One Year Wonder
With baseball's free agent market moving at a snail's pace, and little real news unfolding the last few days, I was searching for a good subject to start the new week.
Checking today's list of baseball birthdays, I came upon the name Aaron Small: if you look up the word "journeyman," you might see his picture next to the entry. After bouncing through six major league organizations, he enjoyed the year of his life with the 2005 Yankees. Between starting and relieving, he was a perfect 10 - 0. But like Cinderella's coach, he reverted to pumpkin status in '06. After running up an ERA around 8-1/2 through 11 appearances, he was sent to the minors, never to surface again -- except at Old Timers Day in the Bronx.
In music, you recognize them for artists with one huge and enduring single, but no others. The term is One Hit Wonders. Steam's "Na Na Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)" comes to mind. How about "Pop Music" by M? Norman Greenbaum, who crafted that classic guitar riff in "Spirit in the Sky." Or The Knack, who seemingly put rock and roll back on the map in the late '70s with "My Sharona."
That led to some thoughts on other baseball One Year Wonders. Like Aaron Small, they had a brief burst of fame, but did not sustain it. So here are a few to think about a month into our off-season:
- Bob "Hurricane" Hazle, who had a ridiculous half-season with the 1957 Braves, where he burst out of nowhere, hit over .400 and joined Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Warren Spahn, Eddie Mathews and Red Schoendienst in bringing Milwaukee its only World Series champions.
- Joe Charboneau smacked 23 homers for the Indians en route to being named the 1980 American Rookie of Years -- but, after a back injury, played just 70 games and hit all of .211 the next two seasons.
- Mark "The Bird" Fidrych roared out of the gate, tossing 12 complete games in his first 13 starts. He grabbed the spotlight in 1976 when he dominated the Yankees in a nationally televised Monday Night game. His 19-9 record and 2.34 ERA made him an easy choice as Rookie of the Year as it appeared the curly haired New Englander was becoming the game's most marketable young star. But it all began to unravel the next season, when a series of injuries wrecked his career. Sadly, he died young, at age 54, when his dump truck overturned on his farm in Massachusetts.
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