The Hall of Fame used to mean a lot to me but now I don’t care. Not the concept, or the place itself. It’s actually a pretty terrific museum, if not in the most convenient place ever. If you’ve never been, you absolutely need to go. And one of the rarely-spoken things about Cooperstown is that it’s easily something that a non-baseball fan can go to and enjoy – or at least tolerate – for a couple of hours. And there are other things nearby that perhaps your non-baseball fan can do while you spend additional time at the museum.
No, what ceases to hold any interest to me are the players inducted into the Hall of Fame. When Jim Rice, Jack Morris and Harold Baines are in and Pete Rose, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are not – it’s just hard to take the players inducted seriously. You can tell the story of baseball history without mentioning the former three players. It’s a lot harder to do the same with the latter three. From the Hall’s own website:
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is an independent, non-profit educational institution dedicated to fostering an appreciation of the historical development of baseball and its impact on our culture by collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting its collections for a global audience as well as honoring those who have made outstanding contributions to our national pastime.
The Hall of Fame’s mission is to preserve the sport’s history, honor excellence within the game and make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball.
Honor excellence within the game – there’s simply no way that enshrining Rice, Morris and Baines and refusing to do the same with Rose, Bonds and Clemens reaches the goals that the Hall sets for itself. Furthermore, how can you make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball when you leave out the biggest and brightest stars from an entire generation? The game’s biggest stars from 1985-2005 are on the outside looking in and we’re all supposed to be okay with this?
And yes, there’s a reason those players aren’t in the Hall and the Hall has only itself to blame for that. Regardless of which subject you’re dealing with, there’s likely going to be part of the history that is less than pristine. If you’re going to tell the story of baseball, you have to talk about the influence of gambling and racism and steroids and other sensitive topics or else you have a massively incomplete history.
And who wants a museum with a partial history of anything?
Some try to say that the Hall has items in its collection of all those players and that not inducting them is an appropriate reaction to their transgressions. Besides, the argument goes, the Hall doesn’t elect players, BBWAA members do.
Perhaps the first argument would hold more water if there weren’t scoundrels of all sorts already enshrined in the Hall. Should we kick out Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Charles Comiskey, Kirby Puckett and others? But really, my main complaint is with the second item.
Having BBWAA members vote on the membership was actually a brilliant idea at first. It guaranteed that the institution would have free publicity on an annual basis. And at first, it was probably the most-qualified group of people they could have chosen. But it’s clearly not the same today as it was back in the 1930s. There are BBWAA members who haven’t covered the game in years, although the Hall is trying to purge those members. But you still have a lot of kooks with votes and a lot of people who are very knowledgeable without one.
Even that’s not my main beef.
The Hall had a chance to say, “Hey, we’re a museum and not a criminal court.” But it opted not to do that and in my mind that was an unforgivable sin on its part. Instead, it let kooks and writers no longer involved in covering the game on a daily basis interpret the “character clause” any way that they chose, even if they were the same ones leading the cheers when these players were active.
And instead of clarifying its position on the matter and address the massive backlog of candidates that was hurting matters for everyone, the Hall made matters worse by shortening the amount of time that players could be on the ballot and making no statement about ballots that were turned in empty or with one player on it.
With the number of qualified candidates, even if you refused to vote for anyone with steroids accusations or the ridiculous, made out of thin air, not voting for guys in their first year on the ballot – there were still 8-12 highly qualified players to choose and yet somehow these “experts” were submitting blank or nearly empty ballots.
Simply, the way that both the Hall and its voters were treating the process became a giant turnoff. So, something that I cared about passionately and wrote numerous articles – both here and elsewhere – is now something which doesn’t inspire me at all. And that’s a shame.
*****
Let’s close this with something more Mets-specific. Instead of focusing on guys who are tainted one way or another, let’s talk about two pitchers with no major character allegations against them. Why is the aforementioned Morris a Hall of Famer and Jerry Koosman isn’t? The two have almost identical innings pitched and Koosman is superior in just about every other meaningful category.
