The Baseball Hall of Fame Thread

[OSJ]

5 minutes ago, grilledcheese said:

And lo and behold, it immediately shows its usefulness!!

Larry Walker is my HOF measuring stick, and this puts his HOF value at 598.8. I knew I was right, and anyone that says otherwise can eat it!!

Seriously, though. Thanks for the heads up. Yet another thing to waste time with to construct arguments that are more fun than whatever else I should be doing.

And we have our first weird anomaly...  You set 'em up, I'll knock 'em down...

[OSJ]

Hmmm... I hate to go by the "feels", but this is (I think) muddying the waters in a couple of cases as opposed to providing clarification. Let me back up just a bit and explain; I watched the whole careers of Darrell and Dwight Evans and in both cases felt that I was watching HOFrs at work. Dwight Evans was one of those guys that pretty much did everything well and while you can make an argument that he doesn't belong in due to the inflated numbers bestowed by Fenway, there's a pretty strong argument that he is the best player at his position not in the HOF. So six of one, etc. 

Darrell Evans only crime was playing at the same time as Mike Schmidt and George Brett, both of whom were clearly better with the bat. Were they better defenders? Hard to say, Evans was wildly inconsistent throughout his career, there were times that you would say he was the best defensive third-baseman in his league and other times that you wished they would just leave him at first base where he was less of a liability. The odd thing is that the down seasons weren't at the tail end of his career but interspersed during his "prime". His supposed "declining years" when he was 40+, he was actually pretty studly. I'll admit to a bit of surprise at just how high both of the Evans gents came out on this, but like I said, they both "felt" like HOFrs to me when they were playing, I'm just pleasantly surprised to see them both so far over the 500 mark.

[The Man Known as Dan]

Literally all the players I like to make arguments for (Lofton, Jones, Olerud, Kevin Brown) all make it by this standard so I’m happy

[RIPPA]

Or y'all could just use JAWS which is readily available everywhere and not deal with James hubris of still trying to get Win Shares over

[grilledcheese]

30 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Or y'all could just use JAWS which is readily available everywhere and not deal with James hubris of still trying to get Win Shares over

Yeah, but what good is that? I feel like baseball is tailor-made for arguing, and all the different ways that people have tried to quantify worth help to allow those arguments to be constructed.

I'm with you, though. JAWS is likely the best possible answer to the question of HOF-worthiness.

[EdA]

The great thing is James still trying to get over WIN SHAREZ!~~~!!!!

Poor-poor crazy and out-of-date old man.  When this fails maybe James can go back to defending Paterno.

 

[OSJ]

16 hours ago, EdA said:

The great thing is James still trying to get over WIN SHAREZ!~~~!!!!

Poor-poor crazy and out-of-date old man.  When this fails maybe James can go back to defending Paterno.

 

Such bitterness in one so young! Yes, WS is badly flawed, but the more the tools that we have to examine a given thing, the better. I am (sadly) old enough to recall when people that ought to have known better were citing batting average as the be-all end-all of statistical analysis. Bill's tossed up a couple of bricks in his career, but on the whole he's done a lot more good than harm.  Yeah, I'm a Bill James guy.

[Wyld Samurai]

My man Will Clark has a 557! Get him in, damnit!

[Kuetsar]

After reviewing a few borderline guys, I think a better standard would be 600-700. . . . 

[Tabe]

On 6/28/2019 at 1:01 PM, OSJ said:

Hmmm... I hate to go by the "feels", but this is (I think) muddying the waters in a couple of cases as opposed to providing clarification. Let me back up just a bit and explain; I watched the whole careers of Darrell and Dwight Evans and in both cases felt that I was watching HOFrs at work. Dwight Evans was one of those guys that pretty much did everything well and while you can make an argument that he doesn't belong in due to the inflated numbers bestowed by Fenway, there's a pretty strong argument that he is the best player at his position not in the HOF. So six of one, etc. 

Darrell Evans only crime was playing at the same time as Mike Schmidt and George Brett, both of whom were clearly better with the bat. Were they better defenders? Hard to say, Evans was wildly inconsistent throughout his career, there were times that you would say he was the best defensive third-baseman in his league and other times that you wished they would just leave him at first base where he was less of a liability. The odd thing is that the down seasons weren't at the tail end of his career but interspersed during his "prime". His supposed "declining years" when he was 40+, he was actually pretty studly. I'll admit to a bit of surprise at just how high both of the Evans gents came out on this, but like I said, they both "felt" like HOFrs to me when they were playing, I'm just pleasantly surprised to see them both so far over the 500 mark.

