Afternoon Baseball

Baseball-Reference.com
Charlie Keller is not particularly well-known among Yankee fans, but he WAS the offense for the Yankees during WWII, with three 30-HR seasons and three 100-RBI and 100-run seasons in his four full seasons from 1941-1946. 5 straight years did he walk 100 times, as well. He also played ever so briefly with Lou Gehrig in 1939 and Mickey Mantle in 1952 (2 games, 1 strikeout). He also hated the nickname "King Kong," according to the excellent book "The Yankee Encyclopedia."

Since "King Kong" the movie is bombing so miserably, I thought a look at the more-successful King Kong would be appropriate. (By the way, "King Kong" failed because the movie's been made a million times, smashing New York isn't fun to watch anymore, and Naomi Watts had her three-year window of being hot. Unfortunately, it was 2002 to 2004. SHe's 11 years older than Fay Wray was in the original. And they say Hollywood has gotten crasser.)

Anyways, Keller played 1066 of his 1170 games with the Yankees, hitting 189 HR in 3790 at-bats, hitting .286/.410/.518. That's a .928 OPS, folks. Today, he'd be a hugely in-demand player. In his worst batting year (1947), he only played 45 games, but hit 13 HR and 36 RBI in 151 at-bats despite only having 36 hits. His .238 was easily countered by his .954 OPS.
His career OPS+: 152.

Now, he never fulfilled any more of that promise -- first shown in the 1939 WS, where as a rookie he hit .438 with 3 HR, 6 RBI and 8 runs -- because of a 1947 back injury (his last All-Star year), and he never played a full season after 1946. But he was probably undervalued because these stats were not available -- or at the least, not easily calculated without computers.

But Charlie Keller, named "King Kong" surely because of his home-run prowess, is 43rd all-time in OPS, 28th in adjusted OPS, 36th in on-base, and was a 5-time All-Star. That's a hell of a player, my friends, and he did it at a time when there was no shortage of stars and championships in New York. Yet, I barely recall him when I think of players from that group (Rizzuto, Heinrich, DiMaggio, Ruffing, Gomez, Dickey, Berra, Gordon, etc.).

Instead of seeing that terrible movie, tell some folks about Charlie Keller. In fact, do some more research on the bare-bones that I've presented.