First Class
Posted: June 28th, 2008 | Filed under: Baseball | 184 Comments »
This idea struck when I ran across that Jackie Robinson Hall of Fame percentage. As mentioned, Robinson got only 77.5% of the vote, which to me is just appalling. Then a couple of brilliant readers pointed out — rightfully so, in a sense — that if you only look at pure baseball, Robinson’s lifetime stats are not breathtaking*. There are of course all sorts of extenuating circumstances and reasons for this — such as Robinson not getting to the big leagues until he was 28 because of a war and a racist society — but if you are the type who doesn’t see extenuating circumstances, well, it’s true, the guy only had 1,518 hits, and Mike Greenwell is on his list of Baseball-Reference Comps.
*Though I will say that from 1949-54, Robinson hit .327/.428/.505, and led the Dodgers to three World Series, I mean, that’s otherworldly stuff even from a pure baseball perspective.
I throw in the “rightfully so, in a sense†because, let’s face it, the Hall of Fame and who belongs is really is all about an individual’s perspective. It’s all about what you think the Hall of Fame means to you — and what excellence means to you.
Not to get back on this, but let’s use Bert Blyleven as an example again. I see Bert Blyleven as a no doubt Hall of Famer because he’s fifth all-time in strikeouts, ninth all-time in shutouts (led the league three times), he finished Top 10 in ERA ten times, he won 287 games (and in better circumstances probably would have 30 or 40 more), he threw what might be the greatest curveball in baseball history*, he was terrific in the postseason** and so on. His 118 ERA+ is better than every single starting pitcher inducted into the Hall of Fame the last 15 years, including Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton. I don’t see this being close, and I don’t see Blyleven as a borderline case, and I personally think it’s a travesty of perception and an overrating of the win stat and a few warped opinions about what a pitcher can do that has kept his vote total well below the 75% mark. OK. Now, that’s my opinion.
*In The Neyer/James Guide to Pitcher, Rob and Bill ranked Blyleven’s curve third behind Sandy Koufax and Three Finger Brown, which is probably fair. Koufax’s curve was incredible, though it may have been aided and set off nicely by the sick 174-mph fastball he threw. And Brown — well the guy only had three fingers so give it up. By he way, why isn’t it “Three Fingers Brown,†you know, plural?
**I have written often about how Jack Morris, based mostly on one game, has this amazing reputation as a clutch pitcher, one of the great clutch pitchers of all time, and so on. And Blyleven, who has better postseason numbers, is just viewed as a “guy you wouldn’t start in Game 7.†I’ve never written, though, about their actual postseason matchup — will have to do that, will have to write a post about Oct. 8, 1987, when Blyleven THOROUGHLY OUTPITCHED Morris in the playoffs. And then, fours days later, Blyleven came back and pitched (and won) on three days rest to clinch the pennant while the mighty Morris, uh, did not pitch, leaving things in the capable hands of Doyle Alexander, who didn’t make it out of the second inning.
So, that’s my perception of the Blyleven Hall of Fame case. But lots of other people have very different perceptions. They see a guy who made only two All-Star teams, who never won a Cy Young Award, who only won 20 games in a season once, who could not pitch to the score, whose 287-250 record doesn’t seem too impressive, who compiled his stats based on his longevity rather than his excellence and so on. The fact that this perception is WRONG and STUPID does not make it any less viable or any less real. In fact, if they were writing a blog, they would say my perception is WRONG and STUPID. Trouble is they’re not writing a blog, or at least not this blog, so too bad, I win, they’re the wrong and stupid ones.
It’s perception. The perception is 3,000 hits is a Hall of Fame achievement, and every eligible player who has ever done it is in the Hall. The perception is 300 wins is a Hall of Fame achievement, and every eligible pitcher who has ever done it is in the Hall. The perception is that the Hall of Fame is for only the greatest of the great players, and so even though there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary in the Hall, you often will hear people argue about a player “not being Willie Mays†or a pitcher “not being Tom Seaver.†The perception is that the Hall is about playing and managing, not so much about impact on the game, so remarkably Marvin Miller is not in the Hall of Fame. And so on.
All of which leads to the bigger point of this post … I see the Jackie Robinson vote, and from MY perspective, I cannot even believe it. I think he’s the single most significant player in baseball history, the guy who most changed the landscape of the game (and, for that matter, the athlete who most changed the landscape of America) AND, I also think, in context, he’s one of the greatest players in the history of the game. Bill James, considering only baseball in his New Bill James Histocial Abstract, ranked Robinson the fourth best second baseman in baseball history, and the 32nd best player of all-time. I think that’s about right.
To me, you throw those two things together — greatest influence, one of the greatest players — I think that not only is it a sham that he only got 77.5% of the vote, but I also think if you tore down the Hall of Fame and started all over with a first class of five, then Jackie Robinson is in that class.
And that’s where the idea struck. Would Jackie REALLY be in the first class? Do other people see the same thing? And for that matter, who would be in the first class? Would it be all the old white players who played day games with tree truck bats and train rides? Would it include players from baseball’s most romantic time, the 1950s, when the World Series more or less stayed in New York and center fielders ruled. Would it include players from my generation, the 1970s, when offensive numbers were down and artificial turf made the game bounce? Would it include any players from today’s generation, when the athletes are bigger, strong, faster and more likely to do an extra set of squats after a game than hit the bar with Whitey and the Mick?
So here’s what I did … I sent off a quick email to a whole bunch of baseball people I know — a good group, people in the game, players, scouts, writers, historians, what have you. And I asked them a simple question: If you could start over, who would make up your Hall of Fame first class?
It turned out that 25 people responded, which is pretty amazing. We have a couple of sportswriters, a television and movie actor, a couple of writers, a few scouts and baseball executives, a few Internet baseball gurus, a few fans, a couple of authors and so on. In all, they chose 26 players selected for those five slots.
A few players were only chosen once. They include:
– Jim Bouton. The voter admitted this was a quirky choice, but he thinks Bouton’s “Ball Four†changed the landscape of the way people watch and appreciate baseball.
– George Brett. You could make a reasonable argument that he’s the greatest third baseman ever, and he represents a very under-appreciated time (as you will see).
– Roberto Clemente. The voter says, “He was the best player I personally ever saw.â€
– Lefty Grove. Amazing that he only got one vote. Bill James rates him the second-best pitcher of all time. Sometimes Bill think he’s the best pitcher of all time. I don’t mean to reveal anything, but you might be able to guess from that who gave Grove his vote.
– Sandy Koufax. Iconic, dominating and retired at 30, which leaves so much to the imagination.
