Harold Baines.....Lee Smith in Hall of Fame

[DrungoHazewood]

2 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

You can understand that mistakes were made in the past and hope they are not repeated in the future (or in this case the present).

I think that's squarely at odds with what's actually happening, and has happened for nearly the entire history of the Hall. Our new age of enlightenment has inducted Morris and Baines and Smith, all members of the Very Large Hall.

As far as I can tell the odds of poor (or Huge Hall, I suppose) selections are as high today as ever.  And I see no indications that anyone is doing anything substantive to change that.  Or that the powers-that-be even see an issue with inducting someone like Baines.  I don't even think that the various committees and ruling organizations think in terms of thresholds and tiers and large/small Halls.  I think they just get together and vote and hope they get some players inducted in the Hall that they like.

If you asked the committee members who voted in Baines and Smith about Freddie Lindstrom or Tommy McCarthy and most of them wouldn't have any idea who you're talking about, or how they compared to the players they just voted on.

[Redskins Rick]

1 hour ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Sandy Koufax couldn't hit a lick and Ty Wigginton was a better shortstop.  

It's about value.  Doesn't matter how many dimensions it came in.

Since when did pitchers needing to be able to hit become a HOF criteria?

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I think that's squarely at odds with what's actually happening, and has happened for nearly the entire history of the Hall. Our new age of enlightenment has inducted Morris and Baines and Smith, all members of the Very Large Hall.

As far as I can tell the odds of poor (or Huge Hall, I suppose) selections are as high today as ever.  And I see no indications that anyone is doing anything substantive to change that.  Or that the powers-that-be even see an issue with inducting someone like Baines.  I don't even think that the various committees and ruling organizations think in terms of thresholds and tiers and large/small Halls.  I think they just get together and vote and hope they get some players inducted in the Hall that they like.

If you asked the committee members who voted in Baines and Smith about Freddie Lindstrom or Tommy McCarthy and most of them wouldn't have any idea who you're talking about, or how they compared to the players they just voted on.

I think that we had a small hall vibe going until a few years ago when no one got inducted.  That scared some folks and they instituted changes to increase the number of inductees.

[Can_of_corn]

Just now, Redskins Rick said:

Since when did pitchers needing to be able to hit become a HOF criteria?

Since they were talking about all around players.

[Redskins Rick]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Since they were talking about all around players.

I believe the all around part, should be held for position players.

[25 Nuggets]

13 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I think that we had a small hall vibe going until a few years ago when no one got inducted.  That scared some folks and they instituted changes to increase the number of inductees.

Thing is, if people stop being inducted, the Hall of Fame and Museum may go financially underwater.  I imagine they need to hold a legitimate ceremony every year.

They're supposed to be a separate entity from MLB, however I wonder if they're subsidized.

[DrungoHazewood]

17 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

Since when did pitchers needing to be able to hit become a HOF criteria?

I thought one-dimensional players weren't HOF material?

[tntoriole]

16 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Small Hall advocates have to deal with reality.  And reality is that Tommy McCarthy, the Brady Anderson of the 1890s, was inducted in 1946.  They haven't stopped that kind of thing in the 72 years since.  To implement a small Hall you'd have to scrap the whole thing and start over.  Big Hall... that's where we really are, just with a ton of holes.  You can fill holes.

Certainly there are a number of inductees who clearly should not be in the same sentence as being a Hall of Famer  with Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.   Probably 40-50 or so and most of whom were elected by Veterans Committees, just like this committee that elected Baines and Smith.  

Rather than tear it down and start over,  just stratify it...make a separate Valhalla type section for the ultra, no doubt, all consensus Hall of Famer players..not the marginal types, or the managers, or executives or owners or broadcasters or the Veterans Committee elected players..they would all be in the regular Hall of Fame in different parts of the Hall .  

. 

[Redskins Rick]

6 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I thought one-dimensional players weren't HOF material?

IMO, I dont care if a pitcher can't hit. Their game is to keep the other team from hitting and scoring, and allowing their own team to win.

IMO, I dont like seeing full-time DH go into the HOF, but I wont cry if they do.

IMO, If Cal Ripken play great defense and hits like Punch Judy, then he doesn't get in the HOF.

Position players like Mays, Wiliams, etc that could play both sides of the game, I respect more. Just staying.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, 25 Nuggets said:

Thing is, if people stop being inducted, the Hall of Fame and Museum may go financially underwater.  I imagine they need to hold a legitimate ceremony every year.

From 1958-61 they inducted three players, total.  All Vet's Committee selections who were born in 1890 or earlier, only Zach Wheat and Max Carey were still alive.

They made some changes and the Vet's Committee put seven players in for 1964.  Terrible for business when the induction ceremony was cancelled in '58 and '60 and '59 and '61 were each for single players who'd been retired since before the war.