Darrell hit .248.   Yeah, yeah, batting average is overrated, blah blah blah. He hit .248.  And he's a "power hitter" who went like 15 years between good power years before being able to take advantage of Michigan & Trumbull. Career .431 SLG. Yeah, he was a premium defender at 3b but still ended up with a career  0.2 dWAR. I know you love the guy but he just wasn't good enough. 

As for Dewey, Walker was a better RF (overall) and he ain't in. And doesn't belong. Both guys got big boosts from their home parks but Walker used his to put himself in the "best player in the majors" argument, which Evans never did. Evans was really good but... yeah. 

That said, he was better than Baines.

Edited June 30, 2019 by Tabe

[Brian Fowler]

Bonds at 1355.2 is not surprising but still staggering.

Mike Trout is at 564.0. He's in his age 27 season.

[OSJ]

7 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

Bonds at 1355.2 is not surprising but still staggering.

Mike Trout is at 564.0. He's in his age 27 season.

Sounds right, in the case of Bonds, you divide by two and still have two slam-dunk HOFrs. Mike Trout could retire tomorrow and go straight to Cooperstown, he's just that damn good.

[Tabe]

Mantle at just over 1000 seems surprisingly low. 

[Brian Fowler]

Sweet Lou Whitaker is 651.4, and somehow hasn't even really come that close to being enshrined.

[grilledcheese]

I thought Whitaker was a slam dunk when Trammell finally went in. I think he'll get there eventually. Look at all the fucking bums that are in because they played with Frankie Frisch. The whatever the fuck committee meets again in 2021 and 2023, so hopefully soon.

EDIT- "Today's Game" is the committee name. As soon as I posted it, it popped into my head.

Edited July 1, 2019 by grilledcheese

[OSJ]

Okay, been awhile since we've done this and I've been thinking about some real darkhorse candidates. The first guy on my list is really a strange case, lead the league in HRs once and RBIs three times, twice with totals that would look good in today's era, but he did it in the late 1940s-early 1950s. Oh, and 8-time All-Star, ten seasons in the top-10 for MVP consideration. Starting to sound like a HOFr? Well, let's see, I think he has a much better case than two or three contemporaries that are in, but let's do the Keltner list to organize our thoughts...

 

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball?

In an era with Dimaggio, Williams, Musial, the answer is certainly no to both.

2. Was he the best player on his team?

To even suggest that there was a better player on the St. Louis Browns is silly. When you are on a team with Ted Williams and Dom Dimaggio, this is a tough question. It could certainly be argued that when Williams was in the military that Stephens was the Red Sox primary offensive weapon.

3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position? 

I think so. Fuck a bunch of Scooter Rizzuto, he may have been more agile, but Stephens had a better arm and could hit like a mofo. Rizzuto hit like my little sister.

4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races? 

Did I mention that he played for the St. Louis Browns and Boston Red Sawx? However, he dragged the hapless Browns kicking and screaming to their best record in twenty years and then he dragged them to their only pennant. Even George Sisler couldn't do that.

5. Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime?

No, Stephens was apparently in the hard-playing, hard-drinking tradition and hurt his back while playing short and was out of baseball at 34 (not uncommon in those days, but the man apparently drank himself to death at age 48)

6. Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame?

Barry Bonds & Roger Clemens yadda-yadda-yadda.  Is he the best player of his era not in? To that I think that the answer is "yes".

7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame?

The only SS who have ever posted comparable numbers to Vern Stephens are named "Banks" and "Rodriguez"

 8. Do the numbers meet Hall of Fame standards?

No, not quite but close. Baseball-reference comps are pretty whack when you're looking at unique players. There's really never been anyone else quite like Vern Stephens so comparisons are tough. I mentioned Banks, but he was in the National League playing in Chicago.

9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics?

This is where it gets tough. I think that the offensive stats tell the story pretty well, Bill James makes a case for Rizzuto being better, but I don't buy it. I'll give up a bit of agility at SS for a guy with a cannon for an arm that drives in 90 RBIs ever year.

10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in? 

A notch behind Pay-Rod, but that ain't no shame.

11. How many MVP-type season did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? If not, how many times was he close?

