AMOS OTIS
(by ED AGNER)
Requested by
Pieman
Because Pieman is a
hundred million-billion-zillion years old and he won some week of our
NOT-HTW dealie – and MOSTLY because I found the totally bitching pic of
Otis with Luke from General Hospital and frickin’ McGyver – I present
to you Amos Joseph Otis. 
The story of
Amos Otis begins as far too many baseball stories do – with the
stupidity of the Mets. Now, granted, starting off a baseball
piece with “the Mets are stupid” is pretty much akin to starting off a
fairy tale with “once upon a time,” but bear with me. Or
not. Whatever. Anyway, the Mets are stupid. That’s
pretty much one of the only certainties in sports life, right behind
“the Raiders are highly penalized” and “the Celtics have some white
players.” But yeah, the Mets are stupid.
So Otis was
drafted in the 5th round of the very first baseball draft (1965 for
those not as ancient as Pieman) by the Boston Red Sox. But Otis
was – and is – black so obviously, the Red Sox drafted him by accident
and thus allowed the Mets to steal him from them after the 1966
season. This would be when Whitey Herzog was running the Mets
farm system. Ergo, this was the period in which the Mets were
less stupid and the system was stocked with talent. Now and
again, even the eternally stupid stumble across lucidity.
So, Otis…Otis
was pretty darned good. And the Mets were loaded with all sorts
of talent in the late-60’s thanks to Herzog. Of course, as has
been the Mets wont over their history, they were loaded with talent
everywhere but…c’mon, you can guess it. That’s right, 3rd
base. And even though Otis was a fleet-footed CF, the Mets got
this crazy idea to make him into a 3rd baseman for the ‘69
season. Remember, these are the Mets. So that worked out as
well as expected, and the experiment was nixed early on, leaving Otis
as a bench player stuck listening to Tom Seaver talk about himself,
watching coach Yogi rub his booboo over the cold cuts in the post-game
spread and cut out of playing in the World Series.
Again, these
are the Mets. They score an improbable World Series win behind a
team with no offense. They have talent in the minors, they have
pitching, they have an aging line-up with no pop. What do you
think they would do? Remember: these are the Mets we’re talking
about. If you say trade a young kid who could cover half of
Queens to Kansas City for Joe Foy, you clearly know your Mets. To
call this a horrible trade, would be a bit of an understatement – it’s
a horrible trade with horrible repercussions as the Mets had to then
replace the horrible Foy with another 3rd baseman…a third baseman by
the name of Jim Fregosi…who cost the Mets Nolan Ryan. And you
thought Omar Minaya was bad.
In
my mind, when I was thinking through this, I kept wanting to start this
by telling a long involved story about how I thought Jerry Reed’s “Amos
Moses” song was really “Amos Otis” and how I thought Otis was a huge
star because of that. But only Dean would get the reference,
probably…if he reads this. And Pieman would get confused by the
Moses reference and think it was the guy who parted the Red Sea with
whom he attended high school. So I’ll just move on.
So on to KC,
where the Royals, full of youngsters and with nowhere to go, just let
Otis play CF every day. And did I mention that Otis was pretty
darned good? Oh yeah. He had speed and pop and could get on
base and, if range stats can be believed, the only thing that covered
more of Kansas City than Otis was boredom and blight. He was an
All Star from 1970-73 and again in ’76. A Gold Glove winner in
’71, ’73 and ’74. And finished in the top ten in MVP voting four
different times.
You could make
a real good argument that Otis was the best CF in the AL throughout the
‘70’s when the Royals made themselves into the class of the AL
West. But of course, Otis was bland to the nth degree. So
while Otis just played excellently, colorful CF’ers like Mickey Rivers
or SCRAPPY CF’ers like Fred Lynn got all the press. Or maybe it
was…all because of…the dreaded…EAST COAST BIAS!!!
Duh-duh-duh! Whatever. Point is, Otis was and is horribly
ignored…except by Pieman…who is just old and forgetful.
And along came
the ‘80s. And while the Royals were finally ready to make the
move to the world championship stage, Otis was old and broken
down. So the man who helped carry the franchise through the 70’s
became more of a secondary figure – though he did have an absolutely
lights out 1980 World Series – until he was forced to peddle his craft
in Pittsburgh to end out his career in 1984. But, that was not
the end for Otis. Oh no. In ’89 Otis partook in the
inaugural – and only – year of the Senior Professional Baseball
Association, where he hit .332 with 11 dongs…and the whole team looked
to Pieman for veteran spark as their number one old-timer fan, telling
them all stories of when he saw the great Cobb play.