Jack – 3824.0 IP, 5.83 K/9, 3.27 BB/9, 0.92 HR/9, 3.90 ERA, 55.8 fWAR
Jerry – 3839.1 IP, 5.99 K/9, 2.81 BB/9, 0.68 HR/9, 3.36 ERA, 62.6 fWAR
While Koosman’s career started before Morris, the two pitchers were both active from 1977 to 1985. In that span, Koosman had a 29.3-27.9 fWAR advantage, despite that span including Morris’ best season and three years of Koosman in his forties. If we take the top seven years of production in both of their careers, here’s how it looks:
Jack – 6.2, 4.7, 4.1, 4.1, 4.0, 4.0, 4.0 – 31.1 fWAR
Jerry – 5.5, 5.4, 5.1, 4.9, 4.7, 4.6, 4.4 – 34.6 fWAR
And that’s not even taking into account the forearm injury that Koosman suffered early in his career, one that made him change from a power pitcher to more of a junkballer. In 1969, Koosman had a 6.72 K/9, which was a good total for the era and not too far off from Tom Seaver’s 6.85 mark in the category. But the next year he had a 5.04 mark and put up less than half the fWAR (2.3) that he did the previous year (5.4) before he hurt his arm. Koosman had three straight years with an fWAR in the twos in what should have been the prime of his career. And it’s not like what he did in 1969 was some outlier. He put up two other fWAR seasons in the fives, ones that came at age 31 and 36. With the health that Morris enjoyed, Koosman would have finished with an fWAR in the 70s and been a legitimate HOF candidate.
Morris supporters will counter with his 254 Wins and his Game 7. Most adults now understand that wins are a team stat and Morris generally played on much-better teams than Koosman. And while Morris was terrific in that one game, Koosman was a great World Series pitcher, going 3-0 with a 2.39 ERA in his four starts in those games. Morris was 4-2 with a 2.96 ERA.
To be sure, there are other arguments made in support of Morris. My favorite one is that the reason his ERA is so pedestrian is that he “pitched to the score.” The idea that Morris would give up five runs in a game where his team had already scored seven and give up one run when his team scored two. This has been debunked numerous times and you can find plenty of those online. Here’s one from Joe Posnanski:
And now, we look at it in total: When Morris’s teams scored one, two or three runs, he went 32-87 with a 4.08 ERA. That’s not good. And that’s not even including his high ERA when his team was shut out.
It seems to me you could argue, maybe, that Morris did battle well his teams scored runs for him. He completed games, and made every start and brought victories home when his team put runs on the board. But pitch to the score? No. Not unless the score was high.
Another argument of Morris supporters is the word “Fame” in the museum’s title. Morris is famous, mostly for his Game 7 performance. No arguments here. He should be recognized in the museum for that game. He just shouldn’t be a member of the Hall because of it.
There’s no way to say that Morris is an all-time great. He was a fine pitcher, one who had a career that most players would love to have. But there’s a big difference in being above-average and having the benefit of playing on teams with generally strong offenses and an all-time great. And anyone who can’t see the difference, quite frankly, shouldn’t have a Hall of Fame vote., whether as a BBWAA member or someone as part of a special committee.
My two centavos:
Rose, Clemens, Bonds:
My question is, did they have the stats before they allegedly committed their heinous acts? I’ll warrant the answer is yes, so let them in.
My only other question is Herr Schilling. What I’d like to hear him talk about is that amazing WS game where they had to sew his Achilles tendon to his uniform, and not only did he pitch, but pitched very well
What I don’t want to hear him talk about is everything else in the infinite multiverse. But it does seem he had the numbers before he revealed himself as someone incredibly easy with whom to feel disgust, so I suppose he’s in. However, I’d have to take a closer look at his numbers to pass final judgment
Some good points, Brian.
Jack Morris should not be in the HOF with a 105 ERA+. But neither should Jerry Koosman at 110.
Ty Cobb was not the hated, racist character that Al Stump defamed. Check out Charles Leerhsen’s book, “Ty Cobb: A Terrible Beauty.” Cobb got along with lots of players, who did not consider him a dirty player who spiked fielders purposefully; nor was he a “Georgia racist.” Rather, Cobb was an early white supporter of the integration of baseball. He did have a short temper and was quick to fight, like a lot of players a century ago.
And, Chuck Schilling (127 ERA+) may be a jerk on Twitter, but he should be in the Hall of Fame.
Chuck Schilling played second base for the Red Sox from 1961 to 1965. You must have been thinking about his baseball card, brain freeze, huh.
Chuck Schilling for the HOF! 69 OPS+! Very worthy! LOL!
Great comparison on Koosman and Morris Brian. The one that really gets me is Billy Wagner. He has better numbers than most of the relievers that are in the hall:
Wagner 2.31 ERA, 0.998 WHIP, 187 ERA+, 11.9 K/9, 27.7 bWAR
Fingers 2.90, 1.156, 120, 7.8, 25.6
Gossage 3.01, 1.232, 126, 7.5, 41.2
Hoffman 2.87, 1.058, 141, 9.4, 28.0
Rivera 2.21, 1.000, 205, 8.2, 56.3
Smith 3.03, 1.256, 132, 8.7, 28.9
Sutter 2.83, 1.140, 136, 7.4, 24.1
He’s even comparable to Rivera in most categories other than bWAR and Rivera was unanimous. I don’t understand it with Wagner. He’s never even gotten half the vote!
