True! Though I think if you go back to that late 80s/early 90s era, you can find other examples: Rickey Henderson, Gooden/Strawberry, Eric Davis, etc. And then, as Lou Moore wrote, things changed, and baseball did nothing about it.
Your post caused me to do some pondering: who I, as a lifelong baseball fan, think is or was cool as a baseball player in the last 30 years. I have a couple of names, one a Hall of Famer and one not. I give you Ken Griffey, Jr., and Curtis Granderson.
I’m listening to the jazz station WBGO from Newark as I type this and they just played Lazy Bird by John Coltrane. That’s cool, and so was Junior. It was the backwards hat, it was his super smooth swing, his personality - a great heir to the Cool of Mays.
Every time I watched Curtis Granderson play, he reminded me of a Jackie Robinson-era 1940s/1950s player. He is not a Hall of Famer like Ken Griffey, Jr., but he always struck me as an exemplar of cool when he played.
Not surprisingly, when I think of cool baseball players, I think of Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders. Two football players.
True! Though I think if you go back to that late 80s/early 90s era, you can find other examples: Rickey Henderson, Gooden/Strawberry, Eric Davis, etc. And then, as Lou Moore wrote, things changed, and baseball did nothing about it.
Your post caused me to do some pondering: who I, as a lifelong baseball fan, think is or was cool as a baseball player in the last 30 years. I have a couple of names, one a Hall of Famer and one not. I give you Ken Griffey, Jr., and Curtis Granderson.
I’m listening to the jazz station WBGO from Newark as I type this and they just played Lazy Bird by John Coltrane. That’s cool, and so was Junior. It was the backwards hat, it was his super smooth swing, his personality - a great heir to the Cool of Mays.
Every time I watched Curtis Granderson play, he reminded me of a Jackie Robinson-era 1940s/1950s player. He is not a Hall of Famer like Ken Griffey, Jr., but he always struck me as an exemplar of cool when he played.