I’d either kick out a whole bunch of them, or keep them all. To me, you have to either commit to letting in only the true giants, or you have to just accept that your standards are going to slide to hell and induction into the Hall is going to lose a bit of meaning. I’d favor the first scenario, so I wouldn’t mind if about a third of the people in there right now weren’t there (Like Zev, though, I’d be opposed to actually removing them, so I’ll pretend they just never got inducted).
I agree with most of the names mentioned so far, and I’ll add Herb Pennock. He won 240 games, but he never led the league in wins or ERA, and he was on some of the more ridiculous teams in the history of the game. His career ERA+ is 106- just barely above average. In fact, his baseball-reference.com Hall of Fame scores are all below the typical Hall of Famer thresholds.
At the risk of opening a can of worms here, I think you should bear two things in mind:
The Hall of Fame’s rules of selection specifically say that players should not be selected based on one season’s performance.
41 wins in 1904 is not what you think it is. Obviously, if a pitcher won 41 games today he’d rightly be credited with having had a miraculous-ultra-great season.
But in his time. Chesbro’s 41 wins was not one bit more amazing than Bob Welch’s 27 wins in 1990 - and I don’t see anyone suggesting Bob Welch should be in the Hall of Fame. In the late 1890s and1900s, quite a few pitchers won 30 games or more, and Ed Walsh won 40 games in 1908. Christy Mathewson won 30 game or more four times, including 37 in 1908. Joe McGinnity won 35 games in 1904.
Jack Chesbro had a legitimately great season in 1904, no doubt about it. But if you consider it in the context of its times, it wasn’t any more amazing than Ron Guidry’s phenomenal season in 1978, or Dwight Gooden’s 1985 season. Why is Jack Chesbro a greater player than Ron Guidry?
Keith Hernandez was a huge star of his time, too, so where’s the Keith Hernandez vote? (I actually think he’d be a decent pick.)
Most stars don’t get into the Hall. Rizzuto was NOT considered much of a Hall of Fame candidate by the voters who actually saw him play. In his first year of eligibility he got exactly one vote. He was back on the ballot in 1962 and for ten years the best percentage he ever managed was 26%.
No, it really wouldn’t. Marquard was not a star on the level of Dean, and he wasn’t any more a star than Jack Morris or Luis Tiant. And Dean was a much better pitcher.
Catfish Hunter was a much, much bigger star than Marquard.
Nowhere, which is why Rod Carew is in the Hall. And Tony Gwynn, and Eddie Collins, and lots of singers hitters. But lots of singles hitters AREN’T in the Hall of Fame, like Manny Mota and Damaso Garcia. The difference between Lloyd Waner and guys like Carew, Sisler, Gwynn and Collins is that they were great players. Lloyd Waner was not.
Cinnamon Girl, in what bizarre alternate universe does Ted Williams not belong in the Hall of Fame?
Dave Bancroft seems to be a defensive wiz. Only 2000 hits. .279 lifetime average. I don’t know if they kept defensive statistics back then, but his bio doesn’t seem to indicate any Ozzie Smith-like defensive abilities.
Herb Pennock Despite Miller Huggins comments, he won 241 games in 22 years. Jim Bunning won 20 less games in 6 fewer seasons, and he was a controversial choice.
Jim Bunning I don’t know about using him as an example for someone else not to be included and then saying he shouldn’t be included but: He won 20 games only once, and usually had losses in the double digits whenever he won more than 15 games. Only 220 victories. Are we gonna put Mike Mussina in there too?
Waite Hoyt 237 victories in 20 years. Only had 8 years with 15 or more victories. His first 10 years: 155 wins. His second ten years: 82 wins. Several losing seasons.
None of these guys came close to the usual benchmarks (3000 hits, 500 hrs, 300 wins). They didn’t even make the secondary level benchmarks (2500 hits, 350 hrs, 250 wins.).
"(d) BETTING ON BALL GAMES. Any player, umpire, or club official or
employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in
connection with which the bettor has no duty to perform shall be declared
ineligible for one year.
Any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee, who shall
bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which
the bettor has a duty to perform shall be declared permanently ineligible."
Matters naught if he had 5 hits or five million hits. Beside that, the Hall says:
“As stated in the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Rules for Election, “any player on Baseball’s ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate” for consideration by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) or the Baseball Hall of Fame Committee on Baseball Veterans.”
