# Did the Hall of Fame voters get it right? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 9, 2007, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327 "2007-01-09T19:13:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/21 "2007-01-10T00:35:06Z")
[QUOTE=zamboniracer] No, Gammons and Kurkjian are wrong about that. Extreme off the field stuff has to count too. If Rose had killed his ex-wife and her boyfriend (like a certain football HOFer), and then came up for a vote for the HOF, wouldn’t the HOF be justified in voting him down? Of course it would. Gammons and Kurkjian are saying foolishly that murderers, gamblers and dopers (not us Dopers 😉 ) are fine for the HOF so long as they could really play ball. I’m not for keeping Rose out for cheating on his taxes, I’m for keeping him out because of the gambling while he was Reds’ manager. [/QUOTE] Oh, don’t misunderstand them (or me.) Rose deserves to be punished for betting on games as a MANAGER, but as a PLAYER there’s no evidence he ever bet on baseball, and if he did, it wouldn’t have placed him in a situation where he was throwing games. There are some horrible people in the Hall now. Ty Cobb was a drunk, a gambler and probably a racist, Cap Anson WAS a virulent racist and Kenesaw Mountain Landis prolonged the color barrier by refusing to allow teams to integrate during his tenure as commissioner. Keep a guy out for off-field behavior if you want, but don’t act like the men already enshrined are saints. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/22 "2007-01-10T00:45:41Z")
I’ve long since got over the notion that the Hall of Fame was some pristine memorial to the greats of baseball that embodied the spirit of the sport, fair play, character, stats, big yawn, whatever, etc. It’s just a big building in Cooperstown that MLB sells tickets for. That’s it. I don’t get why baseball would say, “We won’t let a piece of metal in our building with Mark McGwire’s name on it, because we don’t think people will buy tickets to see it.” Because frankly, I think they would. Like it or not, Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe and Chick Gandil and Buck Weaver and Eddie Cicotte and Pete Rose are part of baseball’s history. They could make a buck off’f 'em by selling tickets to the “blackballed players” section. Of course, they could sell tickets to the Hall of Fame building _without_ those guys too — they’ve been doing it for years — so maybe they figure it’s not costing them anything to stand on whatever principles are convenient at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/23 "2007-01-10T01:23:07Z")
[QUOTE=brianjedi] Peter Gammons and Tim Kurkjian made a good point this afternoon: consider what the player did on the field and nothing else. They both made the comparison to Pete Rose: we have no evidence Rose bet on baseball as a player, and we have no evidence McGwire actually used steroids, so voting against them is penalizing them for events that happened off the field. [/QUOTE] IMO, it’s difficult to call anything related to Mark McGwire’s alleged steroid use as something that happened off the field; surely the point of taking steroids was to increase his on-the-field performance. Personally, I don’t care if he took steroids; I just wish he’d have the cojones to admit it. As long as he gives vague, evasive answers like he did at the HGRC hearings, I’ll keep thinking he has something big to hide that would affect voters’ judgement of his HOF worthiness. Also, Pete Rose admitted in his autobiography to betting as a player: > **[Pete Rose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Rose#Coming_clean)** > > MLB records Peter Edward Rose Sr. (April 14, 1941 – September 30, 2024), nicknamed "Charlie Hustle", was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1963 to 1986, most prominently as a member of the Cincinnati Reds lineup known as the Big Red Machine for their dominance of the National League in the 1970s. He also played for the Philadelphia Phillies, where he won his third World Series championship in 1980, and had a brief stint with the ... > [@](#): > > Coming clean > > In his autobiography My Prison Without Bars, published by Rodale Press on January 8, 2004, Rose finally admitted publicly to betting on baseball games and other sports while playing for and managing the Reds. He also admitted to betting on Reds games, but said that he never bet against the Reds. He repeated his admissions in an interview on the ABC news program Primetime Thursday. He also said in the book that he hoped his admissions would help end his ban from baseball so that he could reapply for reinstatement. Ironically, I think this decades-long debate about whether he should be in the HOF has sealed my opinion that Pete Rose does in fact deserve a place in the HOF… for his outstanding, controversial career. You can’t talk about the HOF without mentioning Pete Rose, so it seems odd that he’s not in there. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/24 "2007-01-10T01:40:24Z")
