# New "Golden Era" Nominees For Baseball Hall of Fame **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 31, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128 "2014-10-31T15:23:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/1 "2014-10-31T15:23:25Z")
Read more here: [http://m.mlb.com/news/article/100104718/hall-of-fame-golden-era-ballot-revealed](http://m.mlb.com/news/article/100104718/hall-of-fame-golden-era-ballot-revealed) The following players are up for a vote this year. It’s an interesting list, for reasons I’ll go into in a minute. On the ballot: Dick Allen Ken Boyer Gil Hodges Bob Howsam Jim Kaat Minnie Minoso Tony Oliva Billy Pierce Luis Tiant Maury Wills There’s only one name on this list that I reject without a second thought: Maury Wills. My inclination would be to vote no for all these guys. And indeed, I don’t believe any of them will be elected. Tony Oliva was one of my favorite players ever, one of my first baseball idols. He just didn’t have ENOUGH great seasons to get in. But almost everybody else on this list makes me think, “Well, he’s not really deserving, BUT… he’s way better than a BUNCH of guys who are already in, so why NOT elect him?” Dick Allen was a much more fearsome hitter than Jim Rice, who’s in. Tiant, Pierce, and Kaat are all at least as good as Catfish Hunter or Don Drysdale, who are both in. Ken Boyer was a great defensive third baseman (a position seriously underrepresented in Cooperstown) and a more productive hitter than many Hall of Famers. I don’t think ANY of these nominees will excite the voters enough to get elected… but msot of them have a pretty decent case. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/2 "2014-11-01T16:05:06Z")
None of them are worthy. They’re all the Hall of Very Good, right up there with Jack Morris. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/3 "2014-11-01T16:09:00Z")
Gil Hodges maybe. I don’t know the purpose of doing this. Are these Honorable Mentions or something like that? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/4 "2014-11-01T16:52:14Z")
I’d vote for Hodges. He was in no small part responsible for Brooklyn/LA’s success in the '50s and early '60s. He was only outdone by Duke Snyder for home runs and RBIs for the decade, and he lost 3 years of his career due to World War II. Additionally, he was known as a great fielder. He should have been in years ago, but he suffers from the Pittsburgh Steelers Syndrome: on a team full of great players he was good at everything but nobody noticed, and after inducting half his teammates who wants to put another Dodger in the Hall? That’s about it. Dick Allen was a great hitter but had a reputation as a malcontent, albeit not entirely deserved. Unfortunately, that will forever keep him out. His numbers were killed largely by the dead-ball era of the '60s, but still pretty good. Tiant and Kaat were good-but-not-great, Ken Boyer was a great defensive third baseman but otherwise nothing special, and the rest aren’t worthy of consideration. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/5 "2014-11-01T18:00:38Z")
Allen was an awesome hitter but a shorter career and his reputation for being a jerk was 100% deserved. He’s not as good a player as Tim Raines or Dwight Evans. Boyer is not a bad pick, IMHO. He’s being underrated here, for some reason; a good hitter for a long time and a terrific glove man. Gil Hodges, not as a player. No better a player than John Olerud. Bob Howsam was not a baseball player. I, personally, don’t like “builders” and executives being ion the Hall at all. That’s just me, though. Jim Kaat obviously isn’t qualified as a pitcher, though maybe they give points for also being a broadcaster. Minnie Minoso was a hell of a player but not for long enough. Bill James made the argument Minoso’s career was held up by the color line but that’s a hard argument to put a lot of faith in when Minoso made the big leagues at 23. Tony Oliva would certainly be in the Hall already if he had been healthy, but he wasn’t. Bill Pierce was a heck of a pitcher but so was Dave Stieb. There’s a lot of guys like Pierce. Luis Tiant was a better pitcher than Pierce. According to baseballrefernece, Tiant is the 126th best player in baseball history, roughly equal in career value to Roberto Alomar, Roy Halladay, Goose Goslin or Manny Ramirez. I find that absolutely amazing, to be honest. I think WAR is guessing high - but he really was a terrific pitcher. Maury Wills - Shit, no. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/6 "2014-11-02T01:40:18Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Gil Hodges, not as a player. No better a player than John Olerud. And not as a manager, either. In 8+ seasons of managing his team won more than 83 games precisely…once. Granted, it was an impressive _once_, and he did a great job that year, but still…once. I don’t think I’d vote for any of them, except on the basis of “better than a whole bunch of other guys already in the Hall,” which is not an argument I’m inclined toward. I have a soft spaat for Jim Kaat (he was the subject of one of my first published articles), and it wouldn’t be a travesty if Boyer or Tiant were elected. Still, I’d probably return a blank ballot. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/7 "2014-11-02T07:50:42Z")
My grandma is friends with Billy Pierce, and he was nice to me when I was little. I hope he gets in. Seems quite unlikely though. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/8 "2014-11-02T12:54:49Z")
They may be on the new ballot, but they’re hardly new nominees. They’re the same rejects whose names get put forth year after year by their hard-core supporters in the hopes that the small election panel is stacked with people in their favor this year. Hey, it worked for Rizzuto, for Mazeroski, for Santo. I’m sure that eventually, the “just right” mix of people will vote Hodges in. This ballot is the biggest argument for abolishing the Veteran’s Committee that I’ve ever seen. If one of these guys is inducted alongside real HOFers like Randy Johnson or Ken Griffey Jr., while i’m sure the latter two will mouth the right cliches, I’m sure they’ll be thinking, “I didn’t need to be as good as I was to get in, I just had to be like that.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2014, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-golden-era-nominees-for-baseball-hall-of-fame/703128/9 "2014-11-02T17:13:33Z")
That may be true, **cmkeller** , but in some cases old injustices have been remedied-Santo being one of them. I do wish the current VC structure was in place during some of their most egregrious sins of the past (60’s-70’s mostly), which is where your criticism would be the most valid. But standards of excellence may change over the years, and a player’s career might end up being seen in a new light. Note that the new VC has hardly elected anyone recently, Santo and Joe Gordon being the only post-WWII ML players of note going back at least 10 years.