My brother sent this to me in the middle of the night and at first I thought there was an emergency. Like a baby fell out of a crib or he needed help with a spare tire kinda situation. But actually turns out the big guy Babaganoosh just wanted to feed me some content for the blog after a long night of legal work. And it’s in these select moments that I do not regret dropping out of law school with 18 credit hours left but I digress. They’re called select moments for a reason.
Anyways.
Rod Dibble is still alive and that’s awesome because I handicapped it to a coin flip. The early 90’s were some of the hardest years on baseball players and we’ve unfortunately already lost too many too soon.
Rod Dibble is still going and so is his story.
He was a menace when he broke into the league and stayed that way for a long time.
His first 5 years in the league give me a Carlos Marmol vibe
570 strikeouts in 409 innings is a Hall of Fame worthy pace. So is 282 hits against 309 innings. Those are really impressive reliever numbers but difficult to sustain.
He ultimately tore his rotator cuff which triggered a massive decline. And then he ended up starting a broadcasting career with Dan Patrick and then spotting on The Best Damn Sports Show. Or something like that? Honestly it was a long time ago and I shouldn’t pretend to remember this off the top of my head. I’m deep into wikipedia right now trying to piece familiarity together. The fact I can smell or sense it should be enough, so just trust me when I say he’s not dead right now. He actually did some sports media stuff back when it was cool to be a funny retired player.
Did Kevin Millar ruin it for everyone?
I want to revisit that topic later.
For now I thought you guys would enjoy the Rod Dibble compilation for no other reason than 90’s closers are some of the coolest guys in sports history. Other contenders:
- late 80’s/early 90’s linebackers
- Late 90’s centers (NBA)
- 2010’s wide receivers
- 1970’s third basemen
- 1960’s eastern European goalkeepers (Cold War peak)
- 2000’s noseguards and defensive tackles
- 1980’s first basemen
I think those are the best eras of positions, and I think every single one of them takes a back seat to closers in the 90’s. And obviously that includes Rod Dibble.