# Cal Ripken and Cooperstown **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 19, 2001, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345 "2001-06-19T15:01:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/21 "2001-06-20T15:23:01Z")
One team? A (probably) partial list: Ted Lyons Walter Johnson Bill Terry Lou Gehrig Cap Anson Eddie Collins Carl Hubbell Joe Dimaggio Pie Traynor Charlie Geringher Mickey Mantle Zach Wheat Bob Feller Jackie Robinson Luke Appling Red Faber Ted Williams Roy Campanella Stan Musial Erle Combs Jesse Haines Lefty Gomez Sandy Koufax (if you don’t consider the franchise shift) Don Drysdale Whitey Ford Bob Lemon Ernie Banks Al Kaline Addie Joss Bob Gibson Travis Jackson Brooks Robinson Pee Wee Reese Bobby Doerr Willie Stargell Johnny Bench Carl Yazstremski Jim Palmer Phil Ruzzito Mike Schmidt George Brett Robin Yount Kirby Puckett Bill Mazeroski ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/22 "2001-06-20T17:42:01Z")
Zack Wheat played for two teams, the Dodgers and the Athletics. Eddie Collins played for both the Athletics and the White Sox. Other than that, I didn’t notice anyone else. Note that playing for one team your whole career was unusual in the 19th Century. Cap Anson is a notable exception, but he was pretty much the Chicago NL franchise of the time. And if you consider the National Association a major league, he played for more than one team. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/23 "2001-06-20T20:00:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > \*\*One team? A (probably) partial list: > > Cap Anson\*\* Anson played for Rockford City and Philadelphia in the old National Association. Eddie Collins played for both the A’s and the White Sox. Jesse Haines played for both the Reds and the Cardinals. Zack Wheat’s been mentioned. One player you forgot: **Yogi Berra.** ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/24 "2001-06-20T20:08:24Z")
Bah. My mistake: Yogi Berra played four games for the Mets at the end of his career. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/25 "2001-06-20T22:03:28Z")
I think playing your whole career for one team is a more a factor of how much the ownership likes the player than anything else. Some players, like Berra, just played again to piss off their old employers. After being fired after winning the pennant in 1964 with the Yankees, he became a player-coach for the Mets, mainly out of spite I would think. Also, if you want to count managing jobs, Walter Johnson, Ted Williams, and Bob Lemon all wore the uniform of a different team than from their playing days. If Cal were a bit younger and had managed to find his way to Peter Angelos’ bad side, he could easily be retiring as a Devil Ray as an Oriole. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@PatrickM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickM)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/26 "2001-06-20T22:28:20Z")
Getting back to the original post, it is silly to sweat whether or not Ripken gets elected to the HOF unanimously or not. It’s not like the Hall has a caste system within itself. Arguing about such things is as silly as arguing about whether the golfer, what-his-face Woods, won a “Grand Slam” by winning the four big tournaments consecutively over 2 calendar years rather than just within one calendar year. Really, what difference does it make to anybody? Or at least, what difference does it make to anybody other than a sports columnist or sports radio host looking for a trite and easy topic to get all hot and bothered about. As for Ripken himself, I can only marvel at him. Its been said before, and much better, but he played one of the toughest positions on the field execellently, hit for average and power, and showed up for work every day. But Mike Hargrove - or whoever manages the O’s next year - has got to be relieved that Ripken is leaving. Its tough having to justify sitting down a legend, particularly when the legend has as much clout with the owner as Cal does. Cal will leave a big hole to fill, but that particular hole’s needed some younger blood since Ripken first got injured in 1999. As for whether Cal and Tony Gwynn will be the last to enter the Hall to have played for only one team, I can only say that people said the same thing about Johnny Bench and Yaz when they both retired. My crystal balls kind of rusty, but I’d say that both Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell will both be HOFers some day, and so far at least they’ve each have playd over 10 years only for the Astros. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/27 "2001-06-20T22:49:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*If Cal were a bit younger and had managed to find his way to Peter Angelos’ bad side, he could easily be retiring as a Devil Ray as an Oriole. \*\* We’ll never know, of course, but my bet is that even if Angelos really, really hated him, he wouldn’t get rid of him as long as he was as beloved by the fans as he is. Some players are popular; others are icons. That’s one reason they never leave the team. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/28 "2001-06-20T22:56:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RickJay \* > \*\*Bah. My mistake: Yogi Berra played four games for the Mets at the end of his career. \*\* Hell! I didn’t even know Roger Maris wasn’t in the HOF until earlier this week. (And it is true that his lifetime stats aren’t all that impressive.) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2001, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/29 "2001-06-20T23:49:27Z")