I think Rose will get in, eventually. I hope he’s alive to see it. Yeah, he bet on baseball. He broke the rules, and deserved to be punished. For what he did, I think he’s been punished about enough. Perhaps I’m naive, but I just can’t believe that “Charlie Hustle” would have thrown a game. That would be unforgivable. Betting on his team to win seems forgivable. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/25 "2007-01-10T03:19:53Z")
**fish** , MLB doesn’t own or operate the Hall of Fame [QUOTE=hajario] McGwire: He was a bad boy. He had a chance to man up during the Congressional Hearings and he blew it. He should get in eventually but his punishment should be that he has to wait. Five years should do it. [/QUOTE] I know I’ve said this before but I’ve never understood this. McGwire either is a Hall of Famer or he’s not. He’s not going to be any more or less deserving in 2012, and in the long run nobody will remember how many years he waited. If Joe DiMaggio didn’t get in his first time up I don’t know that it means anything. That, incidentally, is why eight writers didn’t vote for Cal Ripken. Well, that and the fact that they can attract attention to themselves by writing colums about how they didn’t vote for a shoo-in. A shocking number of BBWAA writers are remarkably ignorant about baseball history and really don’t have any knowledge base to base their votes on but, come on, if you didn’t vote for Cal Ripken you shouldn’t be allowed to vote. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/26 "2007-01-10T04:27:38Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] I know I’ve said this before but I’ve never understood this. McGwire either is a Hall of Famer or he’s not. He’s not going to be any more or less deserving in 2012 [/quote] That’s only true if you limit your considerations to stats, which of course aren’t going to change. If instead you consider sportsmanship and significance to the game, then yes, an ex-player continues to play a role, and that can change after his formal retirement. McGwire could fess up, speak out, and become a leader in cleaning up the game, and that would very legitimately in my mind add to his qualifications, and would gain him votes among those voters who similarly think it’s about much more than stats. I suspect some voters might have been willing to vote for McGwire if the other candidates had been less stellar. But Ripken and Gwynn are _inner-circle_ HOF’ers, transcendent rather than merely excellent, not only as performers but as sportsmen and builders of the game. They’re the best of the best in every way, and it just wouldn’t be right to distract from their ceremony in any way, least of all with Mr. Dietary Supplement right next to them, inspiring awkward questions from everyone. You’ll see more votes for Mac next year, I’m sure. Just not this time, not with Cal and Tony going in. > [@](#): > > If Joe DiMaggio didn’t get in his first time up I don’t know that it means anything. The waiting time was only 1 year then, not 5, and it was still a real possibility that he’d return to the Yankees for the first couple of years. He did apparently piss more people off, and far more deeply, than his later reputation would suggest, too. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/27 "2007-01-10T07:35:46Z")
I have no prob with McGwires steroids. There was no rule in baseball at that time. Even HGS was not outlawed. It is when he lied in front of Congress. That pissed me off. He helped save the game. Lately they claim the balls were juiced when he and Sosa broke the records. Why would that be ok.? There were and are a lot of juiced ball players . It was part of the game and still is. He did what baseball needed and wanted him to do. ---
**Author:** ![Moonchild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@Moonchild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonchild)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/28 "2007-01-10T08:44:09Z")
Gwynn is a lock for first ballot HOF. Best pure hitter in the last 50 years, 10th in career .AVG among everyone who didn’t play pre- 1900 and the only guy besides Ted Williams on that list who didn’t play before night baseball began. I suppose Ripken also deserves getting in, but his canonization(?) should cease. He’s a career .276 hitter, an average-to-below-average fielder (2 Gold Gloves in 21 years) who played the bulk of his career at the position that demands the best fielding. He finished in the top 10 in MVP four times, which is very good, not spectacular. He hit over .300 in full seasons four times, hit over 30 homers once. Yes, he was a model of consistency who is basically recognized for being lucky enough to have never suffered a significant injury. But he also avoided injury because he was slow, played for a team with grass pallparks, didn’t steal bases and wasn’t the type to put his body on the line during the game. Yes, he played through