In 1975, “Dave Kingman’s”:http://www.baseball-reference.com/k/kingmda01.shtmlgrand slam beat the Giants, 9-5.
Kingman could have been a headache for Hall of Fame voters. Kingman averaged 37 homers over a 162-game schedule and finished his career with 442 homers. It used to be that 500 homers would have been an automatic entry into the Hall of Fame. What if he had gotten it?
I never thought of him as a Hall of Famer because he was a one-dimensional player, but I am sure there would be some that would vote for him.
11 Comments
Before Kingman, wasn’t 400 pretty much a guarantee of getting in the Hall? He doesn’t deserve any votes. As you said, one dmensional…......
Maybe you could have a poll of why the fans at Shea boo so much. It sounded like they booed Glavine, Wagner, Heilmann, Delgado.
Shea used to boo the closer, Looper, Benitez, Franco… It became a tradition, but now its gone overboard…..
If I were a free agent, I wouldn’t want to play in that environment and have my family subjected to it. I think the fans have become a real problem for Omar.
If Kingman had ever learned that it wasn’t against the rules to hit the ball to right field, he may have been a serious HOF contender.
But trying to pull every single ball out of the park was why Kingman never reached 500, and why his lifetime batting average was .236. His .204 BA in 1982 was by far the lowest of any HR champ.
Mel – Do you live in the NY/NJ/CT metro area? Fans here are very involved with their teams in all sports. You should hear the noise at the Garden.
The only time Kingman didn’t swing at the pitch a foot outside was when he was a Cub.
Hit or Miss Kingman. :-)
You have to admit though, he intimidated almost every pitcher there was, with his bat.
But HOF. I loved the guy but uh no.
Annie, Involved and booing the guys who have led the team are two different things. Its a disgrace when the home team boo’s Glavine off the field. The fans in Boston and Chicago are “very involved” and guess what they boo the enemy!!!\\ They boo your beloved Yankees.
If they were the Knicks I could see it because they suck and are so overpaid. ... But this team is in 1st place. Boo Mota fine, boo Heilmann, fine, but Glavine and Wright in the Spring, that is bad…..
Mel: to me anyone Booing a Met player or the team is NO FAN. end of story. they are posers are fakers. even with how I feel about Delgado, I might moan and groan and complain. BUT I WOULD NEVER BOO HIM, EVER!
I am proud of you Steve C. You are a good fan and I will hold my fingers back from now on when you rip Delgado!! I may even join the club pretty soon, but I won’t boo him when I’m there.
Seriously, it is pathetic what goes on in Shea. I go to games at Shea and all over the East coast and the only fans who boo their own like ours do is in Philly, but even they usually save their booing for one guy, Pat Burrell.
Met fans never booed their own. This must be a very recent occurrence. The only time I boo or have my kids boo is to boo the other team. It cant be regular fans, its “INCONCEIVABLE”
wow and here ,seriously, I thought only stankee fans booed.
I am glad I dont go to too many home games. 1 reason is money, 1 reason is, everytime I go they lose. so i feel my presence is a jinx. but i need to take the kids to a game or 2 every so often just so they can say I went to a ball game.
King Kong, was a feared hitter, but he was a one dimensional player…..He did have that great season with the cubs before getting hurt…..he might have gotten past 61 homers…
I do remember he did not like being called King Kong, he preferred the moniker that Bob Murphy came up with…Sky King!! I also loved the warning signs they had in the parking lot warning fans that they were parked in a King Kong homerun
area, and that the Mets were not responsible if any damage was caused to a car…..lol Thank God, Frank Cashen made the trade for Keith Hernandez in 1983…...Put poor Kong on the bench for good…
Kingman was terrible. HOF is supposed to be for the exceptional.
Not cancers on the team who refused to practice and only wanted to stand at the plate and never take the field.
He hit a lot of homers. He struck out more than the rest of the league combined. His BA was 150. He refused to practice in the OF.
He was a terrible player. I am glad we do not have anyone like him on the team anymore.