Not at all. You misunderstood my point before, and do so again. I have never said anything about Clark’s whole career; just 1990 onward. People who saw the whole career (story arc) are perfectly positioned to evaluate whatever they want, and I respect whatever opinions they have about whatever they saw. I am not, have not, and will not pretend to comment on the entirety of Will Clark’s career, nor more importantly, on the very real emotional impact he had on his fans. Period, full stop. That knocks out all of Point 1, and the first half of Point 2 (up to the call for stats). People can feel how they feel about Clark (or anyone/anything else), and I will abide. My sole focus is on his post-1990 Giants career, and that is all I have ever commented upon. I state no opinion on the “whole movie.”

As to the stats, you know as well as I do that you’re asking the impossible. There is no such thing as clutch that is discernable by stats, and thus there cannot be any such thing as choke that is discernible by stats. I would never go so far as to call YOU arrogant (or self-righteous, or however you wish), but to say that ONLY statistical support can help reveal some kind of truth is, well, arrogant. And silly. I am not anti-stat by any means. But I’m also capable of coming in 1990 with no emotional attachment to Clark in either direction and discerning stuff about him, IF (a) I see lots and lots of games, (b) am not biased one way or the other about the guy to start with, (c) do my conscious best to correct for all the usual perception biases, and so on.

Hey, you don’t HAVE to agree with my view of the last few years of Clark here, and I have never asked you to do so. But it is absurd to say that I am “self-righteous” for thinking that I might have a clearer view of the guy because I don’t have the intense emotional history that longer-terms fans did have; and it is absurd to say that absence of stats = invalidity. I am 100% entitled to opinions based on my own observations, as are you.

Given that I have never attempted to say anything about the ‘whole movie,’ I don’t think your points address what I have said. And anyway, you know better than most that one actually CAN learn things by taking one scene or one sequence and studying it closely, out of its context of the whole story.

When making the point IN 1991 (or whatever) that Player X sure doesn’t seem to come through much when it matters, to point out something that happened in another year is no answer. Illogical. Fallacious. And more than that, it shows a totally understandable and totally human but nevertheless erroneous emotional filter.

To point out that something in 1989 (past) occurred proves that something I am saying in 1991 in the present tense is wrong is silly, illogical, senseless, whatever. I guess it WOULD make sense if someone mistakes what I am saying – as you have clearly done – as an opinion of Clark’s WHOLE CAREER, but as I have shown, I have never said or even hinted that.

I got those “clutch” stats at Beyond the Box Score, where they make a very persuasive argument that Clark belongs in the Hall of Fame. Personally, I think he falls just short. Which is surprising, since I’m supposedly a biased fanboy unable to separate my unholy man-love for Will Clark from my baseball analysis.

/sarcastic rant

And by the way, I never said anything about Clark on the Cardinals or Rangers or anything else, because I never saw those games nor care.