Hall of Fame | The Baseball Zealot

Hall of Fame election tidbits

The baseball bloggers of the SB Nation affiliates held their own Hall of Fame balloting and the results are in. If they were in charge, only one player would get in and that player was a bit of a surprise… Bert Blyleven.

Don’t get me wrong… I’ve been a Blyleven supporter for years. I just would have expected more support for Alomar or Larkin. My guess is that there was a bit of the “not getting in the first year” element factoring in.

There’s a shared document which has a list of 50 or so (and growing) BBWAA writers and their publicly announced Hall of Fame ballots.

It’s a small sample size of course but I’m heartened to see a good portion of votes going to Andre Dawson (at this moment out of 53 listed, 41 are supporting his induction).

Maybe it’s me but it seems like there’s a bigger push for Edgar Martinez among a few for the Hall.

More support for Dawson from Hal Bodley, senior correspondent for mlb.com who goes on to say that he thinks that this will be (or maybe more accurately “should be”) the year for Dawson and Blyleven. His ballot: Dawson, Blyleven, Alomar and Jack Morris.

and it wouldn’t be Hall of Fame ballot time unless a writer wasn’t defending his ballot, right. Only it seems now they’re doing earlier and earlier before the official announcement.

Andre Dawson: In or out?

The Chicago Tribune has announced who their seven major sports writers support for the 2010 baseball Hall of Fame ballot. Aggregately, the seven of them would vote in Roberto Alomar and Andre Dawson.

Dawson has always been on the bubble when it came to the Hall. It didn’t help that he had 438 homeruns short of the (what used to be) the magical number to get in, (whether or not you like that litmus test. I don’t) It also doesn’t help that he played for a team that doesn’t exist anymore and another that for the most part was mediocre (Dawson did his part winning the MVP for the last place 1987 Cubs).

Hopefully, this is his year. If you really want to see him in the Hall, you can help push for his election by joining Cubcast’s Twitter blitz aptly named #Dawson4theHall. More info on their website.

Dawson may have an uphill battle, though. Seems to me that the BBWAA is becoming more selective in recent years, with the possible exception of Bruce Sutter (sorry Sutter fans, I liked him too).

But mostly in the ‘00s, they’ve only voted in the creme de la creme, something the Veterans Committee should perhaps look into. In 2009, it was Rice (long time comin’) and Henderson (shoo-in). In 2008, Gossage. In 2007, two obvious choices in Ripken and Gwynn. Others in this decade: Boggs, Sandberg, Eckersley, G. Carter, Eddie Murray, Ozzie Smith. Kirby Puckett.

Ok, there WAS Mazeroski. *snicker*

As far as his legacy is concerned, Dawson can be thankful he was picked up by the Chicago Cubs in 1987 after playing eleven years with the now defunct Montreal Expos . He was 32 years old and played only six years for Chicago but recently the Cub faithful have really taken up his cause for the Hall with a vengeance. See the above Twitter effort as an example.

Point is, as much as I like Dawson (and I do, being a Cub fan. Besides being a good player, he had a pretty cool WGN theme song based around him), it might be a tough row to hoe.

PS I couldn’t think of it at the time but the song was “Andre’s Army”.

Manager Connie Mack

connie-mack-hof-1 Here is another fact off my tear-off White Sox trivia calendar. Who holds the record for most years as a Major League manager? Connie Mack (53 years)

He is the longest-serving manager in MLB history, holds records for wins (3,731), losses (3,948), & games managed (7,755), with his victory is almost 1,000 wins more than any other manager. Mack was the manager of the Philadelphia Athletics for the club’s first fifty years before retiring at the age of 87 in 1950.

Connie played eleven years (10 in the NL & one in the Players League) in the major leagues, as a light hitting catcher, .245 career average. He hit five home runs in 2,931 at bats, three in 1888, when he sacrificed average for power, batting only .187 (his only season below .200). His best season as a player was in the Players League in1891 when he batted .266 with12 triples, he was HBP 20 times. His last three seasons as a player, were also his first three as a manager, as he was the Pittsburgh Pirates player/manager (even back then they were trying to save money).

Mack wanted men who were self-directed, self-disciplined, and self-motivated; his ideal player was Eddie Collins. As a manager, he won nine pennants and appeared in eight World Series, winning five.

Over the course of his career he had three pennant-winning teams. His original team, with players like Rube Waddell, Ossee Schreckengost, and Eddie Plank, won the pennant in 1902 and 1905, losing the 1905 World Series to the New York Giants. During that season, New York’s manager John McGraw said that Mack had “a big white elephant on his hands” with the Athletics. Mack adopted a white elephant as the team’s logo, which the Athletics still use today.

