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May 28, 2008

Baseball Legends author finds holes in classic Fisk-Munson story

One book I'm planning on checking out soon is Rob Neyer's "Big Book of Baseball Legends." ESPN.com this month posted an excerpt from the book, in which Neyer checks out a story about the bitter rivalry between Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk and Yankee backstop Thurmon Munson. According to the various twists on the legend, Munson discovered late one season that he was trailing Fisk for the lead in assists by a catcher, and so he set out to intentionally drop third strikes in order to throw the batter out at first, enough times to surpass Fisk in assists.

Click here to read the ESPN excerpt, in which Neyer describes his plunging through the now-available statisical references and discovering that the story is either false or vastly exaggerated -- much to the dismay of the author himself.

Posted by Mike McDermott  at 1:08 PM to Red Sox | Permalink

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