9 years ago today.....

[Dragonbait]

Something to smile about....

Paul Molitor collects hit #3000.

[jason21nl]

in another uni than the brewers. I love molly, he is in my top 3 of all time. I wish he would have collected his 3000th as a Brewer. I'm very happy though he won a world series

[Dragonbait]

Didnt he win one with the Twins as well?

[Brian the Automator]

Didnt he win one with the Twins as well?

 

No, the Twins won their last WS in 1991.

[GAME05]

my grandmother used to listen to every single Brewer game on the radio, and when Molitor wasn't resigned, she never listened to one after that. scary to think how salaries have jumped that Molitor wasn't resigned because $4 million a year was too expensive.

[Invader3K]

Worst move by the Brewers ever, IMO. You don't let a guy like that walk if you can possibly help it, and they could have.

[moofnelson]

Worst move by the Brewers ever, IMO. You don't let a guy like that walk if you can possibly help it, and they could have.

 

That's because they had the worst GM and the worst owner in baseball at the time. Best move for Molitor, though. He never would have won a ring in Milwaukee.

[dvoiss]

Selig was the cheapest owner in baseball. When I think of how he used to talk about how he loved baseball in Milwaukee and then see what he did to the team it makes me want to vomit. This combined with Bando's incompetence are the reasons we never won anything during the 90s. Letting Molitor walk was their way of saying "I surrender". We haven't won since. Absolutely the worst move in franchise history. No question about it.

[Ennder]

I personally don't think Selig was cheap, he was trying to push his small market agenda so he went out of his way to tank this team. That is much worse than being cheap.

[uecker9]

I wish Uecker and Molitor would do a commercial together. At the end Paul could say, "Hey, that's my line Uke."http://static.yuku.com/v2//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/roll.gif

[davego]

If I remember right, the Crew had just locked up Yount the year before. In effect it was Robin or Paul. As we know long term, Paulie was much more produtive from this point on, however if Yount would have left, the city would have still been smoldering.

 

...and we got the Kevin Reimer Era.

[MNBrew]

At that time, Yount & Molitor were both up for new contracts. Yount's performance was declining, his bat speed was becoming pathetic (I think he only hit about 4 foul balls to left the last half of his last season), and they offered him a raise from his nearly $3M. Molitor was as strong as ever and they low-balled him, maybe somewhere around $1M, from the roughly $3M he had been making. What was Bando's line? "He's only a DH" or something like that? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[hauser42]

I interviewed Molly two weeks before he left for Toronto as he stopped in at UWSP to speech about his time dealing with drugs. He was a great guy the whole time, but my personal feeling was that he was going to be leaving the team the way he was talking to the group of reporters. What was amazing is that he stayed for over and hour to sign autographs for nothing to people that listened to him. They had to drag him out of there to catch his flight. When I think of Molitor it is how he was a class act that day and all his baseball stuff comes secong to me.

[IIAY]

Something to smile about....

 

Paul Molitor collects hit #3000.

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure that Molitor got his 3000th hit on September 16, 1996. I seem to remember thinking it was cool that Molly got to 3000 on Robin's birthday. I believe he stole his 500th base on August 8, 1998.

[patrickgpe]

you are right

 

http://www.brainyhistory.com/events/1996/september_16_1996_174232.html

[Mike Felder]

Yeah...he was "only" a DH...and he was "only" the World Series MVP the very next year after having one of his best offensive seasons. I never forgave Bando for being such an idiot.

[RockCoCougars]

Molitor was as strong as ever and they low-balled him, maybe somewhere around $1M, from the roughly $3M he had been making. What was Bando's line? "He's only a DH" or something like that? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Come on, I think you guys are being too tough on Bando. If he would have given Molitor what he wanted, he wouldn't have had the flexibility to bring Bill Doran, Tom Brunansky, Kevin Reimer, Dickie Thon, and Mike Boddicker into the fold. Those guys were all huge for that '93 team..

One of the problems with Bando is that he was pretty lucky picking veterans off the scrap heap for the 92 season (Seitzer, Fletcher, etc.), and probably thought that he could do it again.

 

[BrewCrewForever]

Yeah...he was "only" a DH...and he was "only" the World Series MVP the very next year after having one of his best offensive seasons. I never forgave Bando for being such an idiot.

Agreed 100%. I will never forgive Bando for letting Molly get away. He still had quite a few good years in him. To bad he didnt collect that 3,000 hit in a Brewer uni. At least he went into the Hall in his Brewers cap.

 

[afeter]

you aren't kidding. Just looked again at his career numbers. His first year in Minnesota after 18 years in the bigs he hit .341 in 660 abs. Wow. I know he was a DH, but i bet ned would have sat him for at least 5-10 games. -- he would have needed rest.

[dvoiss]

Maybe my memory is a little fuzzy but I now remember reading around the time Molitor left that Bando had a grudge against Molitor going back to their days as teammates. I remember Bando helped coach Molly on playing third base when he moved there before the 82 season so maybe theret was some friction there that started it. I also remember Molitor saying he was leaving in part because he was tired of playing for a loser and the Brewers were not trying to win.