– Pedro Martinez. I’m not sure if all the voters realized they could vote for current players (though some did anyway). I think Pedro from 1997 to 2003 might be the best, most dominating, most remarkable pitcher in the history of the game.
– Stan Musial. Only one vote for Stan the Man. I think it’s amazing and a little sad how underrated Stan Musial was as a player and as an icon. I have mentioned before on this site that I would love to write a book about him and this idea of the ultimate ballplayer, but Stan has politely asked me not to. Which, in a way, only makes me admire him more.
– Satchel Paige. Hard to quantify him for all the obvious reasons. Everyone has an image of Paige, and because he was at his best in the Negro Leagues, nobody has a complete image of him.
– Nolan Ryan. Greatest strikeout pitcher of all time; the voter rightfully realizes that Ryan received a higher percentage of the vote than anyone except Tom Seaver.
– Mike Schmidt. See George Brett comment only, perhaps, moreso.
– Warren Spahn: Sixth all-time in wins, and every pitcher who won more pitched predominantly in the Deadball Era.
So that’s 11 players who received some support, but not quite enough to get on the All-Time Ballot. That leaves 15 players who got more than one vote … and those are the 15 I’ve placed on our poll.
So here’s the idea: You have five votes (I hope … we’ll see if the technology is up to it) — though obviously you can only vote for each player once. So PLEASE use all five of your votes. We’re going to see how well the readership here can handle technology*.
*And more to the point, how well technology and this new template can handle you. I cannot believe not one person has commented on the fun panels my wife created at the top of the site, though I will say that Banny told me he loves the Banny Log panel, which made Margo feel good. I think they’re fun. This is the design; I’m sticking with it. Really.
Then, using a complicated scoring system that I have not come up with yet, we will combine the votes of the panel with the votes of you readers and come up with the Inaugural class for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Then we’ll write a long blog post about it. So much fun.
OK, here are the nominees with the briefest comment so not to influence anybody.
Hank Aaron: Hit 755 home runs and, people forget, is still all-time RBI leader.
Barry Bonds: Home run leader; seems like there’s something else about him I can’t recall.
Ty Cobb: Spike sharpener hit .366 for his career.
Joe DiMaggio: Hit in 56 straight and left flowers at Marilyn’s grave in perpetuity.
Lou Gehrig: Luckiest man on the face of the earth no matter what Bob Feller says.
Josh Gibson: Only stories remain, but many will say he was the greatest hitter of them all.
Jackie Robinson: “I’m looking for a ballplayer with enough guts not to fight back.â€
Walter Johnson: 417 wins, 2.17 ERA, 12-time strikeout champ, all-time gentleman.
Greg Maddux: Has won 350 games, and inspired the Maddux Lament: “Damn, he had nothing, we should have hit him.â€
Mickey Mantle: Fans will forever talk about how good Mantle COULD have been. Three MVPs and 172 OPS+ say he was pretty good.
Willie Mays: “Could beat you every way that you could be beaten.†— Buck O’Neil.
Babe Ruth: Career 2.28 ERA and threw 29 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series. Could also hit.
Honus Wagner: Flying Dutchman led league in hitting eight times and, in his career, led league multiple times on-base, slugging, OPS, runs, hits, total bases, doubles, triples, RBIs, stolen bases, OPS+, runs created, extra-base hits, hit-by pitch and class.
Ted Williams: When asked as manager if he would let his players get away with some of the stuff he got away with, Ted Williams replied: “If they could hit like Ted Williams I would.â€
Cy Young: Never won a Cy Young, but did win 511 games.
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I voted Ruth, Bonds, Williams, Cobb, Mays (in that order, if I could), but I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable leaving Wagner off…
Also, I think ARod is already better than Joe D.
This is too cool. My head is exploding. I might comment more later.
Jackie would have been my sixth or seventh vote, but I only got to cast five, and I was only considering baseball performance.
Bonds and Maddux make the list but Clemens doesn’t?
The reason I don’t comment on the graphics — as nice as they are — is because I usually come to the site via the RSS feed, which has no embedded graphics.
Ruth, Jackie, Cobb, Big Train … and a vicious fight for #5, Aaron over Mays, which I still don’t quite feel right about…
Charles, Clemens has no place here.
Clemens was a very good pitcher for a very long time. Top-ten, probably, top-twenty for sure. Bonds is top-five, and if you squint just so, competes for number one. There is no comparison. Oh, except in the public jerkwad sweepstakes. There Clemens is neck and neck with Bonds as a public figure (I reserve judgment on reality: this sweepstakes goes entirely by appearance).
My solution to the Robinson question is easy: I rename it the Jackie Robinson Hall of Fame. Then Ruth, Mays, Wagner, Bonds, and coinflip for Maddux/Johnson. Here we really want The Pedro or Mathewson, in that order.
From that list, my 5 would be:
Greg Maddux
Willie Mays
Ted Williams
Babe Ruth
Walter Johnson
You’re the only writer who I think’s ever asked such a tough thing from your readers. I’m sitting here staring at my list for 10 minutes asking myself over and over if that’s really my 5.
On a related note. When you first brought up Jackie’s 77.5, I went hunting down the yearly HOF voting numbers and discovered that a lot of players I assumed went in First Ballot, did not. That amazed me. On the other hand, many who I assumed did… did not. My assumptions were based on the reverence that people talk about them with. It took more than 2 tries (each) for Eddie Matthews and Juan Marichal to get voted in. That really surprised me.
Relating to Blyleven and HOF future inductees…did you hear what Tommy John said a few days ago on ESPN radio? Check it out – http://cardboardgods.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1031133.html …what do you think of that? This whole subject has been fascinating to me lately.
Back to Blyleven for a moment… how was he viewed during his playing days? I ask, because I noticed that when he was in the Cy voting races, he was beat out by pitchers who weren’t HOFers. Typically, I have a rule of thumb that says…if a guy doesn’t win an MVP, ROY, or CY… why didn’t he? Why wasn’t he considered one of the best of his time even by those who watched him? If the guy was consistently lost votes to other future HOFers…then yeah, he could be a HOF too. If he lost out to non-HOFers, well… how great was he really? Couldn’t have been that unique among his time period. When it comes to Bly, that’s what I see… he just doesn’t stand out among his own time period. You must be considered one of the greatest in your own time, before you can be considered great of all-time.
Some musings…
I find it hard to believe Pete Rose wasn’t even mentioned. And it IS interesting that Clemens wasn’t mentioned either especially since “How the hell did he just beat me” Maddux. (I actually had him on my fantasy team this year and he won a few for me) was on there.