dings and such, but I am of the belief he would have been a better player – and therefore more valuable to his team – if he had taken a few days off here and there. So basically, he’s getting into the Hall on the first ballot because he went after a record (consecutive games played) to the detriment of his team. He does have sparkling blue eyes and comes off well in commercials, though. The guy who is getting overlooked, shockingly so IMHO, is Andre Dawson. One of the great all-time power/speed guys (438 HR’s, 314 SB’s), his numbers are slightly better than Ripken’s with more SB’s. Hawk was a clubhouse leader who played through pain the latter half of his career on cartilage-free knees and was perhaps the best fielding outfielder (8 consecutive Gold Gloves) of his era. Unlike Ripken, who had Eddie Murray, Dawson was always the jewel of his team. Like Ripken, he finished in the top 10 in MVP voting four times (winning once, runner-up twice), had 100 RBI four times, 30+ HR’s 3 times. This was when 30 HR’s & 100 RBI’s meant something. So his only crime is that majority of his career was in the '80s, the modern dead ball era, which looks even more dead because of the puffed up 90’s. Oh, and nobody noticed him until he left Montreal for the Cubs. McGwire’s career HR numbers are pretty ridiculous, but if it weren’t for 'roids, he would have been the poor man’s Dave Kingman, who is not in the Hall. And there are a lot more players in the steroid era with better all around stats. Give him five years. Jim Rice & Jack Morris deserve to be in there, and probably Gossage also (but I believe there’s some validity to the arguments against closers getting in). Having grown up watching Steve Garvey be THE guy for all of the Dodgers’ pennant-winning years, makes me want him to be in. In any other era he would have had well over 3,000 hits, which basically translates to automatic induction. But his greatness span was pretty limited ('74-78), so not a serious candidate by Hall standards. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/29 "2007-01-10T09:16:39Z")
[QUOTE=AudreyK] Personally, I don’t care if he took steroids; **I just wish he’d have the cojones** to admit it. [/QUOTE] Well, atrophy of the cajones is a well known side effect… 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![if6was9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/30 "2007-01-10T09:24:23Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] I was reading about the reasons they didn’t vote - one said he didn’t want to vote for anyone from this era because it couldn’t be proven they didn’t use steroids, and a few others just didn’t want anyone to get in unanimously or even for Ripken and Gwynn to get the highest percentage. (Like Seaver was the best player ever.) It was so stupid that I plan to pay a lot less attention to this stuff in future years. I knew the MLB was run by dopes, but now I wonder if the Hall is worse. [/QUOTE] We talked about this a lot on our (Orioles) baseball board. We pretty much came to the consensus that the guy who refused to vote because of the steroids era (Paul Ladewski, a columnist for the Daily Southtown in suburban Chicago) is an attention-whore. He has been doing the talk show circuit the last few days, and offered this explanation: > [@](#): > > It’s not an anti-Cal Ripken vote or an anti-Tony Gwynn vote; it’s a vote about not knowing enough, in my opinion, of the Steroids Era and performance-enhancing drugs to make the kind of decision that needs to be made. > From my dealings with Cal Ripken Jr. in the past, he was very pleasant, a good ambassador for the game, and his numbers speak for themselves, but I don’t have enough information on the [steroids] subject to make a decision. Odd, and grandstanding, but… it at least makes a little sense. Then he was interviewed on ESPNews about an hour after the announcement. He said that he didn’t vote for either Gwynn or Ripken to “respect those that came before him”… namely all the sports writers who never voted Ruth or Cy Young or Cobb or Williams or anyone else unanimously. flip flop flip flop So he’s upholding a long tradition… a tradition where some idiot said “Cobb? Well he was just a slap hitter.” “Cy Young? He lost over 300 games.” “Ruth? He wasn’t even good enough to finish his career in NY.” “Williams? Well he had fat matresses.. and his feet were too big.” Jimi reference… The guy was upholding the tradition that some idiot sportswriter, every single year, decided to make headlines and not vote for a LEGEND who should be in. **Did they get it right?** besides Ladewski… I would say mostly yes. Tony Gwynn _was_ a slap-hittter, a very VERY great slap-hitter, but nonetheless, definitely first ballot but not unanimous. McGwire needed to be snubbed, but will eventually get in. Deservedly so IMO. Gossage gained and will probably make it next year. I can’t really speak for the other notable exceptions. Now on Ripken… I’m a diehard O’s fan, yet Rip isn’t even in my top-5 all-time favorites. I’m not even sure why. Like has been alluded to, he was/is kind of a dick. A great ambassador, and he (and brother Billy) are a JOY to listen to discussing baseball. They each sometimes show up in the booth during O’s games. Both see EVERY nuance in the game, every bit of minutae going on on the field. Cal’s career speaks for itself. 