And it's not like they ran out of candidates.  There were something like 40 eventual inductees on the ballot in 1960, and they said no on all of them.  The system was screwed up, exactly like that primary with 17 candidates.  It's essentially impossible to get 75% when there are 134 players on the ballot.

[DrungoHazewood]

5 minutes ago, tntoriole said:

Certainly there are a number of inductees who clearly should not be in the same sentence as being a Hall of Famer  with Babe Ruth and Ted Williams.   Probably 40-50 or so and most of whom were elected by Veterans Committees, just like this committee that elected Baines and Smith.  

Rather than tear it down and start over,  just stratify it...make a separate Valhalla type section for the ultra, no doubt, all consensus Hall of Famer players..not the marginal types, or the managers, or executives or owners or broadcasters or the Veterans Committee elected players..they would all be in the regular Hall of Fame in different parts of the Hall .  

. 

I think they might eventually do something like that, an inner circle.  To generate interest.  Let's hope they design the voting structure this time, instead of letting it hapazardly occur with no design or oversight.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

From 1958-61 they inducted three players, total.  All Vet's Committee selections who were born in 1890 or earlier, only Zach Wheat and Max Carey were still alive.

They made some changes and the Vet's Committee put seven players in for 1964.  Terrible for business when the induction ceremony was cancelled in '58 and '60 and '59 and '61 were each for single players who'd been retired since before the war.

And it's not like they ran out of candidates.  There were something like 40 eventual inductees on the ballot in 1960, and they said no on all of them.  The system was screwed up, exactly like that primary with 17 candidates.  It's essentially impossible to get 75% when there are 134 players on the ballot.

Anyone that would be considered "inner circle"? 

I would hope the situation wasn't so confused that upper echelon guys were not getting ignored.

[DrungoHazewood]

3 minutes ago, Redskins Rick said:

IMO, I dont care if a pitcher can't hit. Their game is to keep the other team from hitting and scoring, and allowing their own team to win.

IMO, I dont like seeing full-time DH go into the HOF, but I wont cry if they do.

IMO, If Cal Ripken play great defense and hits like Punch Judy, then he doesn't get in the HOF.

Position players like Mays, Wiliams, etc that could play both sides of the game, I respect more. Just staying.

So you're not a fan of Ozzie Smith's induction?  He only had four seasons where he was even an average hitter.  Bill Mazeroski was much worse.  What of Paul Molitor?  3000 hits, but DH'd more than any other position.

I don't understand why being well-rounded is more important than being good.  Especially since you give a pass to pitchers.

[tntoriole]

24 minutes ago, 25 Nuggets said:

Thing is, if people stop being inducted, the Hall of Fame and Museum may go financially underwater.  I imagine they need to hold a legitimate ceremony every year.

They're supposed to be a separate entity from MLB, however I wonder if they're subsidized.

Hardly...the Hall of Fame museum is owned by the Clark Family Foundation which is not going anywhere anytime soon....

 

Jane Clark is the great-great grand-daughter of Edward Cabot Clark, the lawyer who patented Singer Sewing Machines and later became president of the company. The Hall of Fame was founded in 1936 by Stephen C. Clark Sr., Clark’s grandfather, whose tastes ran more to great works of art than bronze plaques of eminent players. The induction of new members will be held, as usual, on the greensward of the Clark Sports Center, which is owned by the Clark Foundation, which had more than $600 million in assets at the end of 2013. 

The Hall of Famers and their families stay at the stately Otesaga Resort Hotel, which the Clark family built with some of the riches Edward Clark gained from his partnership with Isaac Singer and his sewing machine company. Down the road — past the golf course the family built beside the hotel — are two more Stephen Clark Jr. projects: the Farmers’ Museum and the Fenimore Art Museum.

And then there are the eight miles of frontage on the eastern side of Otsego Lake, which the writer James Fenimore Cooper called Glimmerglass in his “Leatherstocking Tales.” Those, too, are owned by Jane Forbes Clark and her family foundation. Enough, she said, “to control the beauty of the lake.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/sports/baseball/clark-familys-quiet-fame-and-wealthy-legacy-abide-at-cooperstown.html

 

[DrungoHazewood]

7 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Anyone that would be considered "inner circle"? 

I would hope the situation wasn't so confused that upper echelon guys were not getting ignored.

Lefty Grove, Luke Appling, Arky Vaughn, Johnny Mize, Red Ruffing, Goose Goslin, Red Faber, Lou Boudreau, Joe Gordon, Ducky Medwick.  

Grove still has a semi-decent argument for best starter ever.  Vaughn might be in the top five shortstops.  Mize led the league in homers four times, OPS three straight, and lost 3+ prime years to the war.