Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.
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Played with Alex Gordon in HS and saw him hit a HR that was still going up when it was 3/4 up the light pole in left center field. I'd say he was the best I've ever seen in person just because I got to see it on a daily basis. People knew he was special when he was 10.
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Saw Randy Johnson pitch at Wrigley.
Saw Trout play in STL last year.
Saw Pujols get a standing O last year when he hit the hone run at Busch.
Saw Alberts entire career so I was at many of those games.
Saw Bryce play his last year in DC.
The best performance I saw in person was hands down Matt Carpenter hit 3 bombs and two doubles in Wrigley. Only 2 players have done that! -
I probably don't remember honestly. It is easy to name off the best Cardinal Players I have seen
Lou Brock (I was in the stadium when he broke Ty Cobb's single season stolen base total)
Bob Gibson
Ted Simmons
Ozzie Smith
Mark McGuire
Albert Pujols
Jim Edmonds
EtcWhat I paid far too little attention to at the time were the player I saw on the opposing teams. It is likely that I saw people like Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Sammy Sosa, Andre Dawson, George Brett, and Willie Stargell play without realizing at the time how good they were.
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@ilvmyjeep said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@MathMan5072 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@vox_pestis said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@MathMan5072 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@nflman2033 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
As much as I hate his guys, statistically speaking, the answer is Barry Bonds, both as a Pirate and a Giant.
Ignoring Bonds, I would say Ken Griffey Jr., but by the time he got to Cincinnati, he was a shell of his former self. I may have to go with Tony Gwynn, at least in the early 90s he was still great. Saw Glavine and Smoltz, but never got to see Maddux or the big unit live.
Best game I went to, well most memorable, I was at the brawl between the Reds and Cardinals, where Molina and Phillips had words at the plate right in the bottom of the first, Cueto kicked LaRue I believe. Quite a nasty site as bad as anything I have ever seen at a hockey game.
Shoot. I forgot about Barry. I sat in the right field seats on opening day at dodger stadium one year and the guy must have hit the ball a good 20 rows behind me. It was unbelievable.
Such a shame. As much as I dislike him, Barry was great before ever touching a needle. The talent was unquestionable. But the jealousy bug got him, he just couldn’t stand seeing players he considered inferior surpassing him (McGwire). That season where he hit .370 and a ton of home runs was amazing, not for the counting stats but because he walked almost every at bat, rarely swung, but when he did it was “perfect/perfect”. That isn’t just roids.
.370 46 hr 110 rbi. 47 strikeouts. 198 BB!!!
He just made the perfect villain though, especially if you’re a dodger fan. He was incredibly good, he didn’t hesitate to tell you how good he was, he was a cheater, he broke several sacred records, and did I mention that he was really good. The crazy thing is I believe he could’ve have done all of it without the steroids. Unfortunately we’ll never know. But it was still amazing to see what the guy could do on a baseball field.
The thing with Barry though is that he’s just as much a victim as he is a villain. Barry Bonds was Mike Trout before anyone even looked at WAR. He was a victim of being under appreciated and his talent was evaluated differently in the era he played. Counting stats were what got the attention. If Bonds had been evaluated then in the way we view Trout now, the narrative around him would be different and perhaps he never would’ve sought the attention he craved because his greatness would’ve been appreciated and recognized at the time.
He may not have been the most likeable personality, but his prickly relationship with the media also stemmed from his frustrations in his lack of recognition as the best player in the game. In 1996, Barry put up a 40/40 season worth 9.7 WAR and finished 5th in the NL MVP vote. Two years later, Sammy Sosa won the NL MVP with 66hrs and a 6.5 WAR. That same season, Mark McGwire hit 70hrs and posted a 7.5 WAR, finishing 2nd in NL MVP voting. Barry Bonds that season? His 37hrs were barely half as many as McGwire’s. Barry finished 8th in NL MVP voting despite posting an NL best 8.1 WAR for position players. They were different times and different metrics were used to measure these guys.
I’m not a live or die by WAR kind of guy, but it’s so easy to see how under appreciated he was in his time, and easy to see how it could motivate him to do what he thought was necessary to receive the recognition he thought he deserved.
