(Photo Courtesy Sports Illustrated)

October baseball leaves indelible images in the mind. Close your eyes, let the brisk air fill your lungs and think about the Fall Classic. Let your mind wander around the chill of the emerald diamond. Who do you see? Does short term memory take over and flood your thoughts of Albert Pujols going deep three times as he just did tonight? Or do you harken deeper into the past? Kirk Gibson? Mickey Mantle? Joe Carter? Mr. October himself, Reg-gie Reg-gie Reg-gie Jackson? Power is a part of the picture certainly, but it is defense that often provides the best images. Chris Carpenter’s nose dive (left) to snare Albert Pujols’s errant toss and ride the momentum right to the bag in the first inning of Game One is just the latest in a line of lasting World Series snapshots. The following 13 pages highlight the best defensive moments of the past 70 years. … [visit site to read more]

Comparing Glaus and Wood physically, as Spencer does in his post, seems a bit of a stretch to me. While Glaus is only two inches taller than Wood, he’s got a good 30 pounds on him. Put another way, if these men both decided to go into Mixed Martial Arts, Wood would be a Light Heavyweight, and Glaus would be firmly in the Heavyweight division. Glaus is simply a big guy. Spencer calls him a “tall, rangy shortstop” that was moved to third, but again, this is a bit of a stretch. Since 1998, when Glaus first entered the Angels’ minor league system, he’s played exactly 18 games at SS. Of those 18, only 8 did he actually start the game at SS, and all those were in Toronto in 2006. This was also done mostly when they were facing an NL team, and couldn’t put Glaus in the DH spot, and when a fly ball pitcher was on the mound, giving the SS version of Glaus as few fielding chances as they possibly could.

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