Afternoon Baseball

To those who missed this story...

Once again, the revamped Veterans Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame elected not to, ahem, elect a candidate to the hall. I had read the story, but not thought much on it before Mike IMed me today:

Isn't Santo like the Rizzuto of the Cubs, above average career but beloved for his 50 years in the game? And I guess as a whole Maris' career just wasn't good enough, even though he held the biggest single season record in sports for over 35 years and is one of just three eligible multiple mvp's not in the hall (i think).

I think he's dead-on with this. I love Ron Santo too, I think everyone does -- he was a dynamic force at a position that had nothing, and since then he's been a broadcaster and battled many ailments bravely. But should he get in merely because 3rd base has traditionally been the worst position in baseball, or on a pity vote? He did have 4 straight 30-HR seasons from 1964-67, and his 162-game average is 25 HR and 96 RBI. Even Baseball-Reference.com gives him a bad rap, however -- the "most similar" players to Santo are Dale Murphy, Ken Boyer, Gary Gaetti, Bobby Bonilla and Brian Downing -- fabulous players, but not a HOFer in the bunch.

I normally would rather err on the side of not letting players in -- better that than having a bunch of undeserving players (look up Rabbit Maranville sometime and explain that one to me). And I don't believe playing in a bad era (the 1980s, for instance) or a shallow position (3rd base) is an excuse either. But Santo retired with only 3 HOF third basemen enshrined (and you could argue that only Pie Traynor was better), and among active players only Brooks Robinson and Eddie Matthews had show equal or better ability. So if Santo was, at worst, the 6th best 3rd baseman of the first 100 years of organized baseball, he has to be in.

As for Maris, 275 HR is not that many, he only had 3 30-HR seasons, only 1 Gold Glove, and 3 seasons of a .500 slugging average. A great player -- very few players can match his 1960-61 campaigns for stats or team and cultural significance -- but not a HOFer.

Gil Hodges is puzzling. Sure he absolutely fell apart at age 36 (from .276-.513-25-80 to .198-.371-8-30), but he had 11 seasons where he hit 40 HRs twice, 100 RBI 7 times, and ranked in the top 6 in RBI 7 times and top 10 in HR 10 years in a row as well.
Let's not forget those last 3 awful years, he was the 6th, 8th, and 5th oldest player in baseball. Nowadays, the Yankees have 6 or 7 guys over the age of 36; Hodges was one of only 6 or 7 in the entire game. Give me another guy (besides Albert Belle) who had 11 seasons like his (and played in 7 WS) where you wouldn't put him in the HOF.

Plus he was the manager of the 1969 Mets.

Labels: HOF