3200+ hits, 400+ HRs, changed the SS position from the 90 pound weakling defensive position to a power position. ROY, MVP the next in a championship campaign. Then another MVP in '91 in a losing season for the O’s. And he was just… I don’t have words for how good he was that year. And of course the streak, and bringing the fans back to the game after the '94 strike. And NEVER had one single black mark on his record. I can’t say that he should have been the first unanimous selection in all the long history of baseball. I will say that he would have been a _worthy_ one, if it had happened. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/31 "2007-01-10T11:59:58Z")
Like I said in the other thread, McGwire isn’t interested in the past, so I’d withhold his HOF election which is based on events that happened purely in the past. Anything he does after his testimony before Congress, of course, I’ll be happy to consider. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/32 "2007-01-10T12:30:52Z")
I’m not at all displeased with the way things turned out this time around. Having Ripken and Gwynn, and only the two of them, going in together as first-ballot HOFers seems appropriate to me. Both clearly have the numbers, and both were among the most positive figures in the game during their time. I’m sure Ripken could occasionally be difficult, but my sense of things is that when he was difficult it was in large part because of his commitment to playing the game the right way. And while both could easily afford to kick back and live the good life now that their playing days are over, both have chosen to stay involved in the game, Ripken as a minor-league team owner, and Gwynn as a college baseball coach at his alma mater. Now, I also think McGwire deserved to be a first-ballot HOFer based on his accomplishments on the field. As a practical matter, however, given the cloud that’s surrounded him since his retirement, I’m sort of glad that when he goes in (and I think he will), questions about his possible use of performance-enhancing substances won’t distract from the celebration of what Ripken and Gwynn did. There’s nobody coming onto the ballot next year that’s all that likely to get in, much less as a first-ballot inductee (the new nominees next year will be Shawon Dunston, Travis Fryman, David Justice, Mike Morgan, Tim Raines, and Randy Velarde). So with nobody of Ripken or Gwynn’s stature on the ballot, I think Gossage has a shot, and voters can devote more attention to considering McGwire’s case. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/33 "2007-01-10T12:33:48Z")
I’d have voted Goose in, but otherwise good choices. I’ll second the Ripken is a dick motion. I think the Orioles could have won more games throughout the streak if Cal had taken a day off here and there. Probably didn’t cost them any pennants but I think in Cal’s mind it was streak first, team second. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/34 "2007-01-10T14:20:40Z")
I am satisfied with the results of the Hall of Fame voting, except that Dawson and Gossage deserved to be selected. McGwire didn’t want to talk about “the past” when before Congress, and so his past can be ignored as well. Certainly Pete Rose deserves to get in long before McGwire is ever seriously considered. [QUOTE=brianjedi] Ty Cobb was a drunk, a gambler and probably a racist [/QUOTE] _Probably???_ I am unaware, though, that he had a drinking problem during his playing days. And in any event, let’s remember that alcohol is NOT a performance-enhancing drug. I doubt you meant it that way, but I’ve heard dimwits attempting to justify steroid use by saying that Babe Ruth boozed and ate lots of hot dogs, as though that was somehow equivalent to shooting up with steroids. Actually, maybe there’s a place for all the juiced-up hitters like McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Palmeiro et al in the Hall. Perhaps a dimly-lit alcove designed in the shape of a pharmacy, with vials of Dianabol and other steroids next to the home run balls. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/35 "2007-01-10T14:21:50Z")
Oh, and in a perfect world Tony Gwynn would’ve gotten substantially more votes than Ripken. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/36 "2007-01-10T14:24:23Z")