I agree with your sentiments on Pedro from 1997-2003 at the absolute PEAK of the roid era, here’s this stick of a guy throwing whiffle balls. Incredible. Believe it or not it was hard to leave him off my personal Mount Rushmore of ball players because if I had one game to win and could have any pitcher at their prime Pedro would be on the hill for me.
You mentioned the games Jackie missed due to well, racism. I often think of the war years Ted Williams missed. Easily would have had 600 hr’s. How many hitters have has 200 hits and over 100 walks in a season. Williams and Ruth made a habit of it.
Great saturday post Joe!! And I must say you’ve got this life long Boston fan rooting for KC.
Oh and WAYYYY off subject – Can Shaq just go away now? MDE? I don’t think so. And if Ewing has Kobe in New York instead os Starks I dare say they might have won a couple.
Ruth, Robinson, Aaron, Bonds, Young – No. 5 is a throw-in. My No.5 would be “the home-run chase of ‘98″ as it energized baseball at a time it was desperately needed and has played a part in our current state of events.
Qualifier – my choices are based on the assumption that we have the current Hall and it is very publicly announced that we’re starting over. These are 5 elements that had significant influence on the game we watch today, in my opinion. We can choose for performance excellence after the inaugural class.
note related to my comment above: I got into baseball in ‘82… during Bly’s career. I was so young and new to the game though, that I couldn’t tell the difference between a HOFer and Keith Hernandez.
Poor Rogers Hornsby.
I voted for Ruth, Williams, Mays, Gehrig, and Wagner, but would have put Hornsby in instead of Wagner.
That was impossible. I chose the stat route over all else:
Bonds
Ruth
Walter
Honus
Ted
All have a claim at the best ever in my opinion.
I went exactly as Blackadder except I had Wagner instead of Cobb. I am not sure I can defend that (better defender at a key position?). So my list is Ruth, Bonds, Mays, Williams, Wagner.
In reality, I can’t defend just 5 no matter what. It suggests some HOFers are better than others, and from this list that seems a pedantic distinction.
I went with Ruth, Gibson, Aaron, Wagner, and Cobb. If either Pedro or Grove had been on the list, I would have voted for them. Being utterly dominating pitchers during the most offense-tilted periods in the game’s history makes them elite.
I was a little surprised not to see Oscar Charleston on the list somewhere. I distinctly recall Bill James making the argument that The Hoosier Comet could have been the greatest player in Negro League history. The usual description of Charleston is that he hit like Ruth, played a brilliant shallow CF like Speaker & ran the bases like Cobb. As with most Negro League profiles, you have to take that with an enormous, neck stretching grain of salt, but still…
Just a few of the comments I’ve run into about Charleston over the years:
1) Barrel chested with spindly legs (like Ruth)
Moved to 1B after his legs gave out
2) John McGraw considered him the best Negro Player he’d seen
3) Hands were so strong he could open up the seams on a ball just by rubbing it (I guess they didn’t have phone books back then)
4) Tremendous power to all fields
5) Accomplished bunter who, despite his power, often bunted for base hits a la Mantle
6) Cool Papa Bell considered him the best all around player he’d ever seen
7) Possibly the best defensive CF of all time combining a somewhat strong but very accurate arm with great speed & tremendous instincts that allowed him to play shallow
9) 37 SB in 1921 are the all time Negro League record (how that was determined I have no idea)
10) Long time manager in the Negro Leagues
This was fun. I voted for Cobb, Ruth, Gehrig, Johnson and Ted Williams. Although I went back and forth with Wagner and Aaron instead of Gehrig and Williams. I’m still not sure if leaving Aaron off was the right choice. That’s what made it so fun!
As for Robinson, I understand the extenuating circumstances. But if I were to rank the best second basemen of all-time he would probably come in behind Rogers Hornsby, Charlie Gehringer and Eddie Collins. And you would certainly be able to mention Nap Lajoie in that conversation. Gehringer, in particular, is an interesting comparison because he had a similar 7-8 year stretch in his career starting at age 29 where he was above outstanding, won an MVP and led his team to 3 World Series (winning one). Jackie had more speed, that is for sure. Jackie also only really played 5 seasons at 2B, so I’m not sure if it’s a fair comparison at all. But when I think of him, I think of 2B.
As for Blyleven, I totally agree. I’ve had this conversation with a former writer who never voted for him because “eh…he never seemed like a Hall of Famer to me”. He also said he wouldn’t vote for Rickey Henderson on the first ballot because he wasn’t a nice guy. Ugh!
I voted Ruth,Young and Cobb immediately and then stared and thought and stared and thought some more and…….
I wanted to put Josh Gibson on there but kept stopping myself, is he the best catcher ever? Were his numbers Ruthian? Would they have been if allowed to play?
Robinson for the obvious historical significance which in my mind DEMANDS he be included.
Finally I held my nose and voted for Bonds.
Despite my revulsion of the steroids era, his numbers are startling.
How can I leave off Ted Williams and Willie Mays and Walter Johnson and………….
My voting could change hour to hour
I do think my first three would always be there though
That was…wow. After staring at the screen for 10 minutes and arguing and switching votes, I decided to uncheck all of the players I had already voted for, take a deep breath, and accept the fact that no matter how I filled out my ballot I was going to be unhappy with the players I left off.
I also wanted to do a couple of things with my votes. I wanted to be representative of several eras: if this was going to be the introductory class of the new Hall of Fame, then I liked the idea of the five acting as sort of a “time machine” to introduce all visitors to the entire era of baseball.
I also wanted to take pains to go with my gut whenever I started overthinking things. Here then are “my 5″:
* Babe Ruth- baseball’s first ever super-duper-uberstar. Even if we took away the “specialization” of today’s game, how many players of today could be both a good-to-great pitcher and the absolutely no-doubt-about-it home run king of this era? Rick Ankiel, if he could get rid of the yips? Carlos Zambrano, if he played in the American League where he could DH every 4 days and pitch every 5th? Not a chance. The thought is laughable.
* Ted Williams and Joe Dimaggio- besides being incredible players, these two seem linked at the hip as symbols of the 40’s and 50’s. Hard to mention one without the other, (although I see Joltin’ Joe is performing VERY poorly in this poll.)
* Hank Aaron- The most consistent power hitter of all time, despite playing through the entire low-offense 1960’s. Another man who is iconic, and larger than just the game; the image of him hitting 715 and rounding the bases is one of the top 10 videos you would show to any new baseball fan. Considering that he had to perform while dealing with probably more than Roger Maris had to during his home run chase? To use the new basketball parlance: Hank Aaron was a “grown-ass man”.
