Poz on "Pre-Integration" and the HOF

Interesting article by Posnanski here. The HOF does odd stuff all the time. It constantly gets stuff very wrong. Poz does have a good point, that in naming a special committee the "Pre-Integration" committee they're necessarily saying that they're going out of their way to honor guys who played during, and benefited from, segregation. Maybe not the greatest PR move for a museum that's looking to draw fans to pay the bills.

It is odd that the Hall is honoring long-dead guys anyway. I imagine that when they inducted Deacon White they went out and found a few of his great-great grandkids who were born 20 years after White died and had them stand in for him at the ceremony. Nice for them, I suppose. And I guess it's good to right the very minor wrong that they've inducted far worse players from his era. I'm a huge fan of early baseball, but I'll agree with Poz that we're about done with inducting players who my 88-year-old grandfather is too young to have seen play.

Is there even a single person who would make the argument that Bill Dahlen in his best year of 1894 (one year after the mound was moved back to 60 feet, 6 inches) was as good as Bobby Grich or Lou Whitaker or Willie Randolph or Frank White or a dozen other middle infielders who can?t get the time of day from the Hall of Fame?

I'll take this challenge. Frank White ended his career with 31 fWAR. Dahlen 77. Dahlen, I believe, is the title holder for highest career WAR for an eligible player who is not in Cooperstown. Not counting Bonds and Clemens and similar recent and still on-the-ballot players. There is absolutely no disputing that baseball has gotten immensely better over the years. Frank White was a fine player, but a well below average hitter. Dahlen was one of the better infielders of his era. It's debatable whether the slope of history is so great that a 31-win player from 1980 is better than a 77-win player from 1900. It's certainly not so cut-and-dried that you can say "Is there even a single person who would make the argument..."

And that's not even the question the Hall is asking. You could make a fairly reasonable case that Brady Anderson was objectively a better player than Ty Cobb, but you're not putting Brady in and throwing Ty out. The Hall is about electing the best players from the various eras of baseball history. Relative to their peers Bill Dahlen was absolutely better than Frank White.