Bud Harrelson was born on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and spent much of his life battling. In the 1973 NLCS, to give a famous example, the Mets and the Reds were tied one game apiece, but in the third game the Mets were up 9-2 (they would eventually win the series in five), and with one out in the top of the 5th, Pete Rose lashed a single. Then Joe Morgan ground into a double play. End of inning. Except as Harrelson was turning the DP at second, Rose came in hard, the two exchanged words and then threw punches. Benches cleared.

Harrelson, it should be added, was not exactly a big man. His 1973 Topps baseball card lists him as 5'11“, 155. Pete Rose, that same year, is listed as 5'11”, 195. The difference is apparent in a photo of the incident:

I always hated Pete Rose because he seemed like a bully to me (cf., Ray Fosse), and this did nothing to discourage that feeling. It also made me like Bud Harrelson all the more. He was small, like me, but he took no shit. The world is full of people like Pete Rose, too stupid or driven (or both) to know what bullies they are, and it's nice when someone who looks like us has grit enough to stand up to them.

He exemplified the shortstops of the era. Ernie Banks came along in the 1950s, hitting homeruns, but he was an anomaly. Robin Yount and then Cal Ripken followed in the 1980s, changing things a bit, and then the triumverate of A-Rod, Jeter and Nomar changed things forever in the 1990s. But when I first started paying attention to the game, in the early 1970s, shortstops were thin, light hitting, and good fielding, and Bud was all of the above. Here's a comparison of the lifetime stats of some of the era's perennial All-Stars, sorted by career homeruns:

Yes, Bud managed just seven career homeruns, didn't slug .300, but among the five had the highest OBP. It's nearly 100 points higher than his batting average.

(BTW, how good of a fielder was Mark Belanger? Look at his career batting splits and then look at his bWAR. That good. Campy's 53.1 bWAR, meanwhile, should be getting him into more Hall of Fame discussions.)

Bud, it turns out, was the starting shortstop for that great 1971 All-Star Game when Reggie Jackson nearly destroyed Tiger Stadium with a homerun, and six future Hall of Famers, all all-time greats, hit homeruns. Here they are in the order of when they went deep: Johnny Bench (2nd inning), Henry Aaron (3rd), Reggie Jackson (3rd), Frank Robinson (3rd), Harmon Killebrew (6th), Roberto Clemente (8th). Split evenly between AL and NL, but the AL homers were all two-run shots and they won it 6-4. A rare victory back then for them. I just love that light-hitting Bud Harrelson was the starting shortstop for this game. If he looked around he saw Bench behind the plate, Willie McCovey at first, and a starting outfield of Henry Aaron, Willie Mays and Willie Stargell. Wow. 

After his death on Thursday, from Alzehimer's complications at age 79, I was reading obits and honorariums, and checking out the images online, including Topps cards, 3-D cards, and Milk Dud images, when I came across Bud on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1970. Look who's at his feet.