He won two batting titles, the 1978 MVP award and three Gold Gloves. He was also the All-Star Game MVP. He finished in the top-five of MVP voting five times in a 15-year span.
He became the first player to have a $1 million dollar per year contract.
His statistics are great for the era. Home runs were down in the NL at that time. In seven of the non-strike years he played (1974, 1975, 1976, 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986) the league leader had between 36 and 38 home runs). The leader has only been that low four times since including the last two years. Is testing working?
He finished with 339 home runs, 1,493 RBIs, 2,712 hits and a .290 batting average. It has been suggested that his HOF votes suffered due to drug problems and a subsequent court case during his career. Sounds a lot like the guys from the 1990s.
About his big home run. In the minors, this 14th-round draft pick hit a home run in Charleston, West Virginia that was recovered in Columbus, Ohio. That's about 162 miles or over 855,000 feet. The ball landed in a coal car of a passing train. I'll need to find out who recovered it in Ohio. More on that if I figure it out.
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