Ozzie Smith....a first ballot Hall of Famer?

There was absolutely nothing like watching the Wizard of Oz! His contribution was not only as a spectacular defensive player but as an ambassador for the sport.

Since a lot of this discussion revolves around Smith and Santo (and even Kingman), I think I have pretty good credentials to render evaluations. I was born (in 1953) and raised in Chicago (just a few miles from Wrigley Field), and followed the Cubs closely, in person (have been to close to 1000 games) and on TV (via local WGN broadcasts--and they used to broadcast about all the games, home and away), from about 1961 to 1984, when I moved. I saw most all the games Ron Santo ever played. (I also saw most of Kingman's games with the Cubs). In addition, I have lived in the St. Louis area for about 10 of the last 15 years and saw a lot of Smith.

Ron Santo was the best third baseman--both offensively and defensively--in the National League during his 13 years in the league. The only third baseman better in baseball during the same period was Brooks Robinson. Santo belongs in the Hall of Fame. You cannot compare offensive stats from that era (one of the most pitching-dominant) to the recent era (one of the most slugging-dominant). You see how players compared within their own era. Santo was the best, on the field and at the bat, in the NL.

Dave Kingman, everyone agrees, is no HOFer. The only thing he did well was hit a lot of towering home runs. He certainly hit one of the most monster dingers in have ever seen in person. (I saw R. Jackson and F. Howard hit a couple of monsters at Comiskey Park. Of course, Big Mac puts them all to shame.) Kingman hit a hiiigh, looong--I mean looong--home run over my head, across Waveland, and down Kenmore Avenue, several houses down the block. Off Tom Detorre, I think. Unbelievable.

As to Ozzie Smith: He belongs in the Hall of Fame, but not like a Bench, Schmidt, Mays, Speaker, or Clemente, all of whom were able to combine great defense with great offense. Smith is sort of like Mazeroski: Great glove, not much offense. Hit one dramatic home run. Smith could steal bases, which is a plus. He's more deserving than Maz (who probably belongs), but nowhere near as deserving as Ripken is or A-Rod (and maybe Jeter) will be. BTW, Vizquel may be as good defensively as Smith was--maybe not quite the range but a better throwing arm. Smith did not have a particularly strong throwing arm--this was especially the case for the second half of his career.

**However, Smith is, again IMHO inarguably, the GREATEST fielding shortstop of all time; not merely "no slouch". That's why he goes in. Concepcion was solid; Smith spectacular - head and shoulders above everyone else.**

But, again, that's PERCEPTION. And where do you get the idea? From SportsCenter highlights and media hype. It's from all the press reports *telling* you that Ozzie is the greatest.

**This might irritate you, but I don't think that Tony Perez should be in the HOF. Perez was solid, and had solid stats. But, as I stated earlier, the HOF is for the best of the best. He's very similar to Steve Garvey, but not in the same category of Cepeda, Stargell, or McCovey. Perez, IMHO, is the hitting equivalent to Don Sutton, Tommy John, Bert Blyleven, and Jim Kaat - consistent over a long period of time, racking up the numbers. If Perez is in, why not Gil Hodges, or even George Foster?**

I actually agree with you. The question isn't why Concepcion should not be in. The burden of proof is on you and the starter of this thread as to why Ozzie not only should be in but on the first ballot when, offensively, he's no better than Concepcion. Again I ask, is defense alone the difference between first-ballot HOFer and no induction at all? If so, maybe we should make room for Ordonez in Cooperstown?

Let me ask you this - 1) Do you think that Ozzie belongs in the HOF at all? 2) Who do you believe to be the best fielding shortstop?

If you look at Ozzie's fielding stats, he had the best range of any shortstop I could find. Couple this with his great playmaking ability, and I say he is the best. Ordonez has nowhere near the statistical range of Smith, although he has similar athleticism. I actually got to see Ozzie play many, many games on t.v., so my exposure to him was not just ESPN highlighsts. If I did not believe that Ozzie was the best fielding shortstop of all time, I would agree that he may not belong in the HOF. But I can't say anyone was a better fielder.