* Greg Maddux- When you consider that he pitched through the Steroid Era, with postage stamp strike zones, while not being able to throw 100 MPH, and spending most of his career having to pitch his home games in the launching pads of Wrigley Field, Fulton County Stadium, and Turner Field, and has won a jaw-dropping 350+ games under those conditions, there’s a very good argument to be made that Maddux is the greatest starting pitcher of all time.
Do I feel bad leaving off Willie Mays, Cy Young, Barry Bonds, and Josh Gibson? Yes. There are a hundred ways to fill out this ballot and they would all feel “right”. I’m VERY interested to see how this turns out.
Ruth, Wagner, Gibson, Bonds, Johnson. Hey, that’s two outfielders, two infielders and a pitcher. How unintentionally well-balanced am I?
Cobb, Mays, Williams, Maddux and Mantle would be in the next group, followed by Gehrig, Robinson, Aaron, Young and DiMaggio.
I went Ruth, Wagner, Mays, Bonds, Maddux. I was about to go Williams instead of Maddux, but I realized that would duplicate my dad (Bob R, above), and I couldn’t abide that.
Ruth
Gehrig
Gibson
Aaron
Robinson
Were my top five. Gehrig not only because of his numbers but because I think all of us want players to realize that they are the luckiest for getting to play a game for a living. I couldn’t leave Gibson out after reading “The Soul of Baseball” and visiting the Negro Leagues Museum. To me if Gibson is then Jackie has to be because he is the bridge between the two leagues and he was a great player on top of that. Aaron over bonds (if I could make his name smaller I would) for obvious reasons. Ruth because he is still legendary after all of these years. I really wanted to have Mays on my list but couldn’t find room.
Joe, it is ideas like this that keep me coming back everyday even though I know that the updates only come every few days.
It’s “Three Finger Brown” for the same reason you might wear a “ten gallon hat.”
Roger Clemens is one of my least favorite players of all time, but I believe he belongs here. Considering league context, he might be the greatest pitcher in history. I don’t think so – I choose Walter Johnson – but the argument isn’t insane.
This was a tough ballot.
And, oddly enough, my Number 5 choice was Babe Ruth. The more I think about it, I was probably unfair about the young, skinny (sort of) Ruth as a pitcher in Boston. At least he made the ballot.
My Number 4 was Josh Gibson, based mostly on hearing Buck talk about him. I’d been to some of the earliest meetings about developing the Negro Leagues museum and got some precious minutes with him… because he recognized me later when I’d approach him at Royals Stadium and other appearances. Once I was sitting next to Buck when Bo Jackson was taking batting practice and Buck said, “Y’hear that? I’ve heard that sound from three batters in my life (Buck was still a pup; only in his 80s): Bo Jackson, Babe Ruth, and Josh Gibson.”
Those of us who love sports have a little bit of awe in our voices we can’t control. I come up with it when I talk about the night I saw Michael Jordan, off an injured ankle, levitate over the Cleveland Cavaliers, for a spontaneous real-life recreation of his Nike logo. I talk like that when I tell people about how I had the closest seat in Municipal Stadium to Brooks Robinson when he transformed his glove into some leather-to-horsehide Black Hole and seemed to catch every baseball the Kansas City A’s hit toward this side of second base. But when Buck talked about the sound of a baseball coming off a bat that day, he had six or seven decades’ worth of awe when he mentioned Josh Gibson.
My Number 3 was Walter Johnson. This might be a homer pick because I grew up about 7 miles away from Johnson’s birthplace. But I’ve heard and read the stories about Johnson. A local college student did an oral history of some locals who faced Johnson in games when he was a kid. “Ya knew the ball used to be in his hand and now was in the catcher’s hand, but you had no idea how it got there.” And the (perhaps apocryphal story of Ty Cobb disputing a called strike and the umpire saying, “It sounded like a strike.”)
I like how Johnson was so aware of the weapon he was wielding, and was so disturbed by the Ray Chapman incident he stopped pitching inside; and how Cobb, knowing that, crowded the plate to get a bunch of walks.
Ted Williams got my Number 2. I don’t think Williams played the game; he worked it. And that’s kinda sad, because it’s a helluva lot of fun to play… when it works. It was about my first major league baseball game ever when we were sitting along the third base line at Municipal Stadium and a soon-to-retire Ted Williams walked right in front of us en route from the visitors’ club house to the dugout and my dad said one of those “Remember this day. It’s when you saw…” moments. I remember that moment, and maybe I remember he chased some sheep who were grazing on that berm beyond Charlie Finney’s Half-Pennant Porch. (I’m not sure all the historical facts could happen that way; but don’t get in the way of my fantasies, okay?)
My Number 1 nominee to the PosHall is Willie Mays. I am of the age where I have the benefit of media revealing (sort of) “The Catch,” and seeing him on run-of-the-mil games on television’s Game of the Week, and seeing him in person when he had not-that-great-a-night… but when he came to bat the whole damned crowd reacted as if in the presence of a deity. (That was weird, lemme tell ya. We were at Candlestick on a typical summer night — which means it was cold and foggy and everyone was miserable — and Mays came to bat and it was the crowd noise you hear just as they dim the house lights and they’re ready to raise the curtain on Broadway).
Part of me, the Traditionalist, kinda wishes the Giants were still playing in the Polo Grounds. Part of me really likes the food at (What’s the name of our phone company today?) Field. (You gotta have the clam chowder in a bread bowl, available only behind the scoreboad. Helluvalot better than the peanuts and Red Hots they sold at the Polo Grounds). Imagine what Mays’ numbers would have been in that ballpark!
But Candlestick was a hell hole for baseball. And Mays still put up Willie Mays numbers!
If I ran the world, DiMaggio would have played at Fenway and Ted Williams would have inherited Ruth’s right-field porch and Bonds and Aaron would be … well, pretty damned good.
But Willie Mays…..
Interesting. I ended up voting for the 5 players that currently are at the top of the poll. Aaron, Ruth, Johnson, Mays, Williams, and that is the order that I rank them. I didn’t expect that.
The tough thing here is that I didn’t select any infielders, and only 1 pitcher. Gibson, Maddux and Wagner would be my next 3 picks. Luckily this is a HOF selection, and not a fantasy team because sooner or later someone would have to pitch and catch the old horsehide.
I love this blog, keep it up.
Jackie doesn’t make my top five (Cobb, Ruth, Mays Williams, Aaron) but makes my top 10 along with Johnson, Gehrig, Mantle and Wagner.
For the record Pete Rose would make my top 15. As my father says If Pete Rose isn’t in the Hall of Fame, there shouldn’t be a hall at all.