Never won, but was in the top ten for a decade straight.

12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many games get in?

8-time AS during the same general era as Rizzuto, the consensus of the time (which I think was correct) was that Stephens was simply a better SS.

13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant? 

He was and they did. Stephens led the hapless Browns to their only pennant. Even George Sisler couldn't do that.

14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? We he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? did he change the game in any way?

No to all.

15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider?

Eh, if we start booting guys that drank too much the HOF is going to get real lonely inside. 

So is Vern Stephens an unjustly-neglected HOFr? I honestly don't know. Contemporary sports writers thought he was pretty special. He never garnered a single vote from the Veterans Committee and they've enshrined far worse players. I think the main knock on Stephens is short career, died young with no one banging the drum for him. I look at some of those seasons and have to remind myself, I'm not looking at Mickey Mantle or Joe Dimaggio, I'm looking at a fucking SS for the St. Louis Browns. I could easily be convinced that he belongs.

Edited July 5, 2019 by OSJ

[OSJ]

If I had to name the most deserving players not enshrined, I think it probably goes like this:

Ken Boyer

Lou Whitaker

Bobby Grich

I fully understand why Boyer isn't in, there are two reasons and they aren't good ones, they're names are Brett and Schmidt; I suppose that you could add A-Rod to the list as well, but context matters, what Boyer did in the 1950s and 1960s was simply studly. The fact that he usually came up second to Eddie Mathews is irrelevant, was Mantle not a worthy HOFr because he usually came up second to Willie Mays? Of course not, you have to evaluate a player on his own merits and by any rational basis that factors in eras and park adjustments Boyer is a slam-dunk HOFr.

Whitaker and Grich are even more puzzling, 2nd base isn't overrepresented at all, and both of them were a damn sight better than Nellie Fox. No, they weren't Rogers Hornsby, but evaluated on their own merits their continued snubbing seems very odd.

[OSJ]

Let me add a player that I initially overlooked. We've gone back and forth on how Raffy Palmeiro never really seemed like a HOFr during his career. Well, he comes in at 680.6 which puts him nearly in Thomas/Bagwell territory (700.6 and 706.6, respectively). By this measuring stick Raffy isn't just a HOFr, he's a slam dunk.

[grilledcheese]

Damn near 600 bombs and 3000 H, who is discounting his candidacy? He's not in the HOF because he wiggled his finger and copped some "never have I ever" shit at a Congressional committee in March, then got hosed in August for the gas. 

He'll get in after the first batch of tainted names get in. He might even be in that first batch with Bonds and Clemens. Baseball was okay with the rampant amphetamine usage for years and years, and for whatever reason don't consider that to be performance enhancing, so lots of guys from the greenies era are in the HOF. The steroid guys will get in eventually as well.

[Tabe]

Been saying that for years. 38+ homers, 100+ RBI for 9 straight years. That's a HOFer. 

[OSJ]

17 minutes ago, grilledcheese said:

Damn near 600 bombs and 3000 H, who is discounting his candidacy? He's not in the HOF because he wiggled his finger and copped some "never have I ever" shit at a Congressional committee in March, then got hosed in August for the gas. 

He'll get in after the first batch of tainted names get in. He might even be in that first batch with Bonds and Clemens. Baseball was okay with the rampant amphetamine usage for years and years, and for whatever reason don't consider that to be performance enhancing, so lots of guys from the greenies era are in the HOF. The steroid guys will get in eventually as well.

Well, I was guilty of saying that I watched his whole career and never once did I say "That's a HOFr!".  What brought me around on Raffy (despite being a total bonehead at the hearings), was my close examination of Fred McGriff's career and coming to the conclusion that he belongs in. Raffy was actually a very similar player though McGriff was far better defensively, both were just as reliable as clockwork at what they did, and what they did was create a hell of a lot of runs. I'm actually in the group that is more impressed by 3000 hits than I am by 500 HRs. The latter is difficult, but a power hitter playing 15-17 years is likely going to make it even without ever leading the league, (36-38 HRs a year will do it), now 3000 hits, you have to be remarkably consistent for a long time to cross that bridge (see: Biggio, Molitor, Beltre). Now granted, two of those three guys were position players their entire career which is even more impressive, (Molitor was more like Raffy in being a 50% DH),  but 3000 remains a magic number even if 500 HRs is starting to be questioned. I still think 500 taters is pretty impressive even if the number was achieved by a guy with a needle hanging out of his ass.