2003: Eddie Murray(1st year lock), Ryne Sandberg(1st year lock), Lee Smith(maybe), Fernando Valenzuela(no)

2004: Joe Carter(n0), Lenny Dykstra(no), Dennis Eckersley(yes), Jimmy Key(no), Dennis Martinez(no), Paul Molitor(maybe), Tom Pagnozz(no)i, Terry Pendleton(no), Juan Samuel(no), Bob Tewksbury(no) A VERY WEAK CLASS

2005: Wade Boggs(1st year lock), Tom Candiotti(no), Chili Davis(no), Jeff King(no), Mark Langston(no), Willie McGee(no), Jeff Montgomery(no), Terry Steinbach(n0)

2006: Will Clark(maybe), Gary Gaetti(no), Orel Hershiser(maybe)

2007: Tony Gwynn, Mark McGwire, Cal Ripken, Jr. (all first year locks)

1) Lee Smith should get in, probably not on the first ballot. I hope he breaks the logjam for other worthy relievers (Gossage and Sutter in particular).

2) Molitor not a lock?!?!? Look at Molitor's stats, and then compare with Wade Boggs. I can't imagine either of them not being first year locks.

3) I don't believe that either Will Clark or Orel Hershiser have any chance of ever getting into the HOF. If they both hadn't been injured so much, I'm sure they both would have had HOF-worthy careers, but such is life.

4) I hope that all the people you said "no" to don't get in.

5) I wonder if Rickey Henderson and Jose Canseco are finished as well, and are eligible in 2007? Rickey for yes for sure; Jose no, not ever - he goes into the Clark/Hershiser category, even with the home runs. I hope to heck he doesn't make 500; it'd be worse than Don Sutton getting 300 wins and making it in by virtue of that alone (Sutton no differant from John, Blyleven, and Kaat - good, but not great).

Whitey Herzog says you're wrong. Here's what he says in an article written by USA TODAY's Hal Bodley, published January 3:

Whitey Herzog, who managed Smith for nine of Ozzie's 15 seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, pooh-poohs the defense-only tag. "I always said he saved a hundred runs every year," Herzog says. "What difference does it make whether you save 'em or drive 'em in?"

I think Whitey would also say, if asked, that Smith did in fact get to more balls than other shortstops, which is why he traded for him in the first place. Herzog actually made his pitching staff better before even assembling the pitching staff. He did this by acquiring Smith, moving Ken Oberkfell from second base to third, and promoting Tommy Herr and making him the starting second baseman. Yes, Herzog wanted ground ball pitchers, but he needed a superior infield in place in order to field all of those ground balls. You wouldn't put that infield in place and then acquire/develope a bunch of flyball pitchers, would you? It's self evident.

You use Kansas City to support your point, but those Royals teams were really a poor example. In fact, they taught Herzog the inadequacies that had to be addressed immediately in St. Louis, where owner Gussie Busch gave Whitey the wherewithall and authority to build a club the way the Kaufmans wouldn't allow him to in KC. In Kansas City Herzog had one superior defensive infielder. Frank White. Fred Patek was adequate, but lacked not only the arm to play as deep as Smith played (thereby cutting off more grounders and turning them into DP's and force outs), but also did not possess the range. A case could be made that Patek's backup U.L. Washington was just as good at getting to the ball as Patek. But Patek turned the doubleplay much better, and believe it or not, hit better (situationally) than Washington, so Washington rode the bench. And George Brett, the great hitter, averaged roughly 25 errors at third base, even in his prime.

I think Whitey would also say, if asked, that Smith did in fact get to more balls than other shortstops, which is why he traded for him in the first place.

It isn't exactly calling into doubt Smith's ability to get to the ground balls to point out that the Cardinal teams for whom he starred were dominated by ground ball pitchers. (P.S. Maybe the Royal infield wasn't exactly the equal of the Cardinal infield with the gloves, but the Royals of the Herzog years were still more ground ball pitchers than fly ball pitchers. I saw both clubs play.) Herzog had always been a disciple of that kind of baseball - it was the kind he learned from Casey Stengel when he played in the Yankee organisation ("execution baseball," Stengel called it); it was the kind he himself did well in his best major league season as a player (with the Orioles, 1962); and, it was the kind he tended to concentrate on developing when he ran player development for the Mets from about 1967-72. That stellar Met pitching staff which developed in those years, true enough, was a balance - their pitchers tended to give up as many ground balls as fly balls , but those Mets, and especially their 1969 miracle club, stressed pitching which used the whole of the field behind them, and very rangy middle fielding. It isn't exactly something he dreamed up all of a sudden when he took the helm in St. Louis. Whitey Herzog had been a disciple of that kind of baseball from the day he entered organised baseball.

