Here’s a list of the people who have broken or tied the single season home run record in the modern era, starting with the one who set it in 1901.
Sam Crawford
Socks Seybold
Frank Schulte
Gavvy Cravath
Babe Ruth
Roger Maris
Mark McGwire
Barry Bonds
All but one are eligible for the Hall of Fame; only two have been elected.
Sure, and the rules make it clear that a single season achievement is not sufficient grounds to elect someone who may otherwise qualify. It is the totality of a career that should be considered, and that is why Maris does not qualify and people like Koufax and Dean do.
This is the part I don’t understand. He does qualify*. He wasn’t elected. There’s a difference. Roger Maris is eligible (qualified) to be in the Basesball Hall of Fame.
He may not be worthy of induction, but that’s a different argument. One with which I personally disagree, but certainly recognize the counter-argument as being valid. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that my feeling about Maris’ worthiness is more about the emotional impact of the '61 season than the overall impact of his statistics. Statiscally, you and the others arguing against Maris certainly have a mountain of evidence. With all that, I still feel like he belongs in there.
Roger Maris is qualified to be considered for Hall of Fame membership; he is not qualified for actual membership, at least according to many committees over the years who’ve considered the totality of his career. We’re talking about eligibility rules, not induction rules. Of course he’s eligible, but not induction-worthy.
I wrote the post you are responding to sloppily, using the word “qualify” to mean two different things.
Maris, of course, does qualify for the Hall of Fame in that he is eligible. Maris, of course, does not qualify for the Hall of Fame in that he is not deserving.
Or, pretty much how you interpreted it. 
It was still sloppy writing on my part.
Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron would both have something to say about that. The Hall recognizes great single-season and single-game accomplishments with exhibits and such, but not every player who has a great single achievement should be inducted. Maris is one of those guys who has a singular achievement but his career falls short.
It could be argued that his output in that year was a perfect storm of peaking at exactly the right time along with watered down pitching due to expansion. There’s a reason that Mantle and Maris were both well above their previous year’s home run totals, and it’s not something as elusive as “they pushed each other to do it” because they didn’t do it the year before.
On the strength of a single year’s performance, Denny McLain should be in. He won the Cy Young Award two years in a row and did nothing before or after, but he peaked in 1968 when pitchers had such a pronounced advantage that they completely revamped the strike zone and pitcher’s mound the next year. Should he be in the Hall based on those circumstances?
Maris doesn’t have the numbers. He never again hit more than 33 after that season, and prior to it he hit 40 once (the year before). The accomplishment is worthy of immortality, and the player is immortal for having done it, but he is not worthy of enshrinement in the Hall for it. Hell, let’s put him and Owen Wilson in, he hit 36 triples in a season, vastly more difficult and completely unbreakable. That he never did anything else should be irrelevant. How about Dale Long and Donnie Baseball for hitting homers in 8 consecutive games?
Amazing accomplishments are one thing. Spectacular careers are another.
Chief Wilson.
Let’s not put Owen in.
But do people just call him Owen Wilson? I’d never heard that before.
That’s what I heard him called when I first read about him. But I’ll go with “Chief”. It’s a small point.
As noted a couple times already in this thread, Maris is already recognized in the Hall for his outstanding 1961 season, with the 61 ball and a bat on display, so he’s made his mark. Enshrining him over and above that wouldn’t make any sense as the rest of his career simply didn’t make the grade.
A while ago I listened to The Drunkard’s Walk by Leonard Mlodinow. It is basically about how people have no capacity to understand how chance effects life.
He uses Maris to demonstrate that, some hitter no better than him, would eventually hit more than 60, just by statistics.
Given that the pressure that Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Hank Aaron each felt was light-years worse this is an extraordinarily short-sighted statement.
My thoughts:
Maris is in the Hall of Fame for exactly the reason he should be. The 1961 season. He broke Ruth’s record, and as others have mentioned, the bat, ball, and possibly his spikes (I’ve never been to the hall) are there. I imagine there is an area in the hall devoted to him and the achievement. You can’t discuss baseball history without Maris’ name coming up. But without that single season, even with his second MVP, he’s not getting any love.
