, of course, that seemingly unquantifiable matter of range. Range can, in fact, be measured (don’t touch that dial), but not to any firm, scientific accuracy. For the meantime, think of range as the ability to personify a video game system’s joystick. Range is the ability to move in any and all directions smoothly and efficiently. So it makes sense that the best athlete on the Little League field will find himself at the shortstop position.

Though many major league shortstops have been blessed with a wealth and variety of athletic talent, perhaps no man, in terms of pure athleticism, comes to mind more readily than Dick Groat.

Groat, of course, was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 1960, the year that his Pittsburgh Pirates went on to defeat the New York Yankees four games to three in the World Series thanks to a ninth inning home run in game seven by Groat’s double-play partner, Bill Mazeroski.

But before Groat reached the major leagues he was a two-sport standout at Duke University. In both 1951 and 1952 (before Duke was a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference) Dick Groat was the Southern Conference Basketball Tournament MVP. In both 1951 and 1952 Dick Groat was the Southern Conference Basketball Player of the Year. In 1952 Groat was the first basketball player in Duke history to be selected as a first-team All-American. At season’s end Groat was the first round draft pick of the NBA’s Fort Wayne Pistons.

And yet after a single, well-traveled season (the Pistons chartered a plane to ferry Groat to and from his rookie season games and the remainder of his Duke classes), Groat gave up his professional basketball career to concentrate on baseball.

“I regret that I didn’t have the opportunity to play at least both sports for two or three years,” Groat says, “but Mr. Rickey would not buy it, and I’m not sure that Mr. Rickey wasn’t right.”

Mr. Rickey, of course, is Branch Rickey, an off-the-field “visionary” who experienced but a “mediocre career as a player and a manager” according to the Baseball Hall of Fame’s website. As a player Mr. Rickey set a major league record for stolen bases allowed when the Yankees swiped 13 in a single game with Rickey as catcher. As a manager Mr. Rickey captained just three winning campaigns in ten seasons, and finished with a career winning percentage of .473.

But as a general manager, among other feats, Mr. Rickey created the uniquely innovative St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system, signed Jackie Robinson for the Brooklyn Dodgers, and, as the president of the Pittsburgh Pirates, stole Roberto Clemente away from the Dodgers in baseball’s post-season draft.

Groat considers Mr. Rickey “one of the finest minds in the history of baseball.” According to Groat, when Mr. Rickey wanted to try out an infielder, “he always worked them out at shortstop. He always felt that if he had a shortstop he had a third baseman, a second baseman, and a first baseman. If he could play shortstop he could play anywhere.”

As with so many other of his innovations, baseball general managers have followed Mr. Rickey’s lead ever since.

Baseball’s first amateur draft took place in June of 1965. Before that date, professional organizations signed free agents at will, based on scouting and who got there first (it was Rickey’s Cardinals who signed seemingly any American male who could throw a baseball and piled them into the league’s largest minor league system, allowing a certain Draconian “survival of the fittest” philosophy rule from there).

Rick Monday, an outfielder from Arizona State University, was the first overall pick. Monday would reach the majors the following year with the Kansas City Athletics, his first of 19 consecutive seasons in the big leagues.

But in the twenty picks made in the first round of the first draft, three shortstops—Alex Barrett, a high schooler out of California, John Wyatt, another high schooler from California (notice a trend here?), and Eddie Leon from the University of Arizona—were chosen. Of the three, only Leon made it all the way to the majors.

In that first draft, seven pitchers were selected in the first round, leaving 13 position players. Given that there are eight defensive positions not played on a ten-inch high mound, one out of every eight selections should be a shortstop in order to hold to an average. And yet in this first draft three picks out of 13 were shortstops, or right at 23 percent, nearly double the expected average of 12½ percent.

Indeed, it appears Mr. Rickey’s theory that a good shortstop can play any position has been passed down.

In 1966 Steve Chilcott, a high school catcher from California, was taken by the Mets as the first overall pick of the draft. Chilcott never made it to the majors. Of the eleven position players taken, three were shortstops. Two were university players, from Indiana and California. The third was a high school player by the name of Richie Hebner. Taken at number fifteen by the Pittsburgh Pirates, Hebner, a gravedigger in the off-season, went on to play in over 1900 major league ballgames, the majority at third base. He played exactly zero games at shortstop.