These are excellent points sir!!! Truth be told I hated Barry growing up. Now that I’ve learned so much of what was really going on (the owners knew they were doing roids and never stopped it cuz it was necessary to “save baseball”) I 100% back him for the Hall. He’s the best hitter of all time and it’s not even close!!
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An odd thought I’ve always had about Barry Bonds...
He has Michael Jordan”s personality and a 13 year old valley girl’s voice. Very strange.
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I went to the same High School with George Brett (he was 2 years older than me) and saw him play SS. I saw Sandy Koufax when I was 10 in 1965 pitch against the Cardinals and watched Bob Uecker hit a home run off of him. I saw Willie Stargell hit one out of Dodger Stadium in 1973 same year I saw Hank Aaron play. I saw Nolan Ryan pitch in 1977 4 rows behind home plate. Talk about GAS. I saw Barry Bonds the year he hit 73. In batting practice he hit one out in dead center on to Crawford St. at Minute Maid Park. Yeah I'm pretty old myself Lol
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I'm not saying Bonds didn't have a good eye. But I think too much is made of his BBs as not being a credit to steroids. Because he was juiced up pitchers were afraid to throw him strikes, obviously he lead the league with intentional BBs, buy you do know that you can be pitched around without it counting as an intentional walk. Go watch some of those ABs guys on this forum can easily lay off those pitches. Again not saying he was undisciplined, but you can not say that the roids had nothing to do with his high walk rate.
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@lucas8181 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
Gee whiz, I'm old:
Bo Jackson
George Brett
Wade Boggs
Ken Griffey Jr.
Dion Sanders
Ozzie Smith
Albert Pujols
Mark McGuire
Donte Bichette
Sammy SosaFavorite to talk to:
Edgar Renteria and Magglio OrdonezFavorite game in person:
August 7, 2005. Cardinals Vs. Braves. David Eckstein hit a walk off grand slam to win it, on my birthday.
That makes two of us I seen all those guys play and more.
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@Dolenz said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
I probably don't remember honestly. It is easy to name off the best Cardinal Players I have seen
Lou Brock (I was in the stadium when he broke Ty Cobb's single season stolen base total)
Bob Gibson
Ted Simmons
Ozzie Smith
Mark McGuire
Albert Pujols
Jim Edmonds
EtcWhat I paid far too little attention to at the time were the player I saw on the opposing teams. It is likely that I saw people like Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt, Sammy Sosa, Andre Dawson, George Brett, and Willie Stargell play without realizing at the time how good they were.
That is awesome, I saw Smith, McGuire, Pujols, Edmonds play. i saw McGuire when he first came up with OAK at Angle Stadium, That 88-90 OAK team was really good. As a Dodger fan, Garvey, Russell, Cey, Lopes I think was already gone, one of the best infields in baseball history.
Don Sutton
Orel
Garvey
Gibson
Eddie Murray
Pedro Guerrero
Piazza
Nomo
Ramon and a Young Pedro Martinez
Saw Bonds play a lot when he was with the Giants and came to dodger stadium, also saw him play as a pirate when they came to Dodger stadium
Fred Lynn with the Angels
Don Baylor
Dwight Evans
Andre Dawson
Ryne Sandberg
George Brett
Ozzie Smith
Cal Ripken Jr
Nolan Ryan
Mike ScottMany Many more
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@PhatWhiteOwl said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
I was in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium in the 90's. Saw Carlos Baerga hit two home runs, one from the left the other from the right side of the plate.... In the same inning!!!
I’ve been wanting a Carlos Baerga in game (the more switch hitters the better!). I remember watching him hit and wondering why it took him like 17 steps to get out of the batter’s box. Haha
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@PhatWhiteOwl said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
I was in Cleveland's Municipal Stadium in the 90's. Saw Carlos Baerga hit two home runs, one from the left the other from the right side of the plate.... In the same inning!!!
I remember that game
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@vox_pestis said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
I’m not sure exactly what the poll is about from reading the title, so instead I’ll just mention the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen live. 1992 at Candlestick. Bill Swift had come to Giants from the Mariners and he was grinding the NL to powder with his heavy gravity sinker. He was 5-0 already. The filthy Dodgers were in town, with Darryl Strawberry in tow. As an aside, a lot of people forget how much raw talent Straw had before he became a tragic character.