In the event that Rose is reinstated today, here’s what would have to happen:
“A baseball player must have been active as a player in the Major Leagues at some time during a period beginning twenty (20) years before and ending five (5) years prior to election.”
Rose would have to be elected into the Hall either in 2005 or 2006. Speculation has been interesting, to say the least. My guess is that most of the fans he had in the Hall before his book came out around Induction Weekend probably aren’t as enamored of him as they once were, and that the Writers probably aren’t entirely happy with him either.
My father was a long-time White sox fan, and he believed the only reason Early Wynn got into the Hall was because he won 300 games, and the only reason he won 300 games was because he kept hanging around after his last good season (1959). I don’t know if I’d kick Wynn out, but would he have gotten in with, says, 275 vicotires instead of 300?
Of course, if I really believed that argument, I’d have to vote out a lot of players who hung on too long, just to get a landmark number – and I’m not ready to vote out Steve Carlton.
Upon re-reading your post after (unfortunately) Neurotik pointed out the breeze, I see now that you were just joking to begin with. My sincerest apologies for alluding otherwise. I had recently heard some nincompoop suggest that Babe Ruth was over-rated and made the blanket statement that “today’s ballplayers are much more talented than earlier ones.” Apparently, there was some residual anger left over from the verbal beating I gave him. Again, my apologies. You’re so funny! :o
I forgive you since my reading skills appear to be lackluster as well. Perhaps my writing skills are not much better, so I’ll clarify my statement:
was supposed to come across as: Williams is absolutely Hall of Fame worthy, although the stat indicates Ruth was a much more effective batter. FTR, I have a huge amount of admiration for both men and wish I had been around to watch either of them play.
iampunha, I understand the problems involved with Pete Rose and his lack of eligibility for the Hall of Fame, but I don’t like it. I find it sad that any discussion about whether he belongs there or not is moot until he’s reinstated and I don’t see that happening anytime in the near future (or as long as Selig is commissioner – maybe Bush should have become commissioner instead). Regardless, I’d like to see it happen because I think his player record speaks for itself. I just wish we would stop requiring people to be perfect human beings, recognize that everyone does stupid things, and honor them for the great things they did achieve. I commend Rose for finally letting go of his misdirected pride and owning up to his egregious error in judgment. He deserves a second chance in my book. But then, I have an asshole too.
With any luck, this grounds the hijack I started and/or perpetuated. Apologies also to Jonathan Chance. One day, I hope, my knowledge of individual player history, will be respectable enough to contribute meaningfully to a topic like this.
I’ve got another one: Rabbit Maranville. .258 lifetime hitter, middling-to-average in the field, and an anemic, even for his era, lifetime total of 28 home runs in 2,670 (!) lifetime games. The guy only had two good seasons out of 23 in the bigs, but in neither did he even hit .300. Longevity alone just shouldn’t cut it for the Hall.
Hey, speaking of Chesbro and his big season, how about Hack Wilson? Take out the 191 RBI season and he was a real good hitter, but not a Hall of Fame hitter. Only 244 HR’s and barely 1000 RBI even with the one ridiculous season.
Well, at the end of the 1959 season he was 271-213. Similar pitchers include:
Red Ruffing, 273-225 - Hall of Famer
Robin Roberts, 286-245 - Hall of Famer
Fergie Jenkins, 284-226 - Hall of Famer
Burleigh Grimes, 270-212 - Hall of Famer
Jim Kaat, 283-237 - Not yet
Tommy John - Not yet
Actually, I suspect Wynn may have been elected anyway even if he’d quit in 1959, especially since he would have been quitting right after winning the Cy Young.
Duke, not that this is necessarily a disagreement about his HOF chops, but I thought Maranville was supposed to have been spectacular in the field. His numbers seem to be pretty well above average to me, anyway.
Well, I’d hate to start up with you again now that we’ve made up, but I do feel that today’s players are better than those of yesteryear. I do believe that if you plunked Babe Ruth down in today’s lineup, there is no way on earth that he’d hit .342 and have 714 home runs. If you put Ty Cobb at the plate today, his average would dip well below .367.
That doesn’t, however, mean that Ruth is overrated. Ruth was surely the greatest player in his day and that, IMHO, is the criteria by which HoF candidates should be judged. Roger Connor belongs in the HoF (even though he only had 138 home runs) because he was one of the best players in his day. I personally feel that you cannot make any meaningful comparison of players across eras. There is no way to meaningfully compare (via statistics) Roger Clemens to Cy Young, simply because the game that Roger played is not the same game that Cy Young played.