In 1967, fourteen position players were taken in the first twenty picks. The most notable was Bobby Grich, the 19th selection overall, who, though brought up as a shortstop in 1970, had transitioned to second base by 1973 where he played in over 1700 major league contests. Grich would be selected six times as an American League All-Star.

In 1968: four shortstops, or 25 percent of the sixteen position players taken in the first round. This includes the number one overall pick, Tim Foli, who actually played over 80% of his major league games at short.

In 1969 the draft expanded to 24 four picks per round. And a full third of position players taken in the first round, six out of eighteen, were selected as shortstops. Alan Bannister, a high schooler out of (you guessed it) California, was taken at number five but refused to sign (he was later drafted by the Phillies and played 167 major league games at short, but also played almost 400 in the outfield and over 250 at second). Don “Full Pack” Stanhouse, selected as both a pitcher and a shortstop at number nine, would receive his greatest notoriety as Baltimore’s anxiety-inducing closer in 1978 and 1979. Future Gold Glove winner Roger Metzger was taken by the Cubs at number 16, future National League utility infielder Mike Phillips at number 18, and, most surprising of all, at least as a shortstop pick (since at least one Web site has nominated him for the “slowest, fattest centerfielder ever”), future Milwaukee Brewers slugger Gorman Thomas.

In 1970, six out of fifteen position players selected in the first round were shortstops.

The draft in 1971 was remarkable for two reasons. First, a record high eight of 12 positions players selected—yes, a credulity-threatening 67 percent, or two out of every three position players—in the first round listed shortstop as their primary position. Two of those eight—specifically the Expos’ pick at number four, Condredge Holloway, and the Reds’ selection at number twenty-four, Mike Miley—became starting quarterbacks in the Southeastern Conference.

Holloway not only was a starting shortstop at the University of Tennessee but played well enough to be named to the university’s Baseball Hall of Fame. However, it was on the football field that Holloway received his greatest acclaim. He was named a football All-American in 1973 and, after graduating from UT, Holloway went on to play in the Canadian Football League. Nicknamed “The Artful Dodger” for his scrambling ability, Holloway won the league MVP award in 1982 as the quarterback for the Toronto Argonauts. He was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, had his jersey retired by the Argonauts, and was named to the Canadian Football League’s 125th Anniversary Team.

Miley also bypassed his first chance at pro ball to attend LSU. As a quarterback, Miley led the Tigers to an Orange Bowl victory. In 1974 he was once again a first round selection (the only shortstop to be selected in the first round twice). Miley played part of two seasons with the California Angels before passing away on January 6, 1977 following an off-season car accident in Baton Rouge.

And while 1971 might stand as a singular testament to both the importance of the position as well as the athletic versatility of those who play shortstop, it would, by no means, be the final example of either.

Shortstops would be the number one overall pick of the 1974 draft (Bill Almon), 1982 (Shawon Dunston), 1990 (Chipper Jones), 1993 (Alex Rodriguez) as well as each of the past two years, 2004 (Matt Bush) and 2005 (Justin Upton). While Almon, Dunston, and Rodriguez (thus far) have played the majority of their games at short, fewer than 50 of Chipper Jones’s 1651 appearances to date have been at shortstop.

In 1994 another future LSU quarterback, Josh Booty, was drafted by the Florida Marlins. Booty would appear in 13 games for the Marlins, including 12 appearances at third base, before returning to college to play football. He was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the 6th round of the 2001 NFL draft.

In 1972, four future major league fixtures were all drafted as shortstops. Rick Manning would play 13 major league seasons in the outfield, Jamie Quirk would play 18 seasons with the majority of his appearances at catcher, Jerry Manuel would only play five seasons, primarily as a second baseman, but would manage the Chicago White Sox for six seasons, and former shortstop Chet Lemon would play in 1988 games over 16 major league seasons with Chicago and Detroit without a single appearance at short.

Already mentioned is the 1993 first overall selection of Alex Rodriguez by Seattle. The year before, the Yankees selected Derek Jeter. The year after, the Red Sox picked Nomar Garciaparra (and if this book had been written three seasons ago, or even if Garciaparra had managed to stay with the Red Sox through their World Series win, you can believe we’d be adding at least a couple more paragraphs on how these three selections represent the changing face of the shortstop. Oh Nomar, we hardly knew ye).