I’m sitting in the right field second deck Outfield loge seats, row 1. We are pretty high in the air. Swift throws a sinker but leaves it high. High sinkers, as everyone knows, lose their break and become bad fastballs.
Straw uncorks his whiplash swing and tunes up the flat sinker. There’s a crack like a rifle shot. Even though we are in second deck, people start standing up because it looks like it might make it up to us.
The ball is behaving oddly. Instead of traveling in an arc, it’s just going up... and up.
And over our heads. Midway up the Third deck. It didn’t even seem real. Straw was so far away he looked like an ant rounding the bases.
Moral of the story:
HIGH SINKERS DONT BREAK SIDEWAYS AND HUMILIATE HITTERS. THEY FLATTEN OUT AND GET SMOKED!(Also saw the giants win two WS games against KC)
The Title is just to get a different topic going about baseball and what people have seen live and the players that were are great.
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@MathMan5072 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@vox_pestis said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@MathMan5072 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@nflman2033 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
As much as I hate his guys, statistically speaking, the answer is Barry Bonds, both as a Pirate and a Giant.
Ignoring Bonds, I would say Ken Griffey Jr., but by the time he got to Cincinnati, he was a shell of his former self. I may have to go with Tony Gwynn, at least in the early 90s he was still great. Saw Glavine and Smoltz, but never got to see Maddux or the big unit live.
Best game I went to, well most memorable, I was at the brawl between the Reds and Cardinals, where Molina and Phillips had words at the plate right in the bottom of the first, Cueto kicked LaRue I believe. Quite a nasty site as bad as anything I have ever seen at a hockey game.
Shoot. I forgot about Barry. I sat in the right field seats on opening day at dodger stadium one year and the guy must have hit the ball a good 20 rows behind me. It was unbelievable.
Such a shame. As much as I dislike him, Barry was great before ever touching a needle. The talent was unquestionable. But the jealousy bug got him, he just couldn’t stand seeing players he considered inferior surpassing him (McGwire). That season where he hit .370 and a ton of home runs was amazing, not for the counting stats but because he walked almost every at bat, rarely swung, but when he did it was “perfect/perfect”. That isn’t just roids.
.370 46 hr 110 rbi. 47 strikeouts. 198 BB!!!
He just made the perfect villain though, especially if you’re a dodger fan. He was incredibly good, he didn’t hesitate to tell you how good he was, he was a cheater, he broke several sacred records, and did I mention that he was really good. The crazy thing is I believe he could’ve have done all of it without the steroids. Unfortunately we’ll never know. But it was still amazing to see what the guy could do on a baseball field.
I personally do not see the players who did roids as cheaters, If you do then consider all those players in the 50's 60's and 70's cheaters, as they took what is known in baseball as GREENIES, and George Brett pine tar and any other player that use anything to get some kind of an advantage, some we will never know about. With roids it was ignore from baseball top officials including the Commissioner. They knew it was going on and nothing was enforced or in the rules what they could take or not, The True Roid cheater is Arod who got caught after rules were in place. Bonds was never found guilty and a lot of the player were never found guilty of any of it but yeah we know or assume they were all on it. It is a shame by baseball who ignored it and did nothing about it. I do think Bonds, Clemens should be in the Hall of Fame. Cheating was not a big deal pre 1994. The strike changed baseball and MLB lost a lot of fans and fans started coming back because of McGwire Sosa and Bonds and all the other players hitting HR like they were after 94. Baseball would not be what it is today without the Roids in the late 90's. Baseball was looking to get rid of teams such as the Brewers, Twins to name a few in the late 90's.
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@vox_pestis said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
An odd thought I’ve always had about Barry Bonds...
He has Michael Jordan”s personality and a 13 year old valley girl’s voice. Very strange.
Michael Jordan was excellent with reporters. Probably the best ever. Bonds was one of the worst in that regard..
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My wife was at Dodger Stadium for Dennis Martinez’s perfect game. I saw Griffey Jr. and ARod as Mariners.
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@mjfc_363 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@ilvmyjeep said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@MathMan5072 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@vox_pestis said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@MathMan5072 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
@nflman2033 said in Best player you seen play live and or best game you seen live at the stadium.:
As much as I hate his guys, statistically speaking, the answer is Barry Bonds, both as a Pirate and a Giant.