No problem with the hijack. Baseball discussions should wander.
Watch me do this same thing…
I actually agree with him. Both conditioning and the science of the sport have improved enormously over the decades to the point where the average ballplayer today IS better than the average ballplayer of yesteryear. It’s unfair to consider today’s average ballplayer (that you see every day) with say, Ruth, or the other standouts. Suppose you did that the other way and compared Joe Shlabotnik from 1927 against Barry Bonds today? Still not fair.
The fact that extremes of performance (both pitching and hitting) are narrowing indicates that both pitching and hitting are improving as the two sides continually war against each other for dominance.
Actually, I’m glad to see that we agree on this Jonathan Chance. I know that when I have the same ideas that you do WRT baseball that I’m usually on solid ground.
Yeah, come to think of it, you may be right there. Although I don’t think his defense was enough to make up for his no-more-than-average offense. He was no Ozzie Smith, though of course nobody from that era was.
I have heard contemporary anecdotes (and this is the sort of thing that wouldn’t show up in the stat sheet) suggesting that he was such a flake that he’d intentionally botch plays, though not enough to be charged with errors. He did seem to be the product of a by-gone era in baseball…an old-fashioned vaudevillian.
True, but Hack’s career was unusually short. (I believe it was curtailed by injury, but I don’t have my Total Baseball to hand to confirm that.) He had more than one good season–the previous year, 1929, he had .345/39/159, surely a great season by any standard. During the four years 1927-30 he averaged .333/39/150, a one-man wrecking crew by any stretch of the imagination. That includes 599 RBI over four years!
True, I think Wilson’s HoF entry was more based on “what could have been” than what actually was. But he certainly wasn’t a one-season wonder.
Yeah, maybe you’re right. Wilson played in 400 fewer games than Dimaggio, even, so his numbers suffer more than I thought. I believe his career was shortened not by injury, though, but by a decline in skills, probably fueled by his drinking habits. He was the guy they said was a low-ball hitter and a high-ball drinker, was he not?
I think that was my point as well. It’s unfair to compare today’s players to those of 50+ years ago primarily because of the fact that athletic conditioning has improved. Legal supplements, creatine and Androstenedione, are now being used by many of today’s best athletes. TMK, the heroes of yesteryear weren’t taking performance-enhancing supplements. Additionally, injuries are better dealt with reducing healing time and an injury’s effect on performance.
Certainly, technology’s contribution to management has had a major effect on how the game is played. It’s probably based a lot more on information more easily compiled and referenced than intuition. I’ve read that today’s pitchers are less likely to call the pitches on their own but rely on the manager to do so. I’m not certain of the veracity of that, however. But if it’s true, then Babe Ruth presumeably had more going for him mentally than Nolan Ryan.
It’s not that I don’t think today’s players aren’t as talented as our old heroes. For all I know, ballplayers may have to work even harder to stand out then did those of the past. I simply, but strongly, believe it’s an unfair comparison. Not to mention the fact that he called the Babe overrated. I shoulda taken a bat to his head.
Well, that LAST part is just crazy. Ruth is, without a doubt, one of the top five baseball players there has EVER been.
But as an aggregate we’re seeing the greatest collection of players ever.
Sure, it’s a fantasy, but I’d love to see how say, the 1906 Cubs would stack up against the 1989 Athletics with McGwire and Canseco.
I’m currently reading ‘The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers’ and in the history section it give information on the development of the pitches in the history. Would Christy Mathewson still have been great without the casual doctoring of the ball that Neyer and James explicitly state every pitcher used? He never knew a slider, for example. If Three-Finger Brown could only bring his sailor pitch and fastball to the game would Barry Bonds send it 500 feet?
I think Babe Ruth should be excluded from any discussion of past vs. present ballplayers. He was simply in a category all his own.
From 1919 (when he stopped pitching) through 1933, Ruth only had two seasons where he failed to play at least 130 games. That suggests he was pretty injury-free during most of his career and probably quite capable of handling a 162-game season.
People who say that Ruth couldn’t compete in the modern era aren’t admitting that he would have all the advantages of the modern era (weight and strength training, a livelier baseball, safe appendectomies and modern antibiotics). If the Babe didn’t develop a cocaine habit, he’d most likely be in better shape and might have even posted better numbers at his peak and/or in the last couple of years of his career.
On the other hand, if Ty Cobb tried to bunt a modern baseball, he might set an all-time record for pop-ups to third base.