It was a tough choice, but I voted for:
Babe Ruth–greatest baseball player ever. Could do it all. Dominant pitcher and five tool position player. Iconic. Every year I start my US history classes with a photo identification quiz. Babe Ruth is the most universally recognized American. Really.
Ty Cobb–the ultimate scrappy player. Intense. Along with Johnny Bench, he was my baseball hero growing up (until I read about his racism).
Ted Williams–best pure hitter ever. Plus he was a fighter pilot. John Wayne in a Red Sox uniform.
Walter Johnson–he “knows where he’s throwing, because if he didn’t there would be dead bodies strewn all over Idaho.” Best pure pitcher ever.
Jackie Robinson–for the very reasons you gave.
I echo the sentiments of many here; this is nearly impossible. I went with Johnson, Mays, Ruth, Williams, and Young. Cobb and Wagner would be my 6th and 7th, for what it’s worth.
Ruth / Mays / Robinson / Cobb / Gibson
On a different day in a different place, it would probably come out entirely differently. But, as baseball goes, those are the five who capture the entire scope of what it touches on for me.
And yeah, Gibson is in there mostly because of Buck and because I think the Hall needs character people in addition to statistics. So, really, I clicked on “Gibson” because “O’Neil” wasn’t on there.
I can be a stathead but something about the Hall for me should be more than that.
Love this blog. My favorite on the internet.
This is a hard ballot. I actually didn’t take that long to fill it out but I felt bad leaving out so many people.
You could fill this out in every different way and probably be right and defend your picks as true.
Though I can’t help but feel some people got looked over. My first thought was wait! where’s Tris Speaker (my personal favorite baseball player) then I read the comments and there’s Hornsby, Gehringer, Charleston, Bell, and many more that I’m neglecting to mention.
Then the actual ballot itself.
Ruth
Gibson
Young
Aaron
Wagner
I’m uncomfortable leaving off so many great players but I feel like that comes with the territory.
I read the header for the poll and I was all excited to complete my ballot. UNTIL I was that Stan Musial was not on your list. Yes, I read the post; the ignorance of others is no excuse not to have him on the ballot. Simply by his absence I believe your ballot is a farce.
Speaking of which, you don’t get to be king just because of some farcicle aquatic ceremony…
Ruth
Williams
Bonds
Maddux
Gibson
(in that order)
I’d have voted for Clemens in place of Maddux if he’d been on the list. I was surprised he received no recognition from your 25 participants, and was surprised there was no Oscar Charleston mention (especially from Bill James).
The first four were fairly easy: Aaron, Mays Robinson, and Ruth.
Then, I had to think a little. And, finally, I arrived at the only conclusion possible with my undying devotion to Jonathan Richman: Walter Johnson.
Alphabetically because at a certain level it is more about taste than empiricism.
Aaron,
Mays,
Robinson,
Ruth,
Young
I would have no problem defending these five against any others, but there are one or two others I would put in the same tier (Cobb, Johnson, Gibson and Williams*)
*In my book you get extra points for becoming a fighter ace when you are called away TWICE to active military service. Williams is closest to cracking my top five.
First is easy, it’s gotta be Ruth. Great pitcher and great hitter. No other like him.
Second is Robinson. Playing skill and social significance.
Third, I’ll say Aaron. Tops in HR without a hint of scandal.
Fourth? Maddux, due to the strength of competition he faced compared to the other pitchers on the list.
Fifth is the toughest choice. Who goes in and who gets left out begins here. I voted for Gehrig because he was so much better than his contemporaries that he likely would have been dominant against integrated competition as well. Ask me again tomorrow and I’d probably say Mays because of his offensive skills at a more difficult defensive position.
I went with Ruth, Mays, Williams, Robinson, and Gehrig.
As far as Pete Rose goes, while I think he should be in the Hall of Fame, he, to me, is a clear “compiler” in his later years. He had some great years but by his late 30s he was mediocre at best. He wasn’t hitting for average and was hitting for even less power. So yeah, I’d put him in the Hall, but I’d never consider him on a top 5 or top 15 list.
I can’t really justify Cobb over Wagner either. Slightly longer career, quite a bit better hitter, but obviously Wagner has position and fielding over him. I guess the one argument I can make is that the area where Wagner gains the most on Cobb–fielding prowess–is the one where there is the most uncertainty.
I am pretty set on Ruth, Bonds, and Williams. Picking two out of Cobb, Mays, and Wagner is like pulling teeth. I can also see a case for Johnson as the best pitcher ever, or Robinson for the reasons Joe discusses. I am mildly surprised that Aaron is currently in the top 5; while he was great, I see him as a definite step below the other guys.
It’s amazing how many people overlook Frank Robinson. He has to be (one of) the most overlooked great(s) in baseball history.
I kinda looked at it like, if was stranded on a desert island with a space alien, and had to explain baseball, its history, its significance, and what exemplified great play, using only five guys… and that led me to a list of Ruth, Maddux, Aaron, Mays, and Williams. But I could have chosen fifty other ways to think about it and gotten fifty other vote sets.
One strength and weakness of the approach was, it set Aaron, Robinson, and Gibson against each other: who could best sum up baseball and civil rights together? Bad, because all three are such important figures; good, because it clarified for me whether Robinson really was essential to understanding the history involved. As you say, Robinson doesn’t really get that honor on the strength of his baseball alone – he’s honored (rightfully) because of his total career narrative. So I felt less uncomfortable (but not, in the end, comfortable) leaving him off once I thought about how powerful Aaron’s experience was as a story about racism and courage.
The choice of Maddux here is a bit artificial, as he demonstrates the craft of pitching so superbly, but doesn’t have (to my mind) any kind of decisive merit case above Johnson, Young, Grove, Mathewson, Koufax, and Pedro.
I’m having trouble with the idea that Rickey Henderson didn’t even make it to the discussion. Perhaps we’re still too close to his offbeat personality to realize just how great he was.
Tough, tough poll.
I had no trouble with the first three:
Ruth
Williams
Mays
…….
I added Gehrig
…….
Then I tossed in Aaron.
To me the first three compose a seminal tier. After that, there is wiggle room. Maybe a pitcher, maybe Cobb or Barry instead of the Horse or Hammerin.