Yeah, I've come around on Raffy, he belongs in and so does McGriff (FWIW: McGriff comes in at 552.4 which is comfortably HOF-level,  Raffy just crushes it at 680.6, which is just slam-dunk ridiculously qualified (as I said earlier, that's damn near Bagwell & Thomas territory).

[Tabe]

Palmeiro only played 431 games at DH. He played well over 2000 in the field. 

[OSJ]

Yeah, I would have guessed that it was more along the lines of 65%/35% as 1st & DH. As I said, when you look at the numbers he's damn near in Bagwell/Thomas territory.

What are your thoughts on Vern Stephens? Granted, a relatively short career (not at all unusual for the time), and he comes up just a bit short on most of the standard measurements, but here's the thing, I don't think the raw numbers tell the Vern Stephens story very well. I have to remind myself that the guy was a fucking shortstop, a shortstop who led the league in RBIs not once, not twice but on three separate occasions. And these weren't seasons when the regular players were off to war, he was out producing Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams as a SHORTSTOP! Contemporary writers put him so far ahead of Rizzuto that it wasn't even a serious discussion. It wasn't until the revisionist nonsense about Scooter doing all the "little things" gained traction that the writers started to put Scooter on a pedestal and forget about Stephens.

Yeah, Scooter may have been more agile in the field, but Stephens had a cannon for an arm and regularly thumped Rizzuto when it came to assists. There's also the matter of driving in some sixty to eighty more runs every year. I'll take that over a whole boatload of "little things". Yeah, Rizzuto was a fine bunter and to my knowledge  Stephens never bunted, though it begs the question as to why you would ask a guy that has lead the league in HRs once and been consistently in the top ten to bunt? That's akin to asking Yogi Berra to wait for a perfect strike, hell, the man could hit anything vaguely near the plate, the smart money is just giving him the green light to do whatever he wants. I'm not 100% sold on the idea of Stephens as a HOFr, but I sure think that he merits a lot closer of a look than the one and done that he got from the BBWA (which was truly bizarre when you consider that it was mostly the same guys touting him as the best infielder in baseball only a decade earlier. The Rizzuto myth had taken hold and was reflected in the BBWA showing ridiculous groupthink that refuted the conclusions that they had come to a decade earlier by ACTUALLY WATCHING THE GAMES. 

[OSJ]

14 hours ago, Tabe said:

Been saying that for years. 38+ homers, 100+ RBI for 9 straight years. That's a HOFer. 

And of course we can think of another gentleman (if that's truly the word that I'm fumbling for) who did much the same thing in Cleveland. The spurious knocks on both players are:

Raffy = roids (which I could give a fig about; if they want to go back and start booting guys that used speed (which I can attest is a PED like you wouldn't believe) we're going to run low on guys that played from 1950-1980. Of course, the 1980s had its own little thing going with the Peruvian Marching Powder which is also a very effective PED.

As for the chap in Cleveland = "Not the most dominant player in baseball or his league." Well Hell's bells, are we going to kick Tris Speaker out because he wasn't quite as good as Cobb?  Does Griffey get the boot because he wasn't Barry Bonds? No, Albert Belle's sins are 1.) a short career (which is covered by the rules, and Sandy Koufax, J. Montgomery Ward, yadda-yadda-yadda...)  2.)  It's true that he wasn't the most dominant player in baseball or his league, due mostly to his awful fielding. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a top-five hitter for 90% of his career. When you string a full decade together as a top-ten or top-five player that's good enough for me (see also: Stephens, Vern). 3.) Off the field after his sophomore season, it's really hard to imagine a more unpleasant person than Albert Belle, however, no one was paying him to be charming, he was getting paid to be a holy terror with the bat and that's exactly what he did. (Apropo of nothing, I may have mentioned meeting Belle in 1991 and getting his 1990 Fleer card signed "Joey Belle", he was perfectly nice, if maybe a little preoccupied. I've often wondered just what the hell happened to make him go totally Mr. Hyde after 1991. 

