So Cal Ripken announces his impending retirement at the end of the 2001 season. He goes his five years, and then the Baseball Writers Association votes him in. No other player deserves it more. Does he go in unanimously? I think he should.
No other player has ever gone into Cooperstown on a unanimous vote; not Babe Ruth, not Cy Young, not Mike Schmidt, not Brooks Robinson, not Joe Dimaggio. No one. (http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hofmem4.shtml) What do writers who vote against the truly great players use as an excuse? Is it personal bias? Is there some microscopic flaw that they (the writers) see but the public doesn’t?
But there’s ALWAYS someone who leaves players off. And it’ll happen here.
Sure, based on the numbers he’s going right in. But I think some of those off years (and there SURE were some) will provide all the ammunition that they need to leave him off. Kinda like Nolan Ryan: a true icon but the numbers show some flaws.
Well, some writers take the attitude of “Ripken’s not as good as Ruth was and Ruth wasn’t unanimous, so Ripken shouldn’t be.”
However, I never liked that argument. Election percentages to the HOF really don’t mean anything. As long as you get 75%, it doesn’t make a difference. Personally, I’d like to know what the five writers who left off Tom Seaver were thinking. Which writers didn’t think Willie Mays wasn’t a HOFer? What professional writer out there didn’t think Ted Williams belonged? (True, Williams never got along with the press, but, in an ideal world, that shouldn’t make a difference).
Some excuse it by saying that they’ll vote for the guy next year if he’s deserving. My reaction to that is “huh?” What changes between years five and six after retirement that he wasn’t deserving five years after he retired (when he’s first eligible) and year six? Nothing, obviously.
Zev Steinhardt
So what does that mean - that if a player isn’t perfect, it’s an excuse not to leave him off? No player goes through a great career batting 1.000, or pitching a 30-0 record with a 0.00 ERA.
I think all the truly great players should be unanimous; it’s almost an insult if the vote isn’t. What kind of excuse did the writer(s) who voted against Ruth, Aaron, etc. use?
Some of the voters don’t vote for a player who should make it unanimously on the first ballot simply because “no one has ever been a unanimous choice before” or some other such nonsense. There are voters who bear grudges, there are voters who simply feel that no one is so good that they can go right in on the first try.
But bear in mind that the reason there’s a five-year waiting period (well, five seasons) is to counteract the emotions of the voters immediately following a retirement. There have been countless diamond heroes over the years who have led wonderful careers and whose last game was an emotional roller coaster. If you polled the people attending those final games on whether that player should go into the Hall, ~100% would say “YES” most resoundingly. So you wait five years for those emotions to cool a little, but not completely, and then you make your decision perhaps a little more rationally.
Mouthbreather–Kiko Garcia–that brings back some memories.
I guess if anybody has a shot at being unamimous it’s Ripken. In today’s world of prima donna pro atheletes, I’m hard pressed to think of a classier guy. He’s not close to being the greatest player or even shortstop (maybe the '83 MVP should have gone to Eddie Murray, and others had better numbers in '91), but after the strike this is THE guy who exemplified what was right about baseball. Ripken has done A LOT for the game.
Ripken has said all he ever wanted to do was play baseball the best he could every day. And he signs countless autographs before and after every game. It seems like a lot of superstars can’t be bothered with the fans or they want money for their autographs.
If Tony Gwynn retires this year, he and Ripken will probably be the last Hall of Famers to spend a career with one team.
I’m not a huge sports fan, but Ripken seems like the best example of a what a pro athelete can be. I’m going to miss him and I think baseball and other pro sports will too.
Mouthbreather–Kiko Garcia–that brings back some memories.
I guess if anybody has a shot at being unamimous it’s Ripken. In today’s world of prima donna pro atheletes, I’m hard pressed to think of a classier guy. He’s not close to being the greatest player or even shortstop (maybe the '83 MVP should have gone to Eddie Murray, and others had better numbers in '91), but after the strike this is THE guy who exemplified what was right about baseball. Ripken has done A LOT for the game.
Ripken has said all he ever wanted to do was play baseball the best he could every day. And he signs countless autographs before and after every game. It seems like a lot of superstars can’t be bothered with the fans or they want money for their autographs.
If Tony Gwynn retires this year, he and Ripken will probably be the last Hall of Famers to spend a career with one team.
I’m not a huge sports fan, but Ripken seems like the best example of a what a pro athelete can be. I’m going to miss him and I think baseball and other pro sports will too.
Actually, Sword, if I am not mistaken Di Maggio didn’t get in his first YEAR. He got in his second. (Think the rules differed then on eligibilty, tho)
There should be unanimous picks. The biases show. Didn’t WIlliams win 2 Triple Crowns and not get MVPs? I think Seaver has the highest %. Seaver was a great pitcher, but was he the best ever? No.
