Rejected by the Muskbox: Hereditary defense

Mar 25, 2013 | Cubs

Jerry the "Greater?"

muskbox-rejected

It’s been a while, but Carrie Muskat sent me a Muskbox rejection today, and it’s a good one:

I’m surprised Carrie didn’t handle this one herself.  This submitter is on to something here.  It’s a concept that no bigger authority than Johnnie B. “Dusty” Baker himself writes about in the Afterword of his his e-book bestseller “The Dusty Baker Hitting Handbook.”

Dudes, this book is about hitting, but what people forget is that the other half of hitting is defense.  You can get hits if the defense isn’t where you hit the ball.  Defense is something I stress on all my teams.  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned yet that I played with Hank Aaron, but Hank was a great defensive player, too.  He played second base and the outfield.  Not at the same time, but he probably could have.

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is how many sons of big leaguers make it to the big leagues themselves and usually at the same position their dad played.

Ken Griffey played outfield and so did Ken Junior.  Bobby Bonds played outfield and so did Barry.  Look at the Boones, Ray played infield, Bob played catcher–which is infield except you squat down and look at the infield backwards and both Aaron and Bret played infield.  You think it’s a coincidence?  Me neither.

The only fathers and sons I can think of that didn’t play the same position were Vance and Rudy Law, Bob and Kirk Gibson and Stan Musial and Ozzie Smith.  That’s six out of like thousands.  If I needed a really good leadoff hitter (and I do), I’d draft all of Juan Pierre’s kids, because you know there’s a left fielder with speed in there someplace.

What Dusty is hitting on here is Hereditary Defense.  It’s the proven study that the son of any big leaguer can play his dad’s position.  Yogi Berra was a Hall of Fame catcher and his son Dale would have been if any of his managers had ignored his cocaine addiction and put him behind the plate, you know Randy and Todd Hundley style.

So let’s apply this to Scott Hairston.  He’s related to four other big leaguers.  His grandfather, Sam, his uncle John, his father Jerry and his other brother Jerry.  All we need to do is to explore that depth of third base excellence in the family and I’m sure we’ll have Scott handling the hot corner in no time.

Grandpa Sam played in four big league games, two at catcher, two as a pinch hitter.

OK, so that doesn’t help us much.  How about uncle John?

Three big league games, one at catcher, one in left, one in right.  OK, next?

What about his dad.  Jerry Sr. played a long time in the big leagues, I’m sure he played a lot of third.

Three hundred sixty-six games, some at first, some at second, some in all three outfield spots and…

OK, this isn’t working.  His brother Jerry has played in over 1300 games and more than 140 at third.  They were both born in May, four years apart with Jerry being older.  Hah!  That’s it.  Jerry no doubt left some of his third base DNA rattling around in his mother’s uterus and Scott absorbed some of it.  I’m pretty sure it’s the same way that the Iorg brothers did it.  So just because Scott has played only 83 of his 601 games in the infield (all at second), doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be the opening day third baseman for the Cubs.  Hell, if that doesn’t work, putt Jeff Santo there.  He looks like he’d do anything for a buck.