Documentary Film on “The Blade”

[DrungoHazewood]

Following up... Hal Lanier had three different seasons in the 1960s where he qualified for the batting title and had an OPS+ worse than Chris Davis.  He had a couple years with Belanger-like defensive metrics, but wasn't that good most of the time.  But somehow he never hit below .200. Just didn't walk or have any power at all.  In 1968 he hit .206 with no homers and 12 walks in 518 PAs. The next year he had nine doubles, a triple, and no homers in over 500 PAs.  His career OPS was 50 points lower than Belanger's.

And then there's Bill Bergen.  In 1909 he hit .139 with one double, one triple, one homer, and 10 walks in 373 PAs.  That was his worst year, but he was a semi-regular for 11 years and never had an OPS+ over 41.  

[atomic]

13 hours ago, tntoriole said:

It is interesting to note that in 1969 which was arguably the best Oriole regular season ever...Mark hit a career high .287 with 152 hits....similarly in 1971 he hit .266.  Most of his really poor years were when we did not make it to the Series.  

I remember in 1976 he hit .270 and everyone was going on and on about what a great hitting season he was having.  He finished with a .661 OPS and a 6.5 WAR season. Like I said if he had a career .650 OPS he would be a first year eligibility Hall of Famer. 

We didn't make the playoffs in 1976.  Reggie held out the first month.  Doug Decinces had a .641 OPS and Paul Blair hit .197.  And Cuellar and Grimsley pitched pretty poorly.  

[byrdz]

Defensive WAR 1968 AL  4.4 (2nd)

1969 AL  2.2 (6th)

1971 AL  2.5 (4th)

1973 AL  4.0 (1st)

1974 AL  3.5 (1st)

1975 AL  4.9 (1st)

1976 AL  3.9 (1st)

1977 AL  3.4 (1st)

1978 AL  3.7 (1st)

Career  39.5 (2nd)

[NashLumber]

On 1/25/2019 at 7:38 PM, NashLumber said:

There was some talk (proposals or negotiations) of it being aired on MASN and a few other regional channels from a news article I read this week. Because Belanger’s name came up in the HOF thread this week, I went to Google to find the film’s site again and I saw that it had its premiere in November in Pittsfield MA. So I sent a donation of $13 (figured that would cover shipping) at the pre-order DVD link and the filmmaker wrote me today to say the DVD will be in the mail this weekend. So I’m assuming you can all order one there, but you can donate more than just the $10 for the film if you wish. 

 

http://www.belangerfilm.com/

Got my DVD today. Eager to watch it tonight. 

 

 

[NashLumber]

Saw the film on DVD tonight. Very well done. It had some former teammate interviews (Palmer, Singleton, Davey Johnson, Boog, Dempsey) and lots of folks from his upbringing, later union colleagues and all of his family. I came away with a good picture of a fascinating and sadly short life. In addition to the expected Orioles glory days (and focus on his famous glove work and hitting woes), there was an interesting bit of coverage about his early basketball talent and how he was heavily recruited to play hoops at UConn, but a twist of fate intervened. The best line was how a scout told another scout that Belanger was at age 16 (in his first year at the position), was better than an AL shortstop whose name I didn't catch. How it depicted his final years was done with great care and was highly poignant. Highly recommended to any O's fan or baseball fan in general.