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Top Juniors in the Pros
Here's the first of two special features this year. The exploits of Stanley Edleman, as well as Chiba's notable if relatively muted successes, make it appropriate to consider how well top juniors players have done in the professional circuit.
Starting 10 years prior(so the players in question can have at least reached the later stages of their prime), I went back and looked at 25 years of junior #1s. How predictive is that of pro success? Below are the top rankings achieved by these 25 during their careers.
** World #1s -- 2
** 2-5 -- 3
** 6-10 -- 3
** 11-16 -- 1
** 17-32 -- 4
** 33-50 -- 5
** 50+ -- 6
One caveat here: there is some of this that is due to management dropping guys. Certainly a number of these could do better than they did, but that's an issue that sort of cuts both ways. Part of the reason some of them were dropped is that they weren't suitable to be top pros and people wanted someone different/better.
A particularly interesting case is that of American Tommy Day, who was the #1 junior two years running in '35-'36. He had a good manager until the time he was 25, then bounced around between various incompetents during his prime, with a career-best of just 71st. I found another player who never even got a single professional ranking point, which is just plain stupid all the way around.
There are some notable successes. I well remember Perry Hogue, who was #1 in the world briefly in a fairly strong era and a regular Top-5 guy -- and he did have a quick aging factor at 103%. Mugur Kinczllers reached #5 a while later. Current player Jake Jolland got to #8. Other top players:
** Mick Elder, who was a slow-developer and I was quite shocked that he was a top junior.
** Gael Graff, a name that is a real blast from the past and one the best ever to not reach #1. He was second behind Gorritepe for years, much like Fangio now.
Bottom line with these players is that anything can happen. Well-handled they can still have a strong, if usually somewhat abbreviated, professional career. If not, they can completely drop off the map. Edleman I would say has a good chance to become a Top 10 player ... beyond that depends on how the wind blows really.
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