Aaron
Williams
Ruth
Robinson
Maddux
Maddux’s 350 in the ‘roid era. Very much 450 wins if it’s the dead ball era. Pitch him in a 3 man rotation like Young did, and it’s 550. May very well go down as the best pitcher in history. If I had game 7 of the series and could put any one in history on the hill, I want him
Jackie Robinson. The courage not to fight back. What more needs to be said? Did more for civil rights in this country than any one, I believe
The Hammer. When he was chasing Ruth, he faced death threats every night. Did Bonds have to do that? Nope. Plus held the record longer than Ruth did
Teddy Ballgame: Best. Hitter. Ever. ’nuff said
The Babe: Had a house built for him. And a candy bar. Responsible for a curse of a whole franchise. Made more money than the president because he had the better year.
How about sharing with us the names of the voters? Would be interesting just to see who participated.
Bit of a pro-hitters bias here. 9 of 25 players mentioned on any ballot were pitchers, and only 3 of the 15 named on multiple ballots. Kind of striking that a panel of people who know baseball exceptionally well would conclude that only one pitcher of the last 75 years deserves consideration as one of the very greatest players ever. I’m not even saying I disagree, it’s just notable.
Joe, I hope you’ll leave this balloting open for a couple days. This could take a while.
I hope one of the 20 voters who didn’t vote for Babe Ruth will share their reasoning. Seriously. I’d be curious to read a smart fan’s thoughts on leaving him out of this exercise.
I decided to go for 3 hitters & 2 pitchers. I would have liked the opportunity to think about Brett&Schmidt, and Clemens, but I doubt it would have made a difference. I picked Ruth, Mays & Bonds. I have some questions about the dominant current myths about the individual importance and personal uniqueness of Jackie Robinson, although he was a superlative ball player, no question about it. Also, I have no doubt that Josh Gibson was a hugely great player, and Oscar Charleston too, but maybe we need to accept that we’ll never know what might have been, and we do know what was. And who doubts the wonderfulness of Hank Aaron. I guess I emphasized hitting over D, but so did the original voters.
Pitchers was harder. Are those the 3 best? I don’t think I would have come up with that list. I think I’m influenced by the Maddux Lament too — and I’ve read that Johnson had a good fastball & they say Cy Young won a lot of games
My inaugural class: Ruth, Henry Chadwick, Satchel Paige, Branch Rickey and Vin Scully.
I almost voted for Bonds but I will wait until he gets his 3000th hit as a member of the Royals.
Speaking of whom, can this new Hall of Fame have a scumbag
wing? We can call it the Steinbrenner Room for those who made an indelible impact on the game but who we just don’t like for various reasons. I’m not comfortable with Rose, Cobb or Cap Anson’s plaques hanging next to those of Christy Mathewson or Jackie.
I went for Babe, Willie, Big Train, Bonds, and Honus… and then got frustrated with myself for voting too quickly and leaving off Williams. I’m slightly surprised at how much love Aaron is getting; I, like Blackadder, see him as a step below the Ruth-Mays-Wagner sort of player (not that he wasn’t awesome). But yeah, it’s really really hard to just pick 5 guys.
What a great topic! Although some terribly underrated players didn’t make the discussion, I really don’t think anyone is missing that I would put in the top 5.
1. Ruth (You can almost skip number 2 he is so far above the rest)
2. Bonds
3. Mays
4. Williams
5. Aaron
As has been mentioned, you could defend any combination out of the players listed.
Yeah, if we burn down the Hall and start over, really, no Pete Rose? not even a mention?
And if we look at Jackie Robinson for baseball plus – not even a mention of Curt Flood?
I couldn’t resist putting Honus Wagner in my top 5, and thought he might get more support than he’s getting. Maybe because I’ve always thought SS was the most important (coolest) position on the field.
This was the guy that Bill James said of “The distance between the number one shortstop (Wagner) and the number two shortstop (whoever it is) is about the same as the distance between the number two shortstop and the number 30 shortstop.”
IIRC, Three Finger Brown technically had 3.5 fingers.
I would also like to hear an explanation from people who left Ruth off. Do people think segregation dilutes his mythos that much?
Ruth, Mays, Williams, Robinson, Young.
It’s hard to leave Aaron off. He wasn’t just a guy who got stats by hanging around a long time.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/a/aaronha01.shtml
How did he only win one MVP?
By the way, since Ruth seems to be running away with the #1 spot, it’s worth noting that he didn’t draw the most votes in the inaugural Hall of Fame election in 1936. Of course, that was a very disorganized election; under modern rules, Ruth wouldn’t even have been eligible, since he retired just a year before.
I’d have voted for Clemens.
@ben holeton:
baby ruth candy bars were not (well, not officially anyway) named after babe ruth. the official explanation is that the name was after the firstborn daughter of grover cleveland (“baby” ruth cleveland). though that has been debated as well.
Where are Brooks Robinson and Cal Ripken, Jr.?
Aww, none of my top 5 are currently in the top 5. And the highest ranking guy is Walter Johnson of all people.
So would the final list just be the top five? Or would it be the person who is actually getting 75% of the vote? We readers are a pretty harsh bunch.
Nasty two part problem.
“If you could start over, who would make up your Hall of Fame first class?”
Which I translate as – define your hall of fame standards, then pick your first five players from this deck of fifteen.
I decided to focus primarily on on field merit – ie. how much did they contribute to winning ballgames. That’s immediately going to nuke Robinson, but I think that’s appropriate, given the seed list we’ve been offered. Which is to say, if the Hall of Fame should be about players as historical figures (clumsy short hand), then I don’t think we a drawing from the right pool at all.
Similarly, with Berra missing, I don’t feel like I have to play “Count Da Ringz” with DiMaggio.
The three pitchers get set aside – comparing pitchers to players just confuses things; instead, I’ll pick the top hitters, then decide if the best pitcher should bump the bottom man on the list.
Next peel Ruth Bonds Robinson and Gibson off the deck. That leaves me with eight guys to guess on. Wagner and DiMaggio are clearly the weak links there, and a quick squint tells me that Robinson belongs in that pile. Gibson goes with him.
So Ruth is in, and after that Bonds is easy – he’s either #2, or out of the pile completely. I chose in, which meant I was picking 3 of 6. Wiliams was easy (perhaps wrong, but easy), and Aaron and Cobb round out the field. Essentially, it came down to “which player makes the least sense as sixth best – I decided that Gehrig or Mantle as #6 was fine, it was Aaron Cobb Mays that were making me crazy. Spin a coin.
I never bothered choosing a pitcher, since I didn’t feel like any of them belonged at number 6,
I think a hall that starts Ruth Robinson could be pretty interesting, I just have trouble finding three more players in this list that belong in that set. Aaron, I suppose, and then…?
My list: Ruth, Williams, Cobb, Gibson, Satchel Paige – er, no Satchel? Okay, Honus Wagner. And while I don’t really object to the top five vote getters, I have to complaint about Cobb’s lack of votes.
