Greatness isn’t always assured.
We’ve seen countless cases of baseball players with all the talent in the world cut down in their prime by bad luck, or an uncooperative body — any number of things stand between these guys and their potential. Sometimes though, for just a moment — a handful of seasons even — a player catches lightning in a bottle, seizes his time, and forces himself by sheer will into the record books (or at least the genetic memory of a franchise).
This is the case with Al Rosen.
One of just a few men who could ever call themselves a world champion in a Cleveland uniform (and one of only three to be named Most Valuable Player), for a scant three seasons Rosen was simply as good as they come.