ChangeUp
Bill Buckner was a lot more than one play, so let's remember that
Written By Jason Foster
@ByJasonFoster
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Bill Buckner was much more than one play. Obviously.
But because we sometimes demonize failures rather than celebrate successes, you might not know that. While Buckner's name will be forever associated with his walk-off error in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, it's beyond silly to reduce him to that. Like every athlete, Buckner, who died Monday at age 69, deserves to have his on-field successes celebrated. So this is a column about those successes, a celebration of a 22-year MLB career that was better than a lot of people realize.
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— Bill Buckner got at least one at-bat in four different decades: the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s, and was one of only five players to play in a game in the '60s and the '90s.
— He accumulated 2,715 hits, which is 66th all-time and ahead of Hall of Famers including Ted Williams, Jimmie Foxx, Tim Raines and Ernie Banks.
— Buckner finished with 498 career doubles, twice leading the league in that category (1981, 1983) and hitting 30 or more eight times, including a career high of 46 in 1985.
— He drove in 100 or more runs three times, including 110 in 1985.
— He won the 1980 NL batting title with a .324 average, and finished at .300 or better six other times.
— He made the NL All-Star team in 1981.
— Four times Buckner led the league in at-bats per strikeout, peaking at 32.1 in 1980, and had six other top-three finishes. In fact ...
— Buckner had 10,037 plate appearances and struck out just 4.5 percent of the time.
— He received MVP votes in two different decades, with the last occurrence coming eight years after the first.
— In Game 7 of the 1986 World Series, two days after the unfortunate play that still defines his legacy for many, Buckner pushed aside the scorn, got two hits and scored a run for the Red Sox.
— Buckner had the best view of Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run as it sailed over the fence in Atlanta on April 8, 1974. He was the Dodgers' left fielder that night, and he made a brief effort to scale to fence to retrieve the historic ball.
— In the famous May 23, 1979, slugfest between the Phillies and Cubs, a game in which Dave Kingman hit three homers and Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt hit two, it was Buckner who led both teams with seven RBIs.
— The final home run of his career, coming in 1990 at age 40, was a standup inside-the-park homer at Fenway Park.
It's unfair that one play, or one moment, can define a player, with the rest of his career becoming almost an afterthought. And even though history — and baseball talk in general — was kinder to Buckner in his later years than it was a decade or two prior, and even though he had a nice sense of humor about his post-1986 reputation, there was a lot of appreciation that went largely un-bestowed in the final 33 years of his life. But it doesn't have to be that way forever.
So when you think of Bill Buckner, remember his successes too. Because he gave us a lot to remember.