In what seems like a lifetime ago, we had Baby Jordan foisted upon us. Dang, I’m not sure SI and others in the media who got the entire Harold Miner thing so drastically wrong ever saw him play. In his marginal NBA career, his crowning achievement was winning the dunking contest twice, but if anyone thought Michael Jordan was only about the dunk, probably thought Spencer Haywood was only about the hands.

It’s natural that fans and the media are looking for comps. It’s what we do to make sense of players, and teams. We try and make sense of something spectacular, only we forget there are comps for less than great athletes. Sometimes it’s the physicality of an individual and other times it’s performance or gestures. It’s rare that the imitator lives up to the original.

The other day, a sportswriter from the local paper wrote an update of a local kid making good in the White Sox organization. However, he referred to Noah Schultz as a young Randy Johnson. Like the Big Unit, Schultz is a 6’10, left-handed pitcher, but for now that’s where it ends. There have been a handful of dorky 6’10 pitchers since Johnson retired and for obvious reasons they’re going to be compared with Johnson.

Jon Rauch, a 6’11 right might have been the most successful. He had a nice career but fell 260 wins short of Randy’s 303 career wins. That he had more of an NBA body than any others rendered him a little less dorky (awkward).

Back in 1998, the original Little Unit, Ryan Anderson at the ripe old age of 18, had his biggest moment in his professional baseball career. Anderson was a 6’10, lefty prospect with Johnson’s Seattle Mariners. Earlier in the season, Kerry Wood stuck out 20 Astros batters in a game. Johnson also was traded to the Astros and pitched exceptionally well,

That Anderson’s big moment occurred in a Low-A playoff game shows how difficult it is to replicate greatness. Friend Tom and I made the 90+ mile journey to Rockford to see Anderson and the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers face Mike Meyers and the Cubbies.

In the era of legit pitching duels, Meyers and Anderson exceeded expectations. The T-Rats only managed 2 hits in 6 innings. At the same time the Cubbies were more feeble-not getting any hits off Anderson for 6 innings. More impressively, the Little Unit struck out 18 batters in 8+ innings. For the next few years, he lived (not basked) in the shadow of Johnson. He reached AAA in 2000 as a 20-year-old and was out of baseball moments later. He attempted a comeback in 2005 in the Brewers organization.

If and when Schultz reaches the big leagues, he’ll draw comparisons to Johnson because of his height. It would be nice if he were to operate at his own rate and be judged on his performance, but that’s not likely as too many people take the lazy route.

I’m attaching the scorecard from that game in ’98. Unfortunately, I scored in pencil back in the day, but I could still read it. Also included is the cover of the game notes.

Editor’s note: Meyers, a year older than Anderson pitched in the minors for 9 seasons-making it as far as AAA. He posted a 59-38 record. The next game’s starter for Wisconsin was Gil Meche, who had a 10-year ML career.

Coincidentally, I did make it up to Wisconsin yesterday and saw the T-Rats host the Quad Cities River Bandits-post coming tomorrow.