Oh, for some laughs I can't recommend this site highly enough: http://www.notinhalloffame.com/baseball?start=0 ; yeah there are several bonafide omissions discussed (usually with the wrong argument put forward), but there are also around fifty or sixty just grotesque choices such as Steve Garvey, Todd Helton, Paul Konerko, Julio Franco, and Bobby Bonds just to name a few off the top of my head. Look, I avidly followed Franco's MLB career and was seriously bummed when he no longer had a spot in the Big Show as he was the last active player that was my age, and this website has it right, he's a fantastic worldwide ambassador for the game and a credit to his species but by no stretch of the imagination is he a HOFr. The other four gents I named were all certainly fine players, but I don't see any convincing argument for any of them. The author of the website seems to think Bobby Bonds belongs in the HOF as "the prototype of the modern player." I didn't realize that having a certain amount of speed balanced by striking out a lot were desirable qualities for the modern player to emulate. Torpedoing 75% of list might be nearly as much fun as "Throw the Rascals Out"!

[OSJ]

Okay, since my only project until the 15th is something that I've already done, just not turned in yet; I've been playing around with Similarity Scores, JAWS, Win Shares, the Keltner List, HOF Value Standards, Park/ERA Adjustments, etc. This isn't really a Throw the Rascals Out post, but more of a "Why X and not Y, and is their justification for the choice. Figure we might get some good discussion out of this. 

First, it seems to me that there are three legit ways (possibly four, unless you consider four to be part of three (as I shall explain) that a player distinguishes himself in such a way as to earn a place in the HOF:

1. Being a Specialist - This would be the player who primarily does one thing very, very well indeed. You think "Harmon Killebrew", you think towering HRs, regrettably, almost nothing else comes to mind, because he really didn't do much of anything else. We know Rickey Henderson for being the premenint stolen base guy and a goof; we don't really think about his defensive play or the fact that he was the number one guy for lead-off HRs, among other things (including longevity). We start with the stolen bases and build his case from there. Rock Raines cruises in based on being the National League answer to Henderson, though I would give a solid edge to Rickey, both were fantastic players. 

2. Being a Complete Superior Player - You make the call and Ken Griffey jr., Babe Ruth or Willie Mays answers the phone. In a few years it is hoped that Barry Bonds will be included. Here's where we look at the guys that did many things very well. You get guys like Craig Biggio who could basically play any position that you asked him to. Honus Wagner, who refused to accept that SS was a defensive position only. Essentially, this is where the "five-tools player" appears, we're just talking about a difference in degree. The basic very good five tools player may enjoy a 12-14 year career before  the bloom fades from the rose, the HOF version of the "five-tools player" may well play 18-20 years before having to call it quits. For a perfect example of this type of player one need look no further than the recently retired Adrian Beltre. It was obvious by the mid--point  of his career that  (barring a horrific injury) we were watching a bonafide HOFr going about his business. Could he have stretched his career another couple of years and watched his numbers jump off a cliff? Oh, sure... There would have been several teams delighted to pick up the tab for the Beltre retirement  tour, but that's not the kind of guy that Adrian Beltre is. By all accounts he's not particularly extravagant, meaning that he has more money than he could reasonably spend in his lifetime, and he holds himself to a pretty high standard of performance and was totally unwilling to be anything less than the Adrian Beltre we'd been watching for twenty years. Go back a couple of generations and we could have the same conversation about Al Kaline. 

3. The Combo of Very Different Things - Okay so Two bleeds a little bit into Three, which will bleed a great deal into Four. Craig Biggio probably belongs here a lot more than he does in Two, though I was mainly thinking of Ted Simmons and Yogi Berra when I evaluated this type of player. The catcher moved to first base or DH to save their knees and keep their bat in the line-up is not at all unusual, players such as Mike Piazza and Carlos Delgado added years to their careers by making such a move. The difference between them and Yogi and Ted was striking; Yogi and Ted were actually damn good outfielders as well, though their primary value was behind the dish. You could look around the league and find three or four guys that could play a corner outfield position just as well; but you''d be hard-pressed to look around and find the same caliber of catcher. Simply a tougher position to play well. The last guy that I would bring up is someone that I advocated as a HOFr strictly as a player, so it's interesting to see what road he eventually took. The player in question is Joe Torre and while he was more catcher than anything else, you pretty much have to look at Yogi or Biggio to find someone else who was so hyper-competent at a variety of positions. Which brings us to Four....

