Darren Daulton Was the Heartbeat of a Rowdy Phillies Bunch

Curt Schilling has turned into a GOP blowhard with his ill-advised comments costing him jobs and money.
I have a buddy who had a short MLB career. He was DD's backup in 1992 but didn't make the roster the next year. Jeff Grotewold, who in 1992 hit 3 pinch hit home runs in 3 days. He speaks very highly of Darren Daulton as he does of most of his Philly teammates and coaches. Must have been a great collection of guys with camaraderie and character to go from last place to a pennant in one year. Condolences to the family.

What a great piece of writing! It captures all of the joy and heartbreak of baseball--that is, of life--in short compass. Thank you so much for this tribute to a great player and to a unique season. The baseball played back then is dead now, another victim of data crunching and the money men.Baseball reflects our national character more accurately than politics, and it's a pleasure to recall this bunch of "throwbacks"--purists--men "who played the game the way it should be played."

Now doesn't baseball blow away basketball ,football & hockey ..??
Still watch game 6 on you tube....chills...

Saw Dalton absolutely murder a pitch in a spring game against the Yankees in Palm Beach. An absolute cannon shot.

A genuinely fine human being and the conscience and heart of an unlikely team of misfits who in (1993) came together and nearly won it all. I wish Philadelphia had more Daulton's over the years.

God Bless you Dutch. Thank you for the joys, the thrills, the fun along with the disappointments That go with wearing and supporting the red pin stripes. You will always be remembered as one of our favorites (and one of our best) along with the likes of Konstanty and Ennis and Callison and Bowa and Maddox and Utley and Chooch. Not in the skills class of Ashburn, Roberts, Lefty, and Schmidt but equally admired and respected for the leadership and work ethic brought to the game. You stand with the great ball players that define our love and allegiance to the Fightin Phils.

Daulton was good at getting on base. He drew 117 walks in that 1993 season, exceeding his 111 strikeouts and contributing to a terrific on-base percentage of .392. For his career, Daulton batted .245 but had an OBP of .357, an impressive performance.

Dutch liked to party and he was too good looking for his own good when it came to women. He went through a fortune, a lot of it in divorce settlements. he was a fixture on clearwater beach in the spring when the fans came for spring training and there was no one more approachable than he was. he even remembered names of fans from one year to the next and asked about you. He was the furthest thing from a sports prima donna one could find, truly a good guy and that is about the best one philly guy can say about another.

Daulton also had over 100 RBI's in '93 so writer's thesis ain't quite right.

I was sad to learn of Darren Daulton's death. I was surprised to learn that he once led the NL in runs batted in, so I went to Baseball Reference and learned that in that one year (1992), he played in 145 games and drove in 109 runs (just over .75 RBIs per game). Over the remainder of his career (1016 games) he drove in 479 runs (just over .47 RBIs per game). In a career that spanned 14 seasons (and in one of which he played in only two games), he got over 18.5% of his RBIs in that one season.

A similarly anomalous season statistically was the season Roger Maris had in 1961. Maris hit 275 home runs in his 12 years in MLB, but he hit over 22.1% of those home runs in that one season. Maris never hit as many as 40 home runs in any other season.

I would love to read a column from Doug Glanville discussing how a player can have one magic year like this, often in the middle of a long career, with nothing before or after that one season even coming close.