As his first team aged, Mack acquired a core of young players to form his second great team, which featured Mack’s famous “$100,000 infield” of Eddie Collins, Home Run Baker, Jack Barry, and Stuffy McInnis. These Athletics, captained by catcher Ira Thomas, won the pennant in 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914, beating the Cubs in the World Series in 1910 and beating the Giants in 1911 and 1913, and losing to the Boston Braves in 1914.

That team was dispersed due to financial problems, from which Mack did not recover until the twenties, when he built his third great team. The 1927 Athletics may have been the best second-place team in history, featuring several future Hall of Fame players including veterans Ty Cobb, Zack Wheat, and Eddie Collins as well as players in their prime such as Mickey Cochrane, Lefty Grove, Al Simmons, and rookie Jimmie Foxx. That team won the pennant in 1929, 1930, and 1931, beating the Chicago Cubs in the World Series in 1929 and beating the St. Louis Cardinals in 1930, and losing to the Cardinals in 1931.

The Veterans Committee voted Connie Mack into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937.

Cap Anson – Was also a Racist

anson On my tear-off White Sox calendar today was the question, "Whose Hall of Fame plaque begins with the words: GREATEST HITTER AND GREATEST NATIONAL LEAGUE PLAYER-MANAGER OF THE 19TH CENTURY"? Answer: Cap Anson

Here’s more on Anson from wikipedia…

Anson was well known to be racist and refused to play in exhibition games versus dark-skinned players. This attitude was not considered unusual in his day, and Anson remained very popular in Chicago while playing for the White Stockings. On August 10, 1883 Anson refused to play an exhibition game against the Toledo Blue Stockings because their catcher, Moses Fleetwood Walker, was African American When Blue Stockings Manager Charlie Morton told Anson the White Stockings would forfeit the gate receipts if they refused to play, Anson backed down. On July 14, 1887 the Chicago White Stockings played an exhibition game against the Newark Little Giants. African American George Stovey was listed in the Newark News as the Little Giants’ scheduled starting pitcher. Anson objected, and Stovey did not pitch. Moreover, International League owners had voted 6-to-4 to exclude African-American players from future contracts. In September 1888 Chicago was at Syracuse for an exhibition game. Anson refused to start the game when he saw Walker’s name on the scorecard as catcher. Again, Anson pressured his opponents to find a Caucasian replacement.

HOFers Interesting Baseball Facts

ty-cobb-hof-1 I have a tear-off White Sox calendar, here are some interesting facts I came across recently regarding Hall of Famers that I thought I’d share with you.

1) Bruce Sutter is the only player in the Hall of Fame never to have started a game.

2) Ty Cobb hit nine homers 100 years ago in 1909, to lead the AL with long balls (the only time he topped the Junior Circuit in home runs), he also had the highest batting average .377, 107 RBIs were also tops, his only Triple Crown. Cobb also was tops with 76 SBs, 216 hits, 116 runs scored, .431 OBP, .517 SLG, .947 OPS, 194 OPS+, & 296 total bases, not a bad day at the office.

In 21 seasons with the White Sox, pitcher Ted Lyons won 260 games, faced Ty Cobb and Ted Williams, hurled a no-hitter, and pitched a 21 inning complete game loss. He later managed the club for two seasons. In 1955, Lyons was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Comparing catchers

Mike, our commissioner in the Illowa APBA League sent this out to our members and it generated a fair amount of discussion.

“Can you identify these catchers. Which ones are in the Hall of Fame?”

Player Avg HR RBI Runs

# 1 .285 248 1389 1074

# 2 .262 324 1225 1025

# 3 .269 376 1330 1276

# 4 .308 427 1335 1048

Mike, is a Cardinals fan so he had an agenda behind this all. Two are in the HOF, one is waiting, and the other, in Mike’s eyes, is unfairly being denied entry to the hallowed halls.

Yeah, you guessed it, it’s former Cardinal Ted Simmons who is #1 on the above list. The question of the day is Does Ted Simmons who also spent time with the Brewers and the Braves, belong in the Hall of Fame?

By the way, the others listed are #2- Gary Carter, #3- Carlton Fisk, and #4- Mike Piazza.

Per the Simmons question and comparing hitting only, he holds his own against the other three with the stats provided. Yes, the dinger stats are down but the batting average and run production is comparable if not better.

So why the hate on Mr Simmons? He has plenty of supporters. Fungoes, a Cardinals blog with a SABR bent, puts Simmons second on their list of best Cardinals not in the Hall of Fame. Our dear commissioner, dogmatic fan that he is, would probably rank him over Bench.

