Can I Quote You on That?

[Jimmie Foxx] has muscles in his hair – Lefty Gomez

It looks like big muscular guys aren’t anything new after all. There’s always somebody who is going to be bigger and stronger than everyone else. That guy is going to be able to put up some pretty amazing numbers. Foxx could simply do things with a baseball that other people in his era couldn’t do. Frankly, I don’t think there are many people in any era who could put up his kinds of numbers.

Jimmie Foxx is a guy that always seems to get overshadowed in my mind, and that’s too bad. For the Boston Red Sox in 1938, look at this line. .349 batting average, 50 HR, and 175 RBI. What about the newfangled numbers? His OBP that year was .462. Add that to his .704 slugging, and you end up with an OPS of 1.166. The scary part? That wasn’t Foxx’s career year. I’ll give that honor to his 1932 season with the Philadelphia A’s. That year he went .364-58-169. His OPS of 1.218 comes from an OBP of .469, and a SLG of .749. Absolutely amazing. Why isn’t this guy more revered? Am I just missing the hype? Especially if you consider that he played in Philly and Boston. It’s not like he was hidden in Milwaukee his whole career? Is it simply a case of Ruth, and everyone else? If you weren’t wearing pinstripes in those years, you’re not worth it?

Where’s the love?