Another point to consider: Herzog began building what he wanted in St. Louis in 1980. And his real key to that beginning (Ozzie Smith came along in 1982) was dumping Ted Simmons and importing his Kansas City backstop mainstay, Darrell Porter to start the 1981 season. His reason: a) Simmons, for all his virtues, was a horror when it came to keeping baserunners honest; he had one of the weakest throwing arms in the league, especially in the late innings, and the book on the Cardinals to that point was run like hell on Simmons. b) Simmons was asked to consider moving to third base when the White Rat came to town and Simmons refused, no questions asked. And if there was one manager who played it the-team-way-or-the-highway no matter how much a players' manager he actually was, Whitey Herzog was he. But the main reason he wanted Porter was because Porter was a better handler of pitchers and had a better throwing arm. Herzog had always been looking for pitchers who could throw to the infield, as it were, and he needed a catcher who could work that sort of staff and, as a parallel, not throw a ball into the stands when a runner was thinking about taking liberties. But, again, this was of a piece to the kind of baseball that Herzog had advocated and tried to execute for his entire career.

I should say that by no means does it weaken the case for Ozzie Smith going to the Hall of Fame. You could have all the ground ball pitchers on earth and have every one of them plan to throw them to be hit to shortstop, but you still need the right guy covering it - and if he isn't reading the field he's playing on and the spontaneous turns of a batted ball, all the ground ball pitching on earth isn't going to fatten his performance papers.

So Ozzie Smith benefitted from a lot of ground ball pitchers on his club? Well, you work with what you got. (Bill Mazeroski and Brooks Robinson, to name two who got to Cooperstown with the glove work, had pitching staffs who were more evenly divided between fly pitchers and ground ball pitchers, but it didn't exactly kill their reps, either.) Saying Smith got a statistical steroid shot because he just so happened to play with one after another ground ball pitcher is kind of like saying Roger Maris got a power hitting steroid shot by getting a regular chance to have Yankee Stadium's short right field porch reaching out to touch him. Maris's actual secret was that he finally learned how to work the count, and make it work him to a ball he could pull. (An interesting side note: Maris as often as not hit them to pure right center as to dead or inner right field, even in the Big Season. And if he couldn't work out a ball to pull, he was better than credited at going with the pitch; I saw him get a lot of good hits to center or left center, though rarely to pure left or to the left field line.)

Likewise, Smith (who was always trying to find a better way to do it) learned to read his pitching staff better each season he played, and to anticipate the ball's peculiarities - not just on the Busch rug but in all the parks. As much as his pitching staff, Smith learned how to read and work his home field and the fields he visited. That's not an unfair advantage to get more double play balls than you're entitled to - that's work. I can't understand why those few (you have seen them too, I'm sure) who think he should wait his turn, as it were, can't come to full term with a player who was intelligent enough, for all his flash, to learn how to play the entire physical breadth of his position and how it would be worked to. Ozzie Smith's raw talent and acrobatic playmaking was so vivid that it was only too easy to forget that he was playing even more with his eyes and his brains than with his hands and feet.

VINDICATION! I hope all those naysayers can somehow get it now. We're not the only ones who know that the Wizard IS a first ballot lock. What a wonderful day for all Cardinal fans everywhere! Thank you, Whitey and thank you, OZ!

GREAT BIG GIANT BUMP for Ozzie Smith - HOF...
I saw his speech this afternoon on T.V. First thanked God, then next His mother who said ALWAYS be the best you can be!

He deserves this! I NEVER saw anyone better in my life!

One minor adjustment to your hosanna, if I may: what a wonderful day for baseball, regardless of the team for whom you root. People came all around the circuit to watch The Wiz play, even if (just so) he saved the cartwheeling backflips for the home fans. (Now, I wonder - anyone want to make odds on whether he cartwheel-backflips his way to the podium to give his induction speech?) Even people who otherwise despised the Cardinals gave that one a rest to watch The Wiz, even as people who otherwise despised the Dodgers or the Giants flocked to see Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays, or Yankee haters otherwise still came out to see Whitey, Mickey, and Reg-gie! Reg-gie!, among others. Like those men, Ozzie Smith was a gift to baseball.

Ozzie Smith was a gift to baseball.

Amen.