Roy Oswalt pitches a gem; Craig Biggio is awesome

The Wizard went 8 innings, allowing only 1 hit, 2 walks, no runs, and striking out 10. Pretty goddamn awesome, especially since he was getting squeezed through the whole game. Roy seems like he's getting back to form. I don't know if it was simply time, a mental thing, or if he went out and got a personal pitching coach, but he has been kickass through his last several starts. Ty Wigginton shot a three-run homer into the Crawford boxes, which accounted for all of Houston's offense. Spaz went 0 for whatever, but he made a pretty spectacular assist with Ausmus at the plate. Valverde came in the ninth, giving up a hit, but getting the save. All around a pretty awesome game.

---------------------

Biggio, of course, was the focus of the day. The ceremony was pretty good, and all of the retired numbers were there, except for Ryan. Bunch of speeches. Everyone talked about his 3000 hits, his doubles, etc. But most of all, they talked about his grit.

I think that's always what happens with players. People seem to want to remember them for things that don't affect the game all that much. Don't get me wrong, the guy was a joy to watch and certainly had grit and was a gamer and all that crap. But I think it's important to remember exactly why he was such an awesome player.

Bill James ranked the best players of the 1990s in his New Historical Baseball Abstract. In it, he placed Bonds at #1. No question, Bonds was the best player of the last two decades. He might have been the best of all time.

#2 (and this always surprises me) was Craig Biggio. James loved the Bidge. And it's easy to see why. Biggio really was a "five tool player." He could hit for average and power, he had a great arm and played spectacular defense, and he displayed remarkable speed.

That speed kept Biggio from grounding into the double play, as did his power. The guy has more doubles than any other right-handed hitter. He won four gold gloves (and deserved it). He had a great ability to get on base, particularly for a guy not spectacularly powerful. And he really knew how to take a pitch to the head. He won five Silver Slugger awards, four as a second baseman and one as a catcher. He had a career high OPS+ of 143, and a career average of 111. He was great - one of the greatest.

Biggio was certainly robbed of a lot of power statistics from his years in the Dome. Had he played in, say, any other ballpark, he likely would be considered one of the greatest of all time by the national media, and here's why: Biggio was only 9 homers away from the 3000 hits, 300 HRs, 300 SB club. If he had played anywhere but the Dome, or if he had played all year in 2000, he would have done it. There's only one other player in all of baseball history to pull that off: Willie Mays. And Biggio had about 80 more stolen bases than Mays, too.In his "Big Book of Baseball Lineups," Rob Neyer wrote that Biggio was "unique." And he meant that in the literal sense. Nobody else has gone from being an all-star catcher to being an all-star middle infielder. That's just not done.

Going by Similarity Scores, Biggio was most similar to Robin Yount. But Bidge has no "truly similar" match. His #3 match, Joe Morgan, is the guy I'd say was most similar, but really there was no one quite like Craig Biggio.

James ranked Bagwell #5 on the Best Players of the 1990s list. The Astros really had a great tandem with the Killer B's. Few teammates in the history of baseball are that great together. The last 15+ years have truly been a great time to be an Astros fan, even with the postseason losses and disappointment. It's a shame that the two had to eventually retire, but they made baseball big in Houston, and did a lot for this city and franchise.

-----------------

So they had about a billion in-game interviews today: Bagwell, Biggio, Bill Doran, and Mike Scott all showed up in the booth. I usually hate that type of crap, but hearing those guys was pretty sweet.

Bagwell gave a pretty great endorsement for Bogusevic. Great ballplayers aren't always great evaluators of talent, but it can't hurt to have one of the greatest hitters ever say that you're looking good at the plate. I hope he gets called up in September.