Marty Marion won the NL 1944 MVP based primarily on his leadership and fielding skills as opposed to anything he did with his lumber.  His victory is certainly a reminder that there is a lot more to baseball than sexy offensive stats.

If it seemed like Jim Hart was the St. Louis Cardinals Quarterback forever it is because in football terms, he practically was.  Hart started 180 games for them from 1967 to 1983, but for such a long tenure it went largely unnoticed.  Playing for bad teams will generally do that.

In the late 70’s Hall of Fame pitcher, Don Sutton famously noted that Steve Garvey was not the best player on the Dodgers, it was Reggie Smith. Garvey may have been the most popular, but Sutton was not alone in his assessment of Reggie Smith.

Ottis Anderson had one of the best rookie seasons ever for a Running Back gaining over 1,600 yards on the ground.  Too bad he did for a bad St. Louis Cardinals team that was barely on the National radar.

Anderson would prove he was not a one-season wonder.  Although he would never again equal his rookie numbers he still posted decent ground numbers and was the highlight of a poor Cardinals team.  As it does in football, injuries piled up and he lost his explosiveness.  Anderson was however reinvented as a short-yardage specialist by the New York Giants and he again accumulated impressive tallies.  He was a natural leader and as he rarely fumbled he was a strong key to the Giants ability to control the ball for extended periods of time.  As a Giant, Ottis Anderson twice won the Super Bowl, capped with an MVP performance in Super Bowl XXV.

It is possible that this candidate is shrouded with more controversy than our 1A and 1B candidates combined?

Many who first think of Jim Edmonds and the Hall of Fame may think automatically of what we wrote about Moises Alou and that he is likely a candidate for the “Hall of Very Good”. However the more we really thought about it, the more we like “Jimmy Baseball’s” resume.

Larry Jackson played for some good teams, but never any great ones (he never played in the postseason). As such, Jackson never made the 200 Win club, but his value as an innings eater was essential to the success that many of his teams had.