Mea culpa on the errors – I read through the list a bit fast. Another name: Walter Alston. He played for only one team (one game for the Cardinals). He also managed only one team. (BTW, I should have pointed out that Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale not only played their entire careers for one team, they also played for just one manager). Sparky Anderson also played for only one team, though he managed more than one I also seem to have left off Mel Ott. In addition, there were a good number of HOF players who played only a year or two at the end of their careers with a second team – Ty Cobb, Christy Matthewson, Willie Mays, Hal Newhouser, Yogi Berra, Sam Rice, Ray Schalk, Hank Aaron, Lou Boudreau, Frank Chance. If any of these had quite two years earlier, they would have been on just one team (and in the Hall of Fame). To show how chancy all this is, I should point out that two people on the list (Dimaggio and Williams) were very nearly traded for each other around 1946. Both the Yankees and Red Sox had agreed to the deal, but before it was announced, the Red Sox got cold feet and insisted that the Yankees throw in a minor league catcher named Berra :). That put an end to the deal. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/30 "2001-06-21T05:53:38Z")
As for the OP, if being elected to the HOF isn’t an honor unless it’s by a certain percentage then why are all the plaques in the Hall of Fame not arranged in order of percentage of vote? Once you’re in, you’re in. So far, no one has been “de-honored”, although it’s happened in the Hockey Hall of Fame. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/31 "2001-06-21T11:58:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*As for the OP, if being elected to the HOF isn’t an honor unless it’s by a certain percentage then why are all the plaques in the Hall of Fame not arranged in order of percentage of vote? Once you’re in, you’re in. So far, no one has been “de-honored”, although it’s happened in the Hockey Hall of Fame. \*\* I don’t think that was precisely the point of the OP. Sure, once you’re in, who cares exactly how many votes you got? No one except the stasiticians and your immediate family, presumably. The issue is that no one, not even the greatest of the Hall members, was elected unaminously; there was always at least one voter who left the player off the ballot. It’s only a shame because the reason some of those voters give for not voting for a particular player is simply that they don’t feel a player should get in unaminously. Kind of a dumb reason, if you ask me. [OT, though - I’d like to know who was “dehonored” in the Hockey HoF. Maybe you could start a new thread, Bob? Or maybe I will, later. No need to hijack this one.] ---
**Author:** ![PatrickM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@PatrickM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickM)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/32 "2001-06-21T13:55:13Z")
“OT, though - I’d like to know who was “dehonored” in the Hockey HoF. Maybe you could start a new thread, Bob? Or maybe I will, later. No need to hijack this one.” No need to start a new thread. The dishonored miscreant was Alan Eagleson. I may be fuzzy on the details, but he was elected to the hockey HOF because he was a great event organizer, such as the Canada Cup series, and also served as players union leader and player agent. He was also a felon, who embezzled money from the players pension funds, and a double-dealer, because he was union president and player’s agent simultaneously. Once his misdeeds came to light he was booted out of the HOF and rightly so. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2001, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345/33 "2001-06-21T13:57:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by PatrickM \* > \*\*No need to start a new thread. The dishonored miscreant was Alan Eagleson. I may be fuzzy on the details, but he was elected to the hockey HOF because he was a great event organizer, such as the Canada Cup series, and also served as players union leader and player agent. He was also a felon, who embezzled money from the players pension funds, and a double-dealer, because he was union president and player’s agent simultaneously. Once his misdeeds came to light he was booted out of the HOF and rightly so. \*\* Oooh, I knew that. I guess I was thinking of players. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cal-ripken-and-cooperstown/69345.md?page=1)