I‘ve been re-reading some of Joe Posnanski’s thoughts on his top 100 baseball players of all time (he stopped at No. 32, Grover Cleveland Alexander, but promises to get back to it some day: right), and I came across this nice little stat about his No. 54 pick, Rod Carew, who is just ahead of Ernie Banks and just behind Steve Carlton on his list:

Twenty five batters got 75-plus plate appearances against Nolan Ryan. Only one hit .300. Yeah. Rod Carew.

Carew hit .301/.398/.441 off Ryan. The next three in the 75+ group are: Pete Rose (.296), Steven Braun, also of the Twins (also .296) and George Brett (.287). Not a bad group of hitters. 

We get some good background on Carew in the mini-bio. I knew about the train birth, didn't know it was a segregated train, knew about the doctor but not the nurse. I didn't know about the abusive father, nor the high school baseball coach. I knew about the seven batting titles, of course. No mention of Rod Carew trying on my glove. Geez, Poz, dig deeper next time.  

Camera Day, Met Stadium, 1970