**Moonchild:** > [@](#): > > an average-to-below-average fielder (2 Gold Gloves in 21 years) 😕 Ripken was a fantastic fielder. Are Gold Gloves your only metric? ---
**Author:** ![brianjedi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@brianjedi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianjedi)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/37 "2007-01-10T15:54:08Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] **Moonchild:** 😕 Ripken was a fantastic fielder. Are Gold Gloves your only metric? [/QUOTE] Gold Gloves don’t even mean anything. Rafael Palmeiro once won a Gold Glove in a year where he played only 28 games at first. Ripken changed the shortstop position. Jeter, A-Rod and Nomar wouldn’t have been shortstops if not for Ripken. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/38 "2007-01-10T18:21:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Ripken changed the shortstop position. Jeter, A-Rod and Nomar wouldn’t have been shortstops if not for Ripken. Plus, as I said, he was a legitimately fantastic fielder. Not just a good fielder for his height, or a good fielder considering how well he hit, but an actual good fielder. He probably would have stuck in the majors on his glove (well, his positioning) alone; he had great range (well, he positioned himself incredibly) and made very few errors. How is he an average-to-below-average fielder? ---
**Author:** ![Ivan-Osokin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/4491bb/32.png) [@Ivan-Osokin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivan-Osokin)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/39 "2007-01-10T18:36:38Z")
[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves] The waiting time was only 1 year then, not 5, and it was still a real possibility that he’d return to the Yankees for the first couple of years. He did apparently piss more people off, and far more deeply, than his later reputation would suggest, too. [/QUOTE] (The above was written regarding Dimaggio not being elected in his first year of eligibility.) Can anyone find a site detailing prior changes to the eligibility requirements for the HOF? I was looking at a list of players elected in their first years of eligibiliy and noticed that Warren Spahn was listed - having been elected in 1973. However, he retired after the 1965 season. Assuming the five year rule was in place at the time it seems he should have been elected in 1971. I checked a few players that retired prior to Spahn (Musial, Feller, Koufax, J. Robinson) and they were all enshrined five years after retirement. Any ideas on whats going on here? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2007, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327/40 "2007-01-10T20:12:49Z")
[QUOTE=Moonchild] I suppose Ripken also deserves getting in, but his canonization(?) should cease. He’s a career .276 hitter, an average-to-below-average fielder (2 Gold Gloves in 21 years) who played the bulk of his career at the position that demands the best fielding. He finished in the top 10 in MVP four times, which is very good, not spectacular. He hit over .300 in full seasons four times, hit over 30 homers once. Yes, he was a model of consistency who is basically recognized for being lucky enough to have never suffered a significant injury. But he also avoided injury because he was slow, played for a team with grass pallparks, didn’t steal bases and wasn’t the type to put his body on the line during the game. Yes, he played through dings and such, but I am of the belief he would have been a better player – and therefore more valuable to his team – if he had taken a few days off here and there. So basically, he’s getting into the Hall on the first ballot because he went after a record (consecutive games played) to the detriment of his team. He does have sparkling blue eyes and comes off well in commercials, though. [/QUOTE] This paragraph is surely some sort of elaborate joke, right? Right? First there’s your point about the Gold Gloves. In order to address this, i first have to stipulate that we’re assuming that winning a Gold Glove actually means something; quite a few baseball experts are skeptical about this, believing that Gold Gloves tend to be awarded based more on reputation and name than on performance. But let’s assume for a moment that getting a Gold Glove is a significant marker of a player’s fielding excellence. If that’s the case, then from a merely statistical point of view, to say that someone who got “2 Gold Gloves in 21 years” is an “average-to-below-average fielder” is simply incorrect. It may surprise you to know this, but the vast majority of major league players go their whole career without getting even one Gold Glove. In the last 50 years, a total of 38 shortstops from the NL and AL have received Golden Glove awards. Of those, 19 received a single Gold Glove. So, Cal Ripken is one of 19 shortstops to receive multiple Gold Gloves in the last fifty years. How many people do you think played shortstop in that half century? Hell, there are at least thirty full-time shortstops playing at any given time in the majors in any given year. To say that he was average to below average based on this statistic just beggars belief. You are right that he played most of