Where have you gone, Don Slaught

In which I discuss a Pirate of the past and why I loved or hated them so much. I'm not actually trying to find them.

It was hard not to love the Pirates' catching platoon in the early '90s. Spanky and Sluggo. Slaught was the short half of the platoon when Mike LaValliere was in town, but he was always my favorite of the two. It may have had something to do with the fact that he was definitely a better hitter, but when my Minor League (that was the 8-10 year-old machine-pitch league back in the day where I'm from, Joseph's Paint rocked the house) made me the catcher and started calling me Sluggo it definitely sealed the deal.

If any of you have Bill James' historical abstract (and I'm betting at least a few of you have it), Sluggo is in the top 100 (I don't recall where exactly and my copy is in Pittsburgh at the moment) and James makes the comment that had he played anywhere but catcher, he'd probably have turned into a really good hitter. Instead, he stayed as a catcher and had to deal with limited playing time his entire career because of his rather poor skills behind the plate. Don Slaught has paved the way for Neil Walker's move to third base.

Slaught really was a good hitter in his limited duty for the Pirates. In 1990 he hit .300/.375/.457 and in 1992 he hit .345/.384/.482. In fact, that 1992 year for Slaught brought up one of the things that I remember driving me the most insane about Jim Leyland; his devotion to the platoon at that time in his career. He only got Slaught 285 PAs with that great line in 1992 even with Spanky batting .256/.350/.328. In the 1992 NLCS, Sluggo 4-for-12 with a double and a homer, drawing six walks, scoring five times, and driving in five runs. Still, Leyland used a straight platoon and started LaValliere in Game 7. Oh well.