Frank Robinson is probably the most underrated great player of baseball history.
Was he the best ever? No, of course not. But the number of other players that were clearly better is very short - Aaron, Mays, Williams for sure; Musial as well; probably Ruth and Walter Johnson.
A lot of it depends how much you value peak vs longevity (i.e. Mantle); how big a penalty you give to players whose career was before integration (Cobb, Gehrig,etc); and how much you discount known/suspected steroid users (Bonds/Clemens).
Add in the managing career and the fairly universal respect he had and he’s quite the historical figure.
So, the greatest of all time? Almost undoubtedly not. On the short list of the very best of all time? Unless your personal “short list” is less than a dozen players, I think he’s up there.
Yeah, I was looking at the career WAR among all players, I think he’s 24th there. Between players that were really close to him, and others that you could discount for steriods or era adjustment, the players who were clearly better than Robinson are very few.
Mind that I’m not necessarily saying that an adjustment to Cobb’s career value (for example) for playing in pre-integration baseball would bring his WAR/value down to Robinson’s level - just that it is an argument that could be made. If you penalize Cobb 25%, his career WAR is now in Robinson’s ballpark. I suspect 25% is too much, but I feel you have to make some kind of an adjustment.
madsircool I’m confused. Are you saying Robinson doesn’t deserve to be in the HOF, he doesn’t deserve to get in on the first time, or he doesn’t deserve 100% of the vote because Ruth and Williams didn’t get 100% of the vote (we’ll leave Gehrig as a special case)?
BTW, after Rivera, who do you think the highest vote getters were? AFAICT they were Ken Griffey, Jr., Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Cal Ripken, George Brett, and Ty Cobb. Poor Babe Ruth had to settle for 95.1% of the vote.
Robinson was obviously the first African American to have a contract to manage a big league team, but the first to actually manage the team during a game was probably Gene Baker of the Pirates. Baker was the first African American to manage a minor league team when he managed Batavia in the early 60’s. The Pirates hired him as a coach in 1963 and in a game against the Dodgers that year Manager Danny Murtaugh and coach Frank Oceak were both thrown out of the game while arguing a call at first base late in the game. Murtaugh then told Baker he was the manager. This was reported in at least one California paper at the time and confirmed by Pirate players. Sadly, the Pirates lost when a relief pitcher Baker brought in gave up a walk off home run.
Inthe earlier days of the Hall of Fame there were literally too many players to vote for. Remember, the HOF didn’t start until the 1930s, at which point big league baseball was 50 years old or so. They had a hell of a backlog, and a lot of writers favored earlier players - like, 19th centiry and turn of the century guys - figuring they should start from there. The glut was such that the voting system really didn’t work correctly. Joe Dimaggio didn’t even get in on the first ballot. His first year on the ballot, in 1953, he only got 44% of the vote. It’s not that there was any serious thought he wasn’t a Hall of Famer, it’s just that they were trying and failing. If you look at teh 1953 balloting it’s clear they were trying to get guys in who played before DiMaggio:
Dizzy Dean 79.2 (elected)
Al Simmons 75.4 (elected)
Bill Terry 72.3
Bill Dickey 67.8
Rabbit Maranville 62.1
Dazzy Vance 56.8
Ted Lyons 52.7
Joe DiMaggio 44.3
Gabby Harnett 39.4
Chief Bender 39.4
Hank Greenberg 30.3
Joe Cronin 26.1
There are two dozen more eventual Hall of Famers BELOW Joe Cronin, guys like Red Ruffing, Tony Lazzeri, Luke Appling. They just had too many guys to vote for.
Of course there’s no excuse later on. How Frank Robinson only got 89 percent is a mystery; he was one of the ten greatest outfielders in the history of the major leagues. His class (1982) was a tough one; he was up agaisnt Hank Aaron, a greater player, and some other huge stars like Marichal, Killebrew, Drysdale. Twelve eventual Hall of Famers were on the ballot in 1982 along with Aaron and Robinson. Still, he looks obviously way above all of them except for Aaron.
It’s true Robinson has some betters, like Ruth, Mays, Aaron. Sure. But the line for “definitely, no doubt about it a Hall of Famer” is WAY BELOW Frank Robinson. He is clearly far ahead of any standard you can name; he is a greater player than most Hall of Famers. Passes the Keltner Test with flying colors.
Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Tris Speaker, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Ken Griffey Jr., Joe Di Maggio and then Frank Robinson.
Where you rank Griffey and DiMaggio versus Robinson depends on how much emphasis you place on peak value versus career value. Griffey and DiMaggio were both better at their peaks. However, Griffey was injured a lot, and DiMaggio had a short career. Griffey’s and DiMaggio’s three best seasons were better than any of Robinson’s, but starting with each player’s fourth-best season Robinson outperformed the other two. Of course, DiMaggio lost three seasons in the heart of his career to military service, and without this he could have had more seasons better than Robinson.