4. Player & Something Else - This one can get weird and misused. Let's look look at some examples: Candy Cummings, John Montgomery Ward, Joe Torre, Lefty O'Doul,& Gil Hodges; (yes, I know that Gil Hodges isn't in the HOF... yet...)  Candy Cummings was seen as a  reason for the HOF to set all their rules aside in order to elect him. He didn't play the minimum ten years, he didn't play nine years; hell, all told his career barely makes seven years, but when you factor in his time as an executive, he starts to look like a fairly solid pick even with wholly discounting the legend of his inventing the curveball, (which I don't believe for a second). He almost certainly belongs in, just not for the reasons cited. 

When you look at John Montgomery Ward's playing career, your initial thought is that while he may not be the best player of his time, he's certainly not an unreasonable pick. Build on his playing career with a fine stint as a Manager, General Manager and League Founder and it's pretty hard to make any argument for keeping him out. Add  to that the fact that he accomplished all this by age 34 and retired from baseball to practice law and we're looking at one of the most compressed and versatile careers ever.

I argued for years that Joe Torre belonged in as a player, I still think so, but electing him as a manager will serve to shut me up on the subject. However, I would have liked  to see him go in as a player simply for the reason that it would cause folks to take a closer look at Ted Simmons. Skipping Lefty O'Doul for a moment because I often hear the tired argument "If O'Doul why not Hodges?" I'm not entirely sure what the argument being put forward is other than a Dodger fan getting all butt-hurt because a Giant got the spot that "should have gone to one of their guys, and both players are similar in that they did other things than just play. First off, anyone that thinks that Lefty O'Doul deserves to be in strictly for his playing accomplishments likely believes that Tommy McCarthy and Lloyd Waner also deserve to be in and there is a time-honored term for people like this, that term is "morons".. Gil Hodges and Lefty O'Doul could not possibly be more dis-similar; until the advent of elegant, slick-fielding first basemen such as Willie McCovey and Keith Hernandez, Gil Hodges was (like Bazooka Joe Adcock), the prototype of the big, slow white dude with an atomic bat. Lefty O'Doul was in the category of the high-average slap hitter with an abbreviated career. Gil Hodges pounded the long ball second only to Duke Snider on his team. O'Doul made over thirty trips to Japan. O'Doul belongs in for "meritorious service to the game" as it is actually a pretty fair statement that without him there would be no baseball in Japan, or at least nothing resembling the very-near Major League structure and excellence that they have now, where it's pretty demonstrable that the upper 20% can transition to the US Majors and be effective and that the upper 5% can be stars wherever they choose to play. All of this can be laid at the feet of Lefty O'Doul. "But wait!" you say, "What about Hodges and the Miracle Mets?" Okay, Gil Hodges managed for around a decade, not a particularly long career as a manager. For the most part he was given horrible teams such as the Senators and Mets to work with. The 1969 Mets surprised everyone, not the least of which was Gil Hodges. The truth is that a great manager may cause your team to win three extra games over the course of a 162-game season. When you're talking about cellar dwellers like the Senators and Mets a hell of a lot more than three games is required to move them into contention. The 1969 Mets were a fluke, these things happen. Unless you're prepared to argue the hidden game of baseball as practiced by the likes of Ed Kranepool, Cleaon Jones, and Ron Swoboda; I thInK it safe to write off the season as a fluke.

So why does Gil Hodges continue to garner support for induction when all the measurements that we can apply show him coming up short? He meets only 31% of the HOF criteria (average HOFr 50%), his managerial record is a losing one and it isn't close. It all comes down to the apparent fact that a nicer man has yet to walk the surface of the Earth than Gil Hodges. In fifty-plus years of studying the game and reading or listening to hundreds of interviews, I have yet to hear one bad word about Gil Hodges and this includes the Dodgers hated league rivals, the Giants and their cross-town enemies the Yankees, Even the venomous Billy Martin had nothing but nice things to say about him. So we add up a guy that falls short in the actual numbers, a mostly ineffective manager, and a really nice man just don't add up. 

5. And now we come to reason five of which I can list forty guys that don't belong in for the very simple reason of human error. This includes falling for bullshit stories, misinterpreting statistics, nepotism, false memories and a host of other reasons that gives me plenty of ammo for writing "Throw the Rascals Out" articles. I'll let some other folks take a shot at this and then post my not-so-fabulous forty. Then we can have some fun with another website that I found called "Why Not In" or something to that effect. I think there's something like 100+ names on it and for every reasonable choice that merits discussion like Bill Freehan, you have two or three howlers like Steve Garvey, Thurman Munson, or Lance Berkman.  

Anyway, have it, this should be fun!