Lolich is a tough call. Did you know he was a born righthander?
Tore up his right hand as a kid somehow, and learned to be a southpaw.
Posted on 01/01/2002 5:54:14 AM PST by jmccoy1252
Or, for that matter, can you say that Ozzie was even a better defensive shortstop than, say, Marty Marion or Rabbit Maranville or Dickey Pearce, who is generally credited with having invented the position?
I think that's difficult (and you might be the oldest living Freeper if you saw both Smith and Speaker play, in which case you have my congratulations :) That's why HOF players should be compared with those players in their generation.
I'd take Mickey Lolich before McClain.
That said, the next Tiger to go in is Jack Morris. That guy's a winner whereever he has played.
Speaking of benchmarks, it used to be that everyone with 400 HRs made it, but are there others beside Dave Kingman and Darrell Evans who didn't make it? Andre Dawson and Joe Carter are both over 400, I think.
I don't know about Dale Murphy, but Jim Rice was notoriously unfriendly to reporters (message to borderline HOFers -- be nice to the press, as they'll be one day be filling out the HOF ballots with your name on them.)
Lolich is a tough call. Did you know he was a born righthander?
Tore up his right hand as a kid somehow, and learned to be a southpaw.
Regarding Ron Santo, if he's in, why not Craig Nettles as well? Nettles had better lifetime stats (while playing longer), and was a much better fielder.
It's the most difficult position to play, and Bill Freehan was the dominant catcher in his league for more than a decade. How many other men can you say that of? In the last 50 years, you've got Campy, Berra, Bench, Fisk, Carter, Rodriquez, and Piazza (almost a decade).
When you're the best player in your league at a position for ten years, you should go into the Hall.
Looking to the future, McGriff has 417, he'll probably make it. Palmeiro has 400, he'll end with 500+ (!). But the real tough call will be Canseco, who's at 446. I don't know about him...
I figure it's the only way. And that's too bad.
Speaking of benchmarks, it used to be that everyone with 400 HRs made it, but are there others beside Dave Kingman and Darrell Evans who didn't make it? Andre Dawson and Joe Carter are both over 400, I think.
The three "automatics" as I understand them are 500 home runs, 3,000 hits and 300 wins. Dawson had 438 home runs and Carter 396.
If Pete Rose's off-field conduct can keep him OUT of the HOF, Murphy's should get him IN. Murphy was a great player '81-'85 (back-to-back MVP's), but he voluntarily moved on from Atlanta to make room for new talent and he hung up the spikes when he felt he couldn't play anymore, even though Colorado was willing to pay him just for clubhouse leadership.
Murph was, and is, an all-around class act (and was a better player than a LOT of HOF'ers).
I'd disagree with you on Jack Morris. Morris was considered to be one of the top 5 pitchers in the 1980s and was the top pitcher on three W.S. winners to boot, including his 1991 Game 7 performance. Should be in.
As for the 400 home run hitters, I think that argument can be easily made that Kingman (only 2 100 rbi seasons and .236 lifetime b.a. in 16 years) and Evans (only 1 100 rbi season and a .248 lifetime b.a. in 21 years), are nowhere near the same cateogory as Dawson (5 100 rbi seasons and 8 gold gloves in 21 years) and Carter (10 100 seasons in 16 years). However, that being said, I don't believe that either Carter or Dawson should be in the HOF. Just not good enough overall stats.
There's no excuse for Santo's exclusion. I have yet to hear it explained credibly.
As for Ozzie -- as someone who has actually seen him dominate the left side of the infield for a decade and a half, he gets my vote. However, in future years, those of us who remember will have to continue to tell the eyewitness accounts to justify his enshrinement, because his numbers are closer to that of one of the least-qualified HOF'ers -- St. Louis Cardinals' "Gas House Gang" shortstop Rabbit Maranville.
What do you mean, "who?" Rabbit Maranville!
Santo won 5 Gold Gloves, Nettles won two. Nettles was never the best third baseman in his leage, Brooks passed that torch to Brett. Santo was a 9 time All Star, Nettles was picked six times.
BaseballReference.com has stastical methods of breaking down Hall of Famers and likely HoFers. Check it out...
Not to mention the DH padding AL players get.
Becoming a member of the 400 HR club was a guarantee that a player would have his bronze relief in the Hall. In 1985, that changed when Kingman joined up. After that, the bar was raised to keep him -- and other sub-500's -- out.
What a waste of talent that guy was. I watched him as a rookie with the Giants, and we all thought his progress would soften the blow of trading Willie Mays to the Mets and getting minor league reliever Charlie Williams (whose name might as well have been Jack Squat). Then he started getting cocky. He fell in love with his power, and never thought about anything else -- except that maybe he could be a pitcher, failing miserably (a mistake Canseco made years later).
In between tape-measure homers, the guy was nearly useless. But with his kind of power, there are always people who think they can tinker with him and make him more productive. Kingman constantly proved them wrong.
After Kingman hit his 400th, people would say, "Well, I guess that means Dave is headed for the Hall of Fame..." and then they would bust up laughing. I think all that really needs to be said about Kingman is that famed and respected baseball writer Roger Angell freely admitted in an article he wrote for The New Yorker that he screamed insults at Kingman at a Cactus League game.
Smith would be a borderline HOFer were it not for the media hype. On offensive stats alone, (.262 career average, 28 HRs, 793 RBIs) he wouldn't get in at all. Both he and Dave Concepcion played 19 seasons and Concepcion had better numbers (.267, 101, 950) than Ozzie. Do you think Concepcion is a first-ballot HOFer?
As flashy with the glove as Smith was, Concepcion was the first to invent the astroturf hop-throw to first. And Concepcion has more World Series rings.
But one player made the highlight reel on Sportscenter every night and worked his way into broadcasting while the other didn't.
Folks will mention all the All-Star appearances, in spite of the fact that Ozzie was often voted onto the All-Star team when he was embarassingly past his prime because of his popularity, not for his skills.
In short, he'll make the Hall (since it's mostly a personality contest if a reasonable case can be made to get you in) but I don't think he'll be a first-ballot guy.
Now, do you want to explain why Concepcion doesn't deserve to be inducted? (BTW, I'm no Reds fan or Concepcion fan - I just think the Ozzie-vs-Davey argument best proves my point about how it's a hype thing, not a worthiness thing.)
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