The Milwaukee Brewers would strike pay dirt with the third overall pick in both 1973 and 1977. Their 1973 selection, Robin Yount, would play in over 2850 big league games, just over half of those games at shortstop, and collect two American League MVP Awards in his 20 seasons. In 1999 Yount would be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Paul Molitor, drafted four years after Yount, would play 21 years, 15 of them with the Brewers. A seven-time All-Star, Molitor would play but 57 games at shortstop, none after 1982. In 2004 he would be the first designated hitter elected to the Hall of Fame.

In 1986 both future third baseman Matt Williams and future outfielder Gary Sheffield would be first round selections at shortstop. Even more of an imagination stretch would take place with the 1978 selection of future first baseman Nick Esasky, future outfielder Cory Snyder in 1984, future first baseman Dmitri Young in 1991 and future catcher Michael Barrett in 1995. All stand at least 6’2” with only Snyder weighing less than 200 pounds. None of the four, in fact, fit the pre-Ripken stereotype of the shortstop build and in hindsight there’s little surprise in the movement of any of the four.

And why do so many one-time shortstops—not just Esasky, Snyder, Young, and Barrett, but Chipper Jones and Paul Molitor and Richie Hebner and Gorman Thomas and Gary Sheffield and Jamie Quirk and Bobby Grich—find new positions? Of course, there might be a backlog at the position within the organization. Bill Almon, a number one overall draft pick, found himself a utility player with the arrival of Ozzie Smith in San Diego. But a shortstop needs more range than your average third baseman. A shortstop needs a stronger throwing arm than your average second baseman. And because of his positioning in the middle of the field, a major league shortstop will suffer more wear and tear on his body than any other position besides catcher.

Just as Johnny Bench played significantly more games at both third and first than catcher in the last three years of his career, and just as Mike Piazza will assuredly move to the American League where he can play every day as a designated hitter, so too do shortstops move. Though not always so visibly.

In the pre-Ripken era shortstops were placed in the lineup for their defense, and often their defense alone. Mark Belanger, Ripken’s predecessor in Baltimore, played 18 major league seasons on four American League pennant winners and collected eight Gold Glove Awards, yet only managed a career batting average of .228. When Belanger could no longer play shortstop he retired. There was no other position available.

But Ernie Banks’ bat was certainly strong enough to find another spot in the lineup when the strain of serving as an everyday shortstop began to take its toll. Banks won the National League MVP Award in 1958 and 1959 and the Gold Glove in 1960, but he didn’t play a game at short after the 1961 season.

And “Mr. Cub” didn’t retire until after the 1971 season.

Robin Yount was a shortstop his first eleven years, an outfielder his last nine. Even the great Honus Wagner, after 20 years as a big league shortstop, played his final season at first base.

In fact, only the truly mystifying Luke Appling, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1964, seems to have put the whammy on Father Time. After splitting duties between third and short the previous year, in 1949, at the age of 42, Appling returned as the White Sox’ everyday shortstop and performed more than adequately. Not only did Appling manage a .301 batting average in 141 games, he committed but 26 errors at short. Not Mike Bordick numbers to be sure, but it was his lowest error total in eleven seasons.

Yea verily, I say unto you, a good shortstop is hard to find. But not for lack of looking.

In the first thirty-five years of baseball’s amateur draft, 514 position players have been selected in the first round. And though the shortstop comprises a mere 12½ percent of defensive positions, out of those 514 players 144 shortstops have been selected. Put another way, 28 percent of all position players selected in the first round have been shortstops at the time of the draft, more than double the statistical defensive need.

Of these 144 selected shortstops, an even hundred have seen their careers reach all the way to the major leagues, and yet only 41 of those hundred played in the majors with shortstop as their primary position. Of the 100 former shortstops drafted in the first round of baseball’s amateur draft who reached the majors, 21 played in the outfield, 16 at third, 14 at second and two each at catcher, first, DH, and pitcher.

To play shortstop requires both skill and athleticism in ample amounts, as well as a durability rarely challenged on the diamond. But as Branch Rickey said, find a good shortstop and you can play him anywhere.

Excerpt taken from The Shortstop. Copyright © 2006 by Rob Trucks.  Excerpted by permission of Emmis Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

For more information visit www.emmisbooks.com.