Quote:
Originally Posted by Exhibitman
As for Raines, he was unfortunate enough to play for mostly crappy teams
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I hate to nitpick (well, OK really I love to), but this statement is the complete opposite of reality. Throughout his career he was almost always on winning teams.
He spent the first 12 seasons of his career with the Expos (1979 to 1990), during which time the team only had two seasons with losing records (1984 and 1986, and even then they were close to 500). While they only made the playoffs once in that time frame they were constant contenders and had a lot of 2nd place finishes - they were arguably one of the best teams in the NL throughout the 80s (though they didn't get much attention for it), hardly a "crappy" team.
Then he spent the next 5 seasons with the White Sox, in 4 of which the Sox had winning seasons including 2 first place finishes.
Then three seasons with the Yankees, in every one of which they made the playoffs and in two of which they won the World Series.
Then he had two more part time seasons with a few teams, some of which were crappy, but are hardly significant parts of his career.
Really he played most of his career for great teams, but for various reasons he was either a big fish in a little pond (his Expos years) or a little fish in a big pond (his Yankees days) so he didn't get the spotlight much.