his career at the position that demands the best fielding, and that’s exactly what he gave. Sure, he’s not the best fielding shortstop in history, but if that were required for the Hall of Fame then the only shortstop in Cooperstown would be Ozzie Smith. You say Ripken was slow, and it might indeed be that he wasn’t the fastest shortstop ever. But he didn’t need to be, because of the way he played the position. And this is another reason he is so important, because he (along with a couple of others) revolutionized the shortstop position, so it’s no longer a place where you have to be small and willing to throw yourself all over the place in order to make a play. In describing Ripken’s fielding, i’ll defer to **RickJay**. He is, i believe, the Doper who knows the most about baseball and its history, and who is also less likely than most to let his own team loyalties get in the way of his analysis. Comparing Ripken to Omar Vizquel (11 Gold Gloves), [he says](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8010559&postcount=95): > [@RickJay](#): > > I saw Cal Ripken play a lot of ball games, and I’ve seen Omar play a lot of ball games, and to my eyes, Ripken at his peak was quite obviously as good as, and possibly better than, Omar Vizquel. If you just look for dives and spectacular-looking plays, Omar certainly made a lot more of those - but Ripken was far, far more impressive from a technical point of view. His primary advantage was of course his arm, maybe the best arm a shortstop has ever had; ever throw he made was a 90-mph bullet smack into the first baseman’s glove. His arm was just amazing. Because of that, he played much deeper than any other shortstop, which enabled him to get to a lot of balls that otherwise would’ve shot past. His footwork was exceptional, too; technically speaking he was first rate. On top of that he did everything else very well. His movement around the ball, and coming in, was exceptionally sharp. His reaction times, very quick. If you wanted to film a guy to teach kids how to play good fundamental infield defense, you should have filmed Cal Ripken. > > People used to say Ripken was great at “positioning,” but really, what he was doing was simply playing deep and using his amazing arm, combined with extremely sharp, refined fundamentals. As a result, he was making plays look routine that Omar Vizquel would have made by making a fancy backhand stop. Omar made the ESPN highlight reel more often, but that’s not what wins ball games. > > To use another example, as a Blue Jays fan, I saw Tony Fernandez a lot. Tony had this play he would make where he would go way, way to his right to pick up what should have been a clean single, and instead of diving he’d grab it on the run, fling himself into the air, and lob the ball over to first with a sidearm whip. It was, visually, the most amazing play you’d ever see. The first time he got someone with it they played it every night for a week. Cal Ripken never did anything like that; he COULDN’T do that. > > But the thing is, how many guys did Tony actually get out that way? I would guess, from 1983 to 1989 during his Blue Jays tenure, he might have, at the absolute max, thrown out ten men that way in seven years. Twelve, maybe. Most of the time he did it he DIDN’T get the runner, but the announcers would go on for ten minutes about what a remarkable effort it was. > > Ripken, meanwhile, would just play ten-fifteen feet deeper, at a depth most shortstops would have trouble making good throws, and would nail 20, 30, 40 or more runners every year with seemingly routine stops that other shortstops would not have made. And it’s not just these intangibles that make Ripken a good fielder either. In [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8010070&postcount=89) **RickJay** gives stats for: > [@RickJay](#): > > Fielding Runs Above Replacement for a selection of modern shortstops, only counting games at shortstop: > > 1. Ozzie Smith, 783 > 2. Dave Conception, 637 > 3. Luis Aparicio, 579 > 4. Cal Ripken, 512 > 5. Omar Vizquel, 483 > 6. Bert Campaneris, 473 > 7. Mark Belanger, 463 > 8. Alan Trammell, 456 > 9. Larry Bowa, 449 > 10. Garry Templeton, 441 > 11. Barry Larkin, 410 > 12. Tony Fernandez, 393 Ripken looks to be in some pretty decent company there. Then there’s his hitting, which needs to be considered not only for the raw statistics, but for the fact that he was a shortstop who hit for power. Sure, his career .276 average isn’t going to break any records, but his OBP of .340 is pretty good. And he also hit 431 home runs, and got 3184 hits. You say his MVP numbers are “good, not spectacular.” Again, do you have any conception of the fact that well over 90 percent of Major League ballplayers never win even one MVP award in their career? And Ripken got 2. Even without the streak, all of this would get him into the Hall of Fame. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-hall-of-fame-voters-get-it-right/387327.md?page=3)