First, Ty Cobb, career average OPS+ 167. Highest batting average of all time at .366, for a long long time most hits and most stolen bases (single season and career), won the 1909 Triple Crown. He led the American League in OPS ten times, led in offensive win percentage 12 straight years, led in adjusted OPS+ 11 times. That’s best in the league at those things, not just top ten rankings, or 23 straight years #2 all time in Black Ink rating, #1 all time in Gray Ink rating, was one of the ten oldest guys in baseball his last eight years (including 1925, when he led in OPS+ the year he turned 40) and one of the ten youngest his first three, so he did all his learning in the bigs and lasted forever, hit .323 his last season and retired. 24 straight seasons batting .316 or higher, 19 straight seasons OBP .408 or higher, 13 of those seasons with a SP above .500. #2 all time triples, #4 all time doubles, #4 all time in steals. He’s #5 in career Total Bases despite hitting only 117 homers in the dead ball era, and he 11 times was in the top 10 in the AL in Home Runs per at bat. He’s second for his career in runs scored, pretty good for a leadoff hitter, but also seventh in RBI, which is astonishing for a leadoff hitter. When Ruth was starting to get the press for homers (which Cobb hated) Cobb hit 5 homers in three games, to show he could (May 5-6, 1925, at the age of 40) and went back to playing baseball the way he thought it should be played.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ty_Cobb
When they picked the Hall of Fame’s inaugural class, which was mostly voted on by folks who actually had seen Cobb play, Cobb got the most votes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_Hall_of_Fame_balloting%2C_1936
more than Ruth, Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson (fellow inductees) and well ahead of Lajoie, Speaker, Young, Hornsby, Cochrane, Gehrig, etc.
Yes, Cobb was a walking bundle of hate, but for every argument you put up for every player in history except for Ruth and Williams, I think I can put up a better one for Cobb. Has the game changed so much that we’ve forgotten that contemporaries named Cobb (a disliked if not hated player) on more HOF ballots than the popular Babe Ruth?
Sure, Cobb was a jerk. But he also founded a hospital and donated to college scholarships, both of which were open to poor blacks in Georgia. Supposedly, when baseball integrated, he told The Sporting News “The Negro has a right to compete in sports and who is to say they have not? They have been competing notably in football, track, and baseball and I think they are to be complimented for their gentle conduct both on the field, and, as far as I know, off the field.” So his public persona differs somewhat from what he actually did.
Cobb *was* the best lead off hitter of all time, and has to be right there with Ruth and Williams as the best hitter of all time. And unlike Ruth and Williams, Cobb played center field, and was supposedly well above average (range factor 2.34 for his career, league average was 2.09). If the HOF is about peaks of excellence (batted .400 three times) Cobb is there; if it’s about sustained excellence (highest career batting average, youngest to 3,000 hits, fewest at bats to 3,000 hits, first to 4,000 hits) Cobb is there, if it’s about all around skill at baseball, Cobb is there. So why is he not here?
Jackie could easily have won four straight MVP awards, 1949-52, instead of just the one in 1949. To be fair, Stan Musial could have won them too: the two of them were by far the best players in the league those years. But, it seemed NL MVP voters were looking for strange reasons to give people awards in those years. In 1950, the Phillies won, so they gave it to…not Richie Ashburn, not RBI guy Del Ennis, not 20-game winner Robin Roberts, but reliever Jim Konstanty. Hey, he won 16 games! One of the odder choices. Then, in 1951, the Giants won at the end, so a Dodger couldn’t get it. In 1952, the Dodgers won, so it went to…Hank Sauer. Hank Sauer? Fine hitter, led the league in HR and RBI, but on a sixth-place team. Another odd choice.
I did not vote for Jackie, as much as I would have liked to. The problem, of course, is that this isn’t a fair vote for the purpose you intend it. There’s a difference between being a unanimous choice for the Hall of Fame in a given year, and being one of the five greatest players ever. The latter doesn’t apply to Jack. In 1962, the writers had 10 votes apiece, and the only true inner-circle Hall-of-Famer on the ballot besides Robinson was Bob Feller. Only a racist or a moron doesn’t vote for him in 1962, whereas there’s a good argument for more than five guys on your ballot being better than Jackie.
I voted for Ruth — I mean, c’mon — and I also voted for Honus Wagner. There’s a real argument to be made that Ruth was the greatest, not just best but greatest player in baseball history. Start with his hitting — all time home run leader until recently, massive value as a hitter. And he was better than the other right fielders of his time, as well as pretty much every other right fielder in baseball history. Cribbing from the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstrace, Ruth’s three best seasons by Win Shares were 55, 53, and 51 — no other right fielder on James’s top 100 list had as many as 50 in his best season. Ruth was worth about 18 win shares per 162 games — or about 5-6 wins per season, depending on the length of the season — more than the #2 guy on the list, Hank Aaron. Nobody else comes close.
Now, I’m not a big fan of the concept of ‘dominating’ greatness, but if you’re voting for Ruth because he was that much better than every other guy, then I don’t see how you can avoid voting for Wagner. Honus Wagner’s best season by Win Shares? 59. Yep, more than Ruth’s best season, though Ruth’s top three combined are better than Wagner’s top three combined. Here’s the thing, though — no other shortstop on the list had more than 40 Win Shares in a season at the time the list was drawn up. (Alex Rodriguez has almost certainly had a season or two that good since then, but not as a shortstop.) On a Win-Shares-per-162 game basis, Wagner (38.01) simply blows away other ‘no doubt’ Hall of Famers like Cal Ripken (23.63), Ozzie Smith (20.53), and Derek Jeter (25.35 — this total was as of the publication of the book and has certainly changed since then). Wagner even has more career Defensive Win Shares than Ozzie Smith (141.84 to 139.84); Smith is generally considered one of if not the greatest defensive shortstop ever. How is Honus Wagner not one of the five greatest players ever to play the game of baseball?
I voted for both Mays and Mantle, since there are arguments for both as greatest player of all time as well, and I didn’t feel I could penalize either of them (or both of them).
Finally, I voted for Walter Johnson, because I find James’s argument in the HBA persuasive: the only pitcher in history who can beat Johnson in effectiveness per inning pitches is Lefty Grove, but Johnson pitched way more innings than Grove, while the only pitcher to beat Johnson in number of effective innings was Cy Young, but Johnson was more effective in his innings than Young was in his. Every other starting pitcher in baseball history (except perhaps Pedro Martinez) loses to Johnson in both categories — they weren’t as effective as Johnson and they were less effective in shorter careers.
