Diamond Jay😎👨🏻‍🦼🇺🇸🇮🇱

"Thurman Munson would have been the greatest catcher of all-time had God not called him to heaven too soon. Still, two World Series Championships, seven All-Star teams and bringing the Bronx Bombers back to Yankee glory, after more than a decade’s absence, can’t be ignored." Tony Castro. "Thurman Munson was a guy who played hard every single day, every at bat. He was rough and tough but he was a friend to everybody on the team. He recognized that everybody around him was a working part of his team. When I played against him, he’d tell me to loosen up and would give me hitting tips. I regretted that I never had the opportunity to tell him what I wanted to tell him: That I loved him as a man and as a teammate." Rick Dempsey. "There was no greater rivalry in the ’70s. It was real hatred. Carlton Fisk hated Thurman Munson. Munson hated Fisk. Everyone hated Bill Lee." Don Zimmer. "The resurgence of the Yankees as winners was due to one man’s efforts in particular, and that man was Thurman Munson." Carlton Fisk. “Four of the top five catchers of All-Time were born in 1947: Bench, Fisk, Boone, and Munson.” Bill James. In my HOF!!!

"Joe Jackson remembers "a spraddle-legged hitter who looked good" whom Joe taught to change his tactics to pivot hitting. "He's the only fellow I ever tried to convert to the style who jumped onto the ideas in a minute. He was a young fellow named Babe Ruth who wanted to learn." Boston Globe, 1932. "I copied Shoeless Joe Jackson's style because I thought he was the greatest hitter I had ever seen, the greatest natural hitter I ever saw. He's the guy who made me a hitter." Babe Ruth. In my HOF!!!

"Ron Guidry is not very big, maybe 140 pounds, but he has an arm like a lion." Jerry Coleman. "Ron Guidry is 5 feet 11 inches tall and he weighs 162 pounds; He looks like an alter boy with a mustache. It is almost impossible to accept that his scrawny body is capable of generating a 92-mile-per-hour fastball, but that is how Ron Guidry's heat comes at a hitter." Tony Kornheiser. Ron Guidry started 323 games; Sandy Koufax, 314. Guidry’s lifetime W-L is 170-91; Koufax’s, 165-87. Guidry’s lifetime WAR is 47.8; Koufax’s, 48.9. In Guidry’s 25-3 1978 season, Guidry had a WHIP under one (.946), made 35 starts with sixteen complete games while pitching 278 innings, earned team records for lowest ERA for a lefty (1.74), most strikeouts (248), highest win percentage (.893), and most shutouts (9). Ron Guidry won the Cy Young Award, along with another World Series ring, and it`s a statistical ringer for Koufax’s stupendous 25-5 1963 season. Before you bring up Ron Guidrys higher ERA consider the fact that Koufax pitched in the era of the of the 15 inch mound, though it is widely recognized that the Dodgers home field and other teams had a 20" mound because the rule at that time wasn't strictly enforced as opposed to the 10" mound Guidry threw from. From the 1968, 15" mound season to the 1969, 10" mound season, the MLB average era rose a half a run, the approximate difference between Koufaxs and Guidrys career era. George Steinbrenner wanted to leave Ron Guidry unprotected in the 1976 expansion draft, so he could protect veteran reliever Grant Jackson. Yankee GM Gabe Paul begged him to protect Ron Guidry instead. Steinbrenner relented, but told Paul: "It’s on your head', if Guidry didn’t work out." Ron Guidry is in my HOF!!!