The 2000 Nomar Garciaparra card holds a special place in our Illowa APBA League. He’s the only player to hit .400 in our league ever when he did it with a .412 average in 2001.
With Boston in real life, he fared pretty well too. He hit .372 with 21 homers and 51 doubles. He scored 104 runs and narrowly missed the century mark in rbis knocking in 96.
| Split | G | GS | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 Totals | 140 | 137 | 599 | 529 | 104 | 197 | 51 | 3 | 21 | 96 | 5 | 61 | 50 | .372 | .434 | .599 |
With his plentiful doubles, he had no troubles getting five power numbers receiving 1-0-0-0-0. On top of that, he got two 7s and four 8s putting his last 7 at 15 and his last 9 at 64. When we were playing against Nomar in the IAL is seemed the hit numbers were everywhere!
I just noticed that Garciaparra came in ninth in the MVP voting that year. Here’s how they ranked and some of their hitting stats (you can look up Pedro’s pitching stats):
| Voting Results | Batting Stats | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Tm | Vote Pts | 1st Place | G | AB | R | H | HR | RBI | ||||
| 1 | Jason Giambi | OAK | 317.0 | 14.0 | 152 | 510 | 108 | 170 | 43 | 137 | .333 | .476 | .647 |
| 2 | Frank Thomas | CHW | 285.0 | 10.0 | 159 | 582 | 115 | 191 | 43 | 143 | .328 | .436 | .625 |
| 3 | Alex Rodriguez | SEA | 218.0 | 4.0 | 148 | 554 | 134 | 175 | 41 | 132 | .316 | .420 | .606 |
| 4 | Carlos Delgado | TOR | 206.0 | 0.0 | 162 | 569 | 115 | 196 | 41 | 137 | .344 | .470 | .664 |
| 5 | Pedro Martinez | BOS | 103.0 | 0.0 | 29 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| 6 | Edgar Martinez | SEA | 97.0 | 0.0 | 153 | 556 | 100 | 180 | 37 | 145 | .324 | .423 | .579 |
| 6 | Manny Ramirez | CLE | 97.0 | 0.0 | 118 | 439 | 92 | 154 | 38 | 122 | .351 | .457 | .697 |
| 8 | Darin Erstad | ANA | 94.0 | 0.0 | 157 | 676 | 121 | 240 | 25 | 100 | .355 | .409 | .541 |
| 9 | Nomar Garciaparra | BOS | 66.0 | 0.0 | 140 | 529 | 104 | 197 | 21 | 96 | .372 | .434 | .599 |
| 10 | Derek Jeter | NYY | 44.0 | 0.0 | 148 | 593 | 119 | 201 | 15 | 73 | .339 | .416 | .481 |
Knowing what we know now, the vote might turn out different… or maybe it wouldn’t. I’m not sure if Nomar deserves the MVP but I’m surprised that a good fielding shortstop who won the batting title and had great gap power didn’t end up higher.
One more note: Garciaparra didn’t play third base or first base for which he is rated on this card that was published in 2010. It wasn’t until 2005 when he took on the hot corner position for the Cubs. The next year, he played a few a first for LA for the first time.
Thanks Pastor Rich for the suggestion!
As always Tom, you’re very welcome.