Appreciate Garret Anderson's greatness – even if late Angels star strived to lay low

Yahoo Sports12h ago10 min readOriginal source →

TL;DR

Garret Anderson, a late Angels star, had a remarkable 17-year career while avoiding the spotlight. He was instrumental in the Angels' 2002 World Series win and consistently produced impressive statistics.

Key points

Garret Anderson had a 17-year MLB career.
He helped the Angels win the 2002 World Series.
Anderson recorded 1,146 hits from 1998 to 2003.
He preferred to avoid the spotlight during his career.

Mentioned in this story

Derek JeterTodd Helton

Garret AndersonAnaheim AngelsWorld Series 2002San Francisco Giants

It would be a bit much to call Garret Anderson the last of his kind. That would draw too much attention to a guy who ducked the spotlight at every turn.

Anderson’s 17-year career is an almost perfect statement of both his greatness and his ability to deflect any attention toward his simple and highly trained focuses: His family, his commitment to play every single day, his ability to rake better than almost any other player in one of the game’s most potent offensive eras.

Looking for a guy who broke open Game 7 of the World Series with a bases-clearing double? That would be Anderson, whose rope into the right field corner off Livan Hernández launched the Anaheim Angels to their only World Series title in 2002, over Barry Bonds’ San Francisco Giants.

How about a player whose metronomic production churned out 1,146 hits between 1998 and 2003, trailing only Hall of Famers Derek Jeter and Todd Helton?

Garret Anderson and the Angels won the World Series in 2002.

A Home Run Derby champion? An All-Star MVP? That was Anderson in 2003, where he outdueled Albert Pujols in the Derby finals.

Anderson, who died stunningly at 53, was a doubles hitter in an era defined by the long ball. He hit 261 of them in that glorious peak from 1998 to ’03, second in that span and again sandwiched by Hall of Famers in Helton and Jeff Kent.

Of course, all the while Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and eventually Bonds were re-defining the home run record books, shrinking ballparks and commanding attention in a manner that didn’t seem real. (It mostly was not).

Garret Anderson stats only tell part of the story

Which made it all the easier for Anderson to avoid the radar like he avoided the injured list for so long. He ranks 50th all-time in two-baggers, accounting for 522 of his 2,529 hits – a highly impressive hit total yet also just shy of serious Hall of Fame consideration.