And there will be a few players yet who play their entire career with one team. I am not a Yankee fan, but I don’t picture them ever letting Jeter go. Edgar Martinez may be the first DH in, and Pudge Rodriguez may be kept in Texas.
I think that part of the reason there haven’t been any unanimous selections is that each writer has different priorities. You can only vote for ten guys, some of whom are in their last years of eligibility, or who might be dropped from the ballot because they didn’t poll 5% (I accept the argument that there might be a reason for this, but some of them may be quite deserving and just overlooked). So, you get to filling out your ballot, and you realize that Nolan Ryan’s on it for the first time. Obviously, your counterparts - most of them, anyway - are going to vote for Nolan, and probably George Brett, too. But - hey - maybe, if I vote for Blyleven instead, I can keep him on the ballot for next year, when the “graduating class” might not be so stacked. Why “waste” a vote on what’s going to be a sure thing?
Regarding Ripken, specifically, though - sure, he belongs in Cooperstown, and joy to him there. However, one place he does NOT belong (though it looks like he’ll be there) is at 3rd base in Safeco Field on July 10th.
This is why the fans don’t get to vote for who gets into the Hall of Fame.
No, he really doesnt. He hasn’t for the last few years. I’d say Troy Glaus of the Angels was much more deserving last year, IMHO. Just like Palmerio didnt deserve that Gold Glove. Fans get into such stupid habits about voting for guys that’ve done nothing that year. sigh Such is life, I suppose.
As for a unanimous selection: Yes, it should happen. As it should’ve for many great players. However, it wont. People are people and they will hold grudges because that one time at the news conference they didnt answer the question, they refused to interview, etc. etc. There are loads of players who should’ve gotten unanimous selections but didnt, a few names below
[li]Babe Ruth[/li][li]Joe DiMaggio[/li][li]Ted Williams[/li][li]Cy Young[/li][li]Lou Gehrig[/li][li]Nolan Ryan[/li]
But no! We couldn’t have that. Pfft, if only the baseball fans of the SDMB were doing the voting.
There are still some writers who cling to the idea that because Ruth was not a unanimous selection, no one will be. However, the voting rules were different.
As for DiMaggio, he was caught in a numbers crunch. The HOF could only induct so many players in one year and in 1956, DiMaggio’s first year eligible, the HOF still was catching up on inducting worthy players from earlier in the century.
There wouldn’t be a player inducted in his first year of eligibility after the initial class until Jackie Robinson in 1961.
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Fans don’t vote for Gold Glovers. They are voted on by managers and coaches from the teams prior to the end of the season.
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Hmm. According to the Hall of Fame site, DiMaggio was inducted in 1955. In '55, DiMaggio polled 89% of the vote. In 1954, no player polled more than 83%. MSNBC’s take on the story: “January 1955 - Elected to baseball Hall of Fame in third year of eligibility. He probably would’ve been elected earlier, but voters wanted to make sure he wouldn’t come out of retirement after he was inducted.”
I guess the HOF didn’t have a five year waiting period in DiMaggio’s day. I wonder if it was instituted in a response to the DiMaggio situation. They wanted to make sure that people weren’t coming back to play.
If you’ll notice, the eligibility standard for the Hall of Fame (see rastahomie’s post above for link) includes the words “Provided they remain retired”
Ahah! According to my copy of Total Baseball, from 1946-1953, the Hall of Fame only required a one-year waiting period for induction. Prior to 1946, there was no specific waiting period, the player just had to be “inactive”. The five year wait rule was instituted in 1954, however if someone had received over 100 votes in a previous election, he was still eligible.
DiMaggio actually received one HOF vote in 1945. His last year was 1951. The first election for him was in 1953 (the winter after his first full year off) and he received 117 votes. In 1954, the five-year waiting period was instituted, but DiMaggio was still eligible and got 175 votes. In 1955, he got 223 votes and was in.
In 1953, DiMaggio finished in 8th, behind Dean, Simmons, Terry, Dickey, Marranville, Vance, and Lyons. Dean and Simmons made it in.
In 1954, DiMaggio moved up to 4th place, behind Marranville, Dickey and Terry, all of whom were elected.
In 1955, DiMaggio led all the candidates and was inducted along with Lyons, Vance, and Hartnett.
Other people of DiMaggio’s era who didn’t make it on the first ballot were Bill Dickey (9 ballots), Dizzy Dean (8 ballots), Hank Greenberg (10 ballots).
It would be interesting to know which players in the HOF played for only one team. I know Brooks Robinson did, and I think Carl Yastemski did. Anyone else? I can’t research this now, I’m at work.