There is another dynamic at work here, however. Even though I think the HOF voters got this one right, I think there are other things that come into play when the vote is taken.
The New York bias is real, and particularly for the Yankees. (if I’d rank the teams, it would be Yankees by a wide margin, then the Dodgers/Giants, and finally the Mets.). If Maris would have been on more World Series winners, he’d be in. They won 2 while Maris played in NY. They lost 3. Then, after 1964, they disappeared from the World Series until 1977, I believe.
If you think WS don’t matter, take a look at Phil Rizzuto’s HOF numbers sometime. He was on 8 WS winners in a 13 year career, including 5 in a row. He also played in 2 other WS. 10 WS in 13 years is a nice run to be on, but Phil was hardly a key player. He batted a wholloping .273 for his career (.246 in the WS games), and earned only 1 MVP to Maris’ 2. His offensive stats were nothing special across the board. His defensive stats at shortstop were average. No gold gloves, fielding percentage of .968. If Maris was playing with Joe Dimaggio in the 40’s and 50’s like the Scooter, he’d be in.
But, two wrongs don’t make a right… I liked Roger Maris as a person and as a ballplayer, but I don’t believe he should be in the hall.
ETA: Forgot to mention that even though the stress on Maris during 61 was probably pretty high, it didn’t really pour on him until Mantle went down and he was alone hitting homers. Mantle had 54 at the time. So, we are talking 3-4 weeks tops when Maris was getting all the attention alone.
In NO WAY does this compare to Jackie Robinson’s season, or Larry Doby’s. These two deserve all the credit they get and more. And Hank Aaron’s chase on the all-time record was brutal for him, particularly the off-season between 713 and 714 and then the first month of the season when he hit 715. He got death threats. I don’t think Maris ever did.
Up front, I know I’ve given almost this same lecture before. But I’ll repeat it.
TODAY, the conventional wisdom is that:
Now, I was an infant in 1961, so I have no first-hand knowledge of what happened that year in baseball. I will only point out that there is another side to the story. Talk to ANY of the old reporters who covered the Yankees in 1961, and ALL of them will tell you that Roger Maris got along BEAUTIFULLY with the press in 1961. It was the FOLLOWING year that Maris’ relations with the media went sour. Some blame that on Jimmy Cannon, some blame that on Maris. But every reporter agrees that Maris was a delight to deal with in 1961.
Beyond that, remember that the reporters gave Maris, not Mantle, the American League MVP award in 1960, even though Mantle’s numbers were at least as good. Why would the press give the award to a man they “hated,” rather than to Mantle, whom they supposedly “loved”?
A few other things worth remembering:
First, though Roger Maris was a decent man in most respects, never forget that he had a well-earned reputation as a brooder and sulker LONG before he came to the Yankees. He got the nickname “Red Ass Roger” in Kansas City, not in New York
Second, though people often talk about the scrutiny and pressure Maris faced, baseball was nowhere NEAR as big in 1961 as it is today, and neither were “the media” Watch footage of Maris’ 61st home run and you’ll notice something: LOTS of empty seats at Yankee Stadium!!! Roger Maris DIDN’T hit his home runs in stadiums filled with hostile, booing fans- he hit his homers in stadiums with tiny, indifferent crowds! As for “the media,” remember that in 1961, “the media” meant a few TV networks and a few newspapers. Roger Maris didn’t have to contend with anything CLOSE to the scrutiny and media attention Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire received.
One last point: people regularly talk as if every star athlete in New York City is constantly under a magnifying glass, and an athlete “can’t” have a private life in New York. To that, I issue this challenge:
Tell me EVERYTHING you know about Lou Gehrig’s private life.
While I’m waiting, tell me EVERYTHING you know about Yogi Berra’s private life.
Oh, that’s too long ago? Okay, tell me EVERYTHING you know about Phil Simms’ private life. Or Eli Manning’s. Or Mariano Rivera’s. Or Willis Reed’s. Or Ron Guidry’s. Or Don Mattingly’s.
