his name was Doug Johns. He was a part time starter and middle reliever for Oakland and Baltimore. He won the AAA WS for Rochester, NY. He went to UVA. He was UVA's best hitter and pitcher his junior year and stayed in school as a Senior and slipped in the draft. Small piece of MLB trivia he's tied too: on the game Cal Ripken ended his famous consecutive innings streak, the scorecard without Ripken at 3b is in the HOF at Cooperstown. Doug was the starter for Baltimore so in the pitcher's spot it reads: P. D. Johns. The 3b who took his place, was an ex-Sixers draftee who played baseball as well-Ryan Minor. He was busted for marijuana in his car at a Baltimore toll booth stop and had issues with insomnia, and his career ended. Now he's very sick. He's 50 years old has is battling being bi-polar and maybe schizophrenia. I believe he gets a MLB pension as he played over 5 years. When he would come to our house, he was the funniest guy in the room. My brothers and I had a wiffle ball HR derby field in our backyard we played on for years. Since he was a great college hitter, he crushed a wiffle ball like we never seen in our backyard. You couldn't fool him on any pitch and he could just crush it. haha.
Joe Namath was elite early in his career. Any player good enough to force the merger of the two leagues is elite. When he guaranteed the victory over the Colts and won plus being the first to 4000 yards gives him the pass he needs for being elite. He was first ballot.
That's more like it. And if you're adding in DRAFTED players - only 11% of whom make it to The Show - the number drops even more dramatically.
Joe Namath was never elite. What he was, though, was an East Coast media darling. At the time, the media epicenter was in New York City and they pretty much dictated what the rest of the country got through the various (meaning TV and newspapers) media outlets. He was a pocket sloth with a big mouth and a perpetual hard on who happened to be surrounded by some pretty good players.
Super Bowl champion (III) Super Bowl MVP (III) Pro Bowl (1972) Second-team All-Pro (1972) NFL Comeback Player of the Year (1974) NFL passing yards leader (1972) NFL passing touchdowns leader (1972) AFL champion (1968) 4× AFL All-Star (1965, 1967–1969) First-team All-AFL (1968) 3× Second-team All-AFL (1966, 1967, 1969) 2× AFL Most Valuable Player (1968, 1969) AFL Rookie of the Year (1965) 2× AFL passing yards leader (1966, 1967) AFL All-Time Team New York Jets No. 12 retired 1964 national champion I'm done talking about it. The career accolades speak for themselves. You don't get all that by being a fucking media darling.....Geezus. Did the NY media help him secure the 1964 National Championship at Alabama too?
Namath’s career was derailed by seriously bad knees. Gayle Sayers was elite too. Injuries don’t kill your having been elite, they just stop you from continuing to be elite.
Of all those accolades you posted, only three tell me he had a good year (singular) in the NFL (1972) EIGHT years after he was drafted. All the rest mean diddly squat when talking about elite NFL QB's.
well is said anyone who played major league baseball. some draftees make it, some don't. i'll take the 1%.
" pocket sloth?" wasn't the league a heavy run league his first few years ? i saw a special on namath on HBO and they mentioned that. that's why his interceptions were so high. the running game was barely existent and he was a pass heavy league. that's not on namath if other QBs passed a lot as well ?
You guys do know that Major League Baseball is only the teams in the AL and NL? Minor league doesn’t count as major league.
When you guys are going apeshits on INts from Namath just remember that Terry Bradshaw won a league MVP in a season where he threw 20 INTs. The league is a lot different now and you can’t judge Namath by today’s standards.
Yes . . . "Pocket Sloth". Not because he chose to be one but because he had no other choice given the knees he had to work with. And, Yes . . . In 1968, the NFL was a run first league as opposed to the AFL who most considered to be a pass first league. But, consider this: The 1968 Jets had 6 running backs on their SB roster (including Emerson Boozer and Matt Snell) and only 4 wide receivers (including Don Maynard and George Sauer) and a single Tight End. The whole world was expecting the AFL Jets to fling the ball around in Super Bowl III. What they ended up seeing is the Jets running the ball 43 times for 142 yards (Colts = 23 times for 143 yards) and passing the ball 29 times for 195 net yards (Colts = 41 times for 181 net yards).
i saw this stat once...of every player drafted or played pro baseball only 2% make the HOF. I thought you were including "drafted" players...? No matter - it's still an astronomically low number.
the stat said thr 19,000 players who step on a major league diamond. some are drafted players. everyone before the draft is obviously not. it's still 1%.