I just like the Dylan song/article title. I actually played that song earlier this week.
We need more Mets songs!
hahah.
I’m not gonna get into a debate about who should or should not be enshrined in Cooperstown.
I’ve visited the HOF on three separate occasions. In 1966 as a preteen; in 1988 as a father of two boys under ten; and in 2008 with my siblings. All memorable and enjoyable, as the museum is constantly churning and updating it’s format and collection for each generation.
It is out of the way in upstate NY, but it is a beautiful spot with lots for the non baseball fan (as my wife is) to enjoy, as Brian noted. If you love baseball and it’s history, one should make an effort to go.
Having said that, I made it to the Negro Baseball HOF located in Kansas City this past summer, and it was also well done. I learned more though, from the Jazz museum that is also housed in the same building. It’s a lot easier to get to then upstate New York, that’s for sure!
The first two players who I thought about before I read this article were Morris and Baines. Alan Trammel is in, but what about Lou Whitaker?
Rice is in, but what about Dwight Evans? How many really good players flamed out early, rather than playing the longevity game with mediocre numbers? Here are a few, Andruw Jones, Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, Keith Hernandez,
I love the hall, but I really dont like the way that the writers vote. To me a player is a hall of famer or not. It’s silly how some players gain steam while others do not.
It would be cool to have a baseball museum in general that is a history museum of the game in a place that is easy to get to.
I’ve never been there, but have been told that every baseball fan should go. When Harold Baines got in because a quack like LaRussa had friends in the committee, I lost all interest. Since then I don’t even know who got it.
Many times I’ve thought the museum should have an “all-time greats” section for Mays, Aaron, Mathewson, Wagner, Feller, DiMaggio, and others of that stature, and a secondary wing for good players that are enshrined like Trammell, Morris and Larry Walker.
Every voter’s ballot should be made public and only ballots with at least eight names should be considered. If you can’t find a player to vote for, you should give up your spot. Too, if more than half your votes in successive years are for players that received less than 30% of the vote, you lose your spot. This will force voters to take it seriously and to stop thinking it’s their opportunity to make attention for themselves.
It seems that the cheaters have paid their price and should be elected in. Gaylord Perry was caught more times doctoring the baseball then can be imagined but there he sits in the Hall. The body of work for the big three was established long before they bulked up. The voting is archaic and includes people from another era who hold fast to ideals whose time has passed and have no flexibility. They think. Baseball is still a game.
What I find interesting is that many players who did not get in was the result of falling short of long time established criteria. We will elect new players but, with very few exceptions, will ever we see more 500 HR, 3000 hit, 300 wins players going forward? Will the change in “long time stats” mean that many players from the past should be in? Perhaps the answer should be that those who gain entry should be the superstars and not the really good players, and certainly not those who managed to accumulate stats over a very long number of years. Look up Hank Aaron’s stats and forget for a moment that he is/was the all time HR leader. He rarely led the league in anything but he had consistent good stats year year after year crashing 30 plus HRs and having a life time average over .300. In his case the longevity and his consistency built his numbers year after year into one of the best ever. And there was no controversy about him.
And yes, the HOF is in the middle of no where but fortunately only about 80 minutes from me due to all the windy roads and well worth a day out of your life. Got choked up seeing Seaver’s plaque, my childhood hero
Nice piece Brian.
I finally got to visit the HOF last year and enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. I didn’t want to leave.
Because MLB has been around so much longer than the other pro leagues, I think the BBWAA has to be more discerning and exclusive. It’s supposed to be a place to honor the greats, not the very goods. We have All-Star games for the latter.
Aside from stats and rings, the question I always ask is, was this guy ever considered among the very best? I’d rather see dominant players whose careers were cut short like Koufax get honored than good but not great players who stuck around a long time and were fortunate enough to play on good teams. How many records does Harold Baines own? How many MVPs? How many World Series rings? Zero, zero and zero. He was a good player for a long time, but never considered a super star. Baines set a bad precedent. If he’s determined HOF worthy then the books have to open up for a ton of other players who came up just short. I didn’t think Keith Hernandez or Jerry Koosman were quite worthy before, but they’re both more deserving than Baines.
Amen, Matt.
The Hall of Fame is worth a visit……
Here is one that sticks out for me, Don Sutton. He had a lot of bad years and stuck around forever to get to 300 wins. He was a goo pitcher, but not an all time great.