Day Thirty Five: John Olerud

Here's part two of my Personal Hall of Fame series. I suppose that in some ways you could say that the entire 2001 team is my personal Hall of Fame. I loved pretty much everyone who played for that team. Those were truly charmed times for baseball here in the Pacific Northwest. The Safe was brand new and it was poppin those summer evenings. The All-Star game was in Seattle in 2001, Ichiro got a hit off Randy Johnson, Cal Ripken went deep (and Dave Valle caught it in the bullpen btw), the Mariners were the best team ever, and I needed them. During that 2001 season I  graduated from high school after a very rough four years. I struggled mightily with feelings of wanting to check out permanently during that summer and I was drinking harder than I ever had before. I was really suffering. But every day that summer I would want to see what the Mariners were going to do. I literally told myself on a regular basis, "you can't kill yourself today, the Mariners are playing tonight." Baseball has always meant so much to me. As Bumbershoot came around that year I got so drunk that I passed out on a staircase by Seattle Center and woke up on a gurney in Harborview with an IV in my arm. I ripped the IV out and bolted out of there. No matter how drunk you are an IV will sober you up pretty good. That was a really bad time for me. But the Mariners were playing again that night. And I wanted to see what they were going to do.

So yeah, that team means a whole hell of a lot to me, because they helped me through some very dark times. I was lucky to have a great team to support me, but I feel like as Thomas Boswell used to say just knowing the game was there if I needed it. And there were many dark years of drinking and bad baseball ahead before dawn arrived. It didn't need to be something groundbreaking, but at that time it sure was. As the season drew to a close sadness would grab hold (on many levels), but for that electric summer there was nothing they couldn't do. And at the center of a lot of that success was the man with the sweetest swing in baseball: Johnny O.

John Olerud was born in Bellevue (I will always remember reading that on his 1990 Score rookie card), went to Interlake HS, and played college baseball at WSU. He was a pitcher and a very good hitter. He also played an excellent first base. In his junior year at WSU, Olerud had a brain aneurysm that was successfully contained, but as a result he wore a batting helmet when playing the field to protect his head. He was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays and never played a minor league game. He came right into the bigs and played first base. Really fucking well.

It's crazy to think that Olerud just came into Toronto and started killing it without ever playing in the minors and like a year removed from having brain surgery. It's pretty nuts when you think about it. Not a lot (if any?) players do that. But Johnny O was immediately effective. And it wasn't long before he was hoisting World Series trophies and winning batting titles. His 1993 campaign is one of the best single seasons that a batter put together during a decade of "best single seasons that a batter put together." And Olerud did all this while looking like a complete dork.

Nobody was going to confuse John Olerud with a cool dude. That wasn't really his game. And if Edgar was a slow runner in his last few years playing, there was only one player who was slower in all of baseball, and that was John Olerud. I have never seen anyone run that slow on a baseball field who was actually playing in a game. But Olerud had quick reflexes at first, sure hands, and he was left handed and tall. Of the firstbasemen I have watched field the position in my lifetime only JT Snow did it better than Olerud. And John could swing the lumber too. He had gap power and the ability to inside out a ball with consistency. Between him and Edgar you had probably the last two guys who had what we used to call doubles power. George Brett exemplified this power in his career. Will Clark had doubles power, and at times so did Don Mattingly, but the first bagger with the best doubles power I have ever seen was John Olerud. And he arguably had the best swing for that kind of contact that you will ever see.

It was funny to watch John Olerud and Ichiro hit in the same lineup because one was doing exactly the things that you had always been told to never do, and the other was probably the closest to a hitting instructional video that you will ever find. But they both raked! And that was the fun of that team. There was so much going on. So many different angles. So much to enjoy. The richness of it all. You could watch Ichiro basically swinging bunt a ball to the pitcher and beat out a single and then get driven home by a soft swinging laser into the left center gap from Johnny O (who only hit so many doubles because of that power. His wheels weren't taking him to second!).

John Olerud ended his long and storied career with 500 doubles and an OBP of .398. I think those are the two stats that stick out to me the most. And I feel like they help exemplify the kind of hitter he was. Just really good. He's going into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame this year (remotely I am guessing) and it is well deserved, but he is already in my Personal Hall of Fame along with Mike Cameron. I have never actually heard John Olerud speak which is kind of weird to say. I wonder what he sounds like, but it's indicative of his whole persona that someone who would include him in their most special baseball memories wouldn't even know what he sounds like. And would I recognize John Olerud if I saw him at Whole Foods? Probably because he's like 6' 5" and perhaps he would be wearing a batting helmet.