Ignoring Bonds, I would say Ken Griffey Jr., but by the time he got to Cincinnati, he was a shell of his former self. I may have to go with Tony Gwynn, at least in the early 90s he was still great. Saw Glavine and Smoltz, but never got to see Maddux or the big unit live.
Best game I went to, well most memorable, I was at the brawl between the Reds and Cardinals, where Molina and Phillips had words at the plate right in the bottom of the first, Cueto kicked LaRue I believe. Quite a nasty site as bad as anything I have ever seen at a hockey game.
Shoot. I forgot about Barry. I sat in the right field seats on opening day at dodger stadium one year and the guy must have hit the ball a good 20 rows behind me. It was unbelievable.
Such a shame. As much as I dislike him, Barry was great before ever touching a needle. The talent was unquestionable. But the jealousy bug got him, he just couldn’t stand seeing players he considered inferior surpassing him (McGwire). That season where he hit .370 and a ton of home runs was amazing, not for the counting stats but because he walked almost every at bat, rarely swung, but when he did it was “perfect/perfect”. That isn’t just roids.
.370 46 hr 110 rbi. 47 strikeouts. 198 BB!!!
He just made the perfect villain though, especially if you’re a dodger fan. He was incredibly good, he didn’t hesitate to tell you how good he was, he was a cheater, he broke several sacred records, and did I mention that he was really good. The crazy thing is I believe he could’ve have done all of it without the steroids. Unfortunately we’ll never know. But it was still amazing to see what the guy could do on a baseball field.
The thing with Barry though is that he’s just as much a victim as he is a villain. Barry Bonds was Mike Trout before anyone even looked at WAR. He was a victim of being under appreciated and his talent was evaluated differently in the era he played. Counting stats were what got the attention. If Bonds had been evaluated then in the way we view Trout now, the narrative around him would be different and perhaps he never would’ve sought the attention he craved because his greatness would’ve been appreciated and recognized at the time.
He may not have been the most likeable personality, but his prickly relationship with the media also stemmed from his frustrations in his lack of recognition as the best player in the game. In 1996, Barry put up a 40/40 season worth 9.7 WAR and finished 5th in the NL MVP vote. Two years later, Sammy Sosa won the NL MVP with 66hrs and a 6.5 WAR. That same season, Mark McGwire hit 70hrs and posted a 7.5 WAR, finishing 2nd in NL MVP voting. Barry Bonds that season? His 37hrs were barely half as many as McGwire’s. Barry finished 8th in NL MVP voting despite posting an NL best 8.1 WAR for position players. They were different times and different metrics were used to measure these guys.
I’m not a live or die by WAR kind of guy, but it’s so easy to see how under appreciated he was in his time, and easy to see how it could motivate him to do what he thought was necessary to receive the recognition he thought he deserved.
These are excellent points sir!!! Truth be told I hated Barry growing up. Now that I’ve learned so much of what was really going on (the owners knew they were doing roids and never stopped it cuz it was necessary to “save baseball”) I 100% back him for the Hall. He’s the best hitter of all time and it’s not even close!!
I absolutely agree, I was in my early 20's when it all unfolded. I always stuck behind those players, cause they saved baseball. The strike in 94 sucked, and the EXPOS had a chance to win it all. Gwynn was on the verge to hit .400 so many good things were happening in 94 and then the strike came.
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Arenado, Trevor. Best game was I had my Arenado Jersey on, he hit a dinger, jumped and cheered. Later in the game Trevor hit a tater, I took off my Arenado Jersey to reveal a Trevor Story T-Shirt jersey and the people behind us found it absolutely hilarious.
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In April 2017 cubs vs brewers. Cubs scored 1 in the bottom of the 8th and 4 in the bottom of the 9th including an Addison Russell walk off homer.
And I was at the Yankees/ Twins game last year where Aaron Hicks made that crazy [censored] catch to end the Game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceSHhHI8PxA
This game was absolutely insane. As a neutral fan at this game it was amazing to watch can’t imagine how Twins fans felt when he made that catch. If he missed it it was a walk off win
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Thank you all for the great stories and memories of the game