Well, there’s the defense issue. Simmons had an reputation problem with the glove. While reports say that earlier in his career he had trouble, in reality, he was an AVERAGE fielding catcher. But in an age where every catcher was being compared to Johnny Bench and you’re the only decent alternative to him (read: backup in the All-Star game), people are going to look at your weaknesses.

Maybe a question for time: Mike Piazza- First ballot Hall of Famer? Hall of Famer at all?

Does Little Poison belong in the Hall?

Last weekend, I made the mistake of questioning whether Lloyd Waner should be in the Hall of Fame with a die-hard Pirate fan in the room.

THAT was met with silence, I can tell you.

Do a Google search on Hall of Fame and overrated and Lloyd Waner is all over the place.

So here are a couple links to prove I’m not the only one.

Baseball Think Factory’s Merit Discussion on Lloyd Waner

A more thoughtful critique on Lloyd Waner by What the Hall

uh-oh… now Dave Parker is talking in the third person

Dave Parker couldn’t hold it in when he found out he didn’t pass muster in this year’s Hall of Fame election.

Part of his rant (my emphasis):

“What I represented to my teams also should be considered,” Parker said. “I was always the guy or one of the guys. It seems like none of that is taken into consideration.

“I think it’s gonna take a (public relations) campaign to really bring to the light that this guy was a heck of a player.”

Parker didn’t come close to the 75% vote in the 2009 ballot. He garnered just 15% of the writer’s votes.

Was Dwight Evans HOF good?

Tonight, I ran across Baseball Hall Monitor’s latest post on Jim Rice. They state:

Rice’s teammate on the Red Sox, Evans has more career HRs than Rice, more runs scored, a higher on-base percentage and nearly as many hits and RBI. Oh, and Evans won eight Gold Gloves to Rice’s zero. But you can’t vote for Evans anymore, since he was dropped from the ballot in 2000 for lack of support.

It’s a compelling argument and I don’t necessarily disagree. Honestly, I didn’t know Evans’ stats compared that well.

My guess for Rice’s appeal is the intimidation factor. Rice hit 35+ homeruns four times back when 35 homeruns really meant something. He can also point to his mantle and right there is his MVP award from 1978.

Evans offensive stats were gathered over a longer period of time (20 seasons to Rice’s 16). That doesn’t discount it in any way at all but it does mean for less impact per year. Ironically, Evans’ most productive year came at the advanced age of 35 when he hit 34 homers and drove in 123 runs.

Was Evans HOF material? It’s a moot point since we’re too late to vote him in now. But considering that Evans’ and Rice’s OPS+ are within 1 point of each other plus add to that Evans’ defensive value, it would have been close.

On the other hand, comparing players for the Hall of Fame is a slippery slope. If you start playing this game instead of holding players up to a certain standard (most likely standardized to their era), it could never end. Then you could end up inducting players like Mark Grace and Greg Vaughn.

thoughts?

Upon Further Review Joe Deserves HOF Nod

Hall of Fame Gordon Baseball A while back I wrote a controversial piece, saying the Veteran’s Committee got it wrong, and Joe Gordon didn’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. Well I’m not too big to admit it when I made a mistake, and boy, did I ever make one here! Here is why I changed my mind.

Nine of Gordon’s eleven years in the majors, he was an All Star. In 1942 he won the AL MVP Award over Triple Crown winner, Ted Williams. He was arguably the best secondbaseman of the forties. Known for his acrobatic defense, he led the AL in assists four times and in double plays three times. He was the first AL second baseman to hit 20 home runs in a season, doing so seven times, and holds the league mark for career HRs at second base (246), Joe held the single season mark until 2001. Gordon’s 25 home runs as a rookie set an AL record for second basemen which stood until 2006. All of these accomplishments were achieved with the heart of career yanked out, as he went off to fight a war for two years, when he was 29 & 30, in the prime of his career.

After the war Joe had his worst season with the Yankees before being shipped off to Cleveland, batting .210, with 11 HRs, & 47 RBIs, in only 112 games played. With the Indians Gordon rebounded to find his game, hitting 29 HRs & 93 RBIs in 1947. Then in 1948, teaming with DP partner Lou Boudreau, to make the Cleveland Indians World Series Champions, leading the team in HR’s (32) & RBIs (124).

One of the big reasons for my change of heart comes from the MLB Network. I got a chance to see some film of him playing the game, AMAZING! Congratulations to HOFer Joe Gordon, a deserving recognition that was long over due.