Baseball BeatAugust 09, 2004
RWBB Hooks Up With Redbird Nation
By Rich Lederer

I took a weekend off from writing Part Six of The Bill James Baseball Abstract reviews in order to co-author a magazine-length article on Jim Edmonds with Brian Gunn of Redbird Nation. The Most Under Over Underrated Player in Baseball was appropriately published on the best Cardinals website in the baseball blogosphere.

That’s Jim Edmonds for you – one of the most mercurial players in the game, and perhaps the only one to catch grief for being both under-emotional and over-emotional. He’s been called, variously, a showboat, a stud, a lazybones, a workhorse, a whiner, a powerhouse, an overachiever, an underachiever, you name it. But let us submit to you one label you almost never hear in relation to Jim Edmonds: Hall of Famer.

Hall of Famer? Jim Edmonds? The guy who’s finished in the top ten in MVP balloting exactly once? The player who’s never led the league in any hitting category, who’s not even halfway to 3,000 hits, who has fewer career homers than Kent Hrbek? Is that the Cooperstown Jimmy Edmonds you’re talking about?

Collaborating with an outstanding writer like Brian was a very enjoyable experience for me, similar to the joint effort All-Baseball colleague Alex Belth and I created last February when we wrote an article on Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter (The Odd Couple) for Alex's Bronx Banter.

If you haven't already done so, I recommend you check out both of these articles. Who's better? Bernie or Jimmy? I'm torn between the two myself, but I'm beginning to believe that Edmonds may end up with the superior career.

[Additional reader comments and retorts at Baseball Primer.]

Comments

Hi! I am a Rebird Nation regular and love the article on Jim Edmonds. Very good. I like what I see here, too. Thanks!

Thanks for the nice comments, PJ. I'm glad you like what you see, and I hope you keep coming back.