Get the idea? It’s not only POSSIBLE for a star athlete to live a quiet life out of the spotlight, most of New York’s biggest sports starts have DONE it!!!
Lots of people talk about “New York Media Bias,” but almost nobody can point to real evidence of it. Wehn it comes to awards and Hall of Fame voting, New York players do NOT get preferential treatment. NOBODY from the New York Mets has EVER won an MVP award. How do you explain that, if there’s media bias?
While Phil Rizzuto probably doesn’t deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, he was NOT enshrined by the “New York Media.” The media NEVER voted him in. The Veterans’ Committee did.
The Veterans’ Committee has made a LOT of odd choices, but they’ve selected a lot more undeserving players from St. Louis than from New York.
If your evidence for a New York bias is Phil Rizzuto, you’re awfully short of proof. One player out of over two hundred does not a bias make. I could point to any number of terrible Hall of Fame choices that didn’t play in New York, ones just as bad, if not worse, than Rizzuto. Ray Schalk, for instance. Jesse Haines.
Conversely, you don’t see them rushing to induct Allie Reynolds, Elston Howard, Hank Bauer or any number of Yankees with World Series rings.
There certainly are a lot of New York players in the Hall of Fame, but that is because many great players have played in New York; after all, the Yankees have won the World Series 27 times, more than any other three teams combined, so I would quite honestly expect the Yankees to have more Hall of Famers than anyone else, plus the Giants and Dodgers certainly had long periods of greatness in New York.
He was on 8 WS winners in a 13 year career, including 5 in a row. He also played in 2 other WS. 10 WS in 13 years is a nice run to be on, but Phil was hardly a key player. He batted a wholloping .273 for his career (.246 in the WS games), and earned only 1 MVP to Maris’ 2. His offensive stats were nothing special across the board. His defensive stats at shortstop were average. No gold gloves, fielding percentage of .968. If Maris was playing with Joe Dimaggio in the 40’s and 50’s like the Scooter, he’d be in.
But, two wrongs don’t make a right… I liked Roger Maris as a person and as a ballplayer, but I don’t believe he should be in the hall.
ETA: Forgot to mention that even though the stress on Maris during 61 was probably pretty high, it didn’t really pour on him until Mantle went down and he was alone hitting homers. Mantle had 54 at the time. So, we are talking 3-4 weeks tops when Maris was getting all the attention alone.
In NO WAY does this compare to Jackie Robinson’s season, or Larry Doby’s. These two deserve all the credit they get and more. And Hank Aaron’s chase on the all-time record was brutal for him, particularly the off-season between 713 and 714 and then the first month of the season when he hit 715. He got death threats. I don’t think Maris ever did.
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[quote=“RickJay, post:38, topic:598361”]
If your evidence for a New York bias is Phil Rizzuto, you’re awfully short of proof. One player out of over two hundred does not a bias make. I could point to any number of terrible Hall of Fame choices that didn’t play in New York, ones just as bad, if not worse, than Rizzuto. Ray Schalk, for instance. Jesse Haines.
Conversely, you don’t see them rushing to induct Allie Reynolds, Elston Howard, Hank Bauer or any number of Yankees with World Series rings.
There certainly are a lot of New York players in the Hall of Fame, but that is because many great players have played in New York; after all, the Yankees have won the World Series 27 times, more than any other three teams combined, so I would quite honestly expect the Yankees to have more Hall of Famers than anyone else, plus the Giants and Dodgers certainly had long periods of greatness in New York.
You’re also understating Rizzuto’s capabilities:
Rizzuto was not an average defensive shortstop. He was an excellent defensive shortstop, as good a shortstop relative to his time as Omar Vizquel and I think almost certainly th ebest defensive shortstop in the American League at the time. He didn’t win any Gold Gloves because** there was no such award** then. The invented the award after he retired. A .968 fielding percentage was much better than most shortstops of the time, and Rizzuto had outstanding range.
Rizzuto missed three full seasons to World War II.
Rizzuto really did deserve his 1950 MVP Award. Maris deserved neither of his.
I’d agree Rizzuto is a marginal choice, but in my opinion he was a greater player than Roger Maris.
Not even close.
Not even close.