The 100 Greatest Angels: #41 Fred Lynn

#41 - Fred Lynn, OF

Career Stats

Poem for Fred Lynn
(with apologies to the Scorebard)

When I made the Top 100 Angels list
I didn't want to make people pissed

I had guys like you in mind
Players who had done their time
Played great and maybe won a little in Anaheim

Or back at Wrigley and Chavez Latrine
Accuracy is an improbability or so it seems
And even critics regress to the mean

So for Fred Lynn
Let my apology begin

I will spend the next few days waxing
On lesser talents so don't start faxing
All the stats of your four years
And `82's division title
My blogger's license deserves an axing
There, I said it, begin the arrears
I'm prepared for some spittle

I asked the halosphere
for their lists of a hundred
only the Chronicler, Black Hawk Waterloo, bothered

His list and mine
Entwined
to list the prior sixty Angels in line

Then I made it easier on bloggers holding Angels dear
A ballot of the Entwined Top Forty for them to cast
And suddenly they cried "Where's Fred Lynn?" aghast.

After rationalizing away Messersmith's heaven
And Albie Pearson's bases on balls and even
Bobby Knoop's defense, another inaccurate positioning
leads me, exasperated, to keep the wheels spinning:

After forty five seasons of Angels baseball
We've learned you can't win `em all
Being forty-first is no shame
And I'll shoulder some blame
But the little things force me to tell it like it is:
Fred, that moustache probably cost you ten places on this list.