I can see where people would vote for Ted Williams, or Hank Aaron, or Jackie Robinson; I don’t see where you can vote for any of those guys ahead of Honus Wagner, which given the vote totals, a pretty significant percentage of voters appear to be doing. I can accept that there’s more competition if you re-build the Hall starting today than there was in 1936 when they first started building the Hall — heck, I am myself leaving Cobb off my ‘ballot’, and Christy Matthewson, who was also among the original five, isn’t even eligible for this vote. But I can’t see how a guy who got on over 95% of the ballots when every player in baseball to that point was effectively on the ballot is carrying just 21% of the ballots today with only fourteen other guys.
ruth, wagner, walter johnson, ted williams, cy young, with josh gibson and jackie robinson just out of the money.
i voted too fast, and admittedly don’t know enough about some of the old-school players like wagner, cobb, gibson, johnson.
as such, i voted: ruth, mays, aaron, robinson, mantle.
after reading all these comments (and reading up a bit more on the likes of cobb), i would probably switch out mantle for cobb if there was a cmd+z on here. though i can’t say i completely regret voting for mantle (why has he only received 10% of the vote? he seems pretty amazing to me).
voiceofunreason makes a valid point in that robinson is the only player in this lot to be chosen for mostly historical reasons, which makes me regret voting for him the most. i’d like to switch him out as well, probably for honus or bonds.
but, too late; my robinson and mantle votes are here to stay.
still, it’s pretty interesting that 4 of my 5 votes are in the top 5, considering i am still relatively young, don’t know a lot of baseball history and was only able to watch two of these guys play during my lifetime.
My personal choices in order:
Ruth
Wagner (does anyone today REALLY realize how good he was as both a defender and a hitter? He is easily the best SS of all time, and until A-Rod went to NY, he was the only one to even begin to be competitive with him)…
Big Train. Lefty Grove would push the next two down if his name was available, thus saving me from my one truly difficult choice in the 5, and I would probably swap the two of them on some days)
Jackie – presuming “importance to baseball”, which to me has to be a requirement of a baseball HOF
Williams (by a hair over Mays, and solely based on a conservative estimate of what the two wars cost him)
The one player I wish I could make better sense of is Josh Gibson. I believe many of the stories told about him, and I voted for him in the “team of the century” crap MLB came up with back in 2000. But I don’t really have any way to value his hitting against the best of all time. If I had some real numbers that made sense to me that backed up his “stories”, well, he’d push into the slot behind Lefty Grove, wiping out Jackie and Ted all in one shot, or just beating Ted if you leave Lefty out…
A catcher with that offensive ability, even with a short career derailed by personality faults, is a must-have in the all-time top-5…
I don’t like just five players inducted first. Perhaps the first time I’ve disagreed with JoeBlog on something. I say if the HoF didn’t exist until right now, and I’m running the show, then I’m having the first group of players inducted be the best Nine of all time. I’d have a ballot for each position, and the top vote-getter obviously wins.
Then I’d vote for Walter Johnson, Johnny Bench, Lou Gehrig, Eddie Collins, Mike Schmidt, Honus Wagner, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Babe Ruth.
There’s your inaugural group.
Ruth – impact on the game
Robinson – impact on the game
Williams – best hitter of all-time
Aaron – model of consistency
Cobb – stats are amazing, Bonds before Bonds
Where is Rogers Hornsby? Only the best right-handed hitter of all-time.
Yes, please give us the name of the 25 voters, none of whom mentioned Rogers Hornsby. Who could possibly overlook someone who averaged .400 over five years, one of which included 40 home runs. Ruth, who forever changed the game of baseball, Cobb, Hornsby, Johnson, and Aaron.
Ruth; then, in no order, Williams, Wagner, Mays, Johnson.
Come on, Jackie Robinson in the top five? Are we all collectively a Tavis Smiley guest under the direction of Mr. Pos? There is nothing i can say (obviously) to immunize myself against the political correctness/courage argument for the wonderful Mr. Robinson. But no way do you keep out any of the true giants for affirmative action sake – it’s not a travesty for Mr. Pos, who probly wouldn’t himself give Robinson the nod, maybe maybe not, but come on…
Jackie absolutely on first ballot. No one changed the game more than him. If his vote was reheld today, I would hope he got 101% of the vote.
Babe for saving the game in a different way. I do agree with his granddaughter that he may have saved the game after the Black Sox, but not enough to retire his number like Jackies,
Hank Aaron
Willie Mays
Teddy Ballgame
Ruth, Williams, Mays, Bonds, Mantle
Mantle not getting much love.
.298/.421/.557…172 OPS+…536 homers…3 MVP awards…9 top 5’s
Better peak than Mays.
Nothing inflammatory intended, just in strenuous disagreement…i’m just stunned by Robinson’s success here (not so surprising given the context of the post and the great author’s background). None of my baseball friends, I’m sure, would really consider his candidacy in such an exercise without serious moral coaxing.
Ruth.
Honus Wagner – I have never met, heard, or read anyone that had anything negative to say about his baseball skills. People either know him or don’t. Those who know about him say he is one of the 5 greatest. David Wintheiser in the comments above writes more about Wagner is a must read comment.
Cy Young – 511 wins even pitchers in his own era couldn’t come within 100 wins of him except for…
Walter Johnson – 416 wins while playing for some horrible teams.
That leaves me with one spot: Jackie could go here but then there were so many people that had a hand in him breaking the color barrier, no the least of whom was the GM Branch Rickey but looking at just performance.
I thought Ted Williams but then went with Willie Mays and here’s why: played Center Field, a far more demanding position, is arguable the greatest defensive and offensive player at his position. Could run as well. Played in a much tougher hitters park than Williams as well. The definition of the complete package.
Williams was one dimensional and was other worldly in that dimension but not enough to compensate for his deficiencies in other areas.
I must correct an egregious error in my previous post. Amazingly, Ted Williams never had a 200 hit season, let alone “200 hits and 100 walks”, though he came close several times. Gehrig, on the other hand – my goodness.
Call me wishy-washy, but I can’t vote on this (and I even voted for Chipper for the All-Star game this year (I live in NYC)), I can’t leave off some of these guys. And how could 25 experts leave off Musial? I respect the symmetry of a first class of 5, but that was covering essentially 35 years of play, plus the early days of the National League, so shouldn’t there be at least 15 spots available?
Thinking about this has led me into some weird facts. I knew that Ted Williams never actually had 200 hits in a season, but I never knew (or forgot, or wasn’t paying attention) that Cap Anson didn’t either. And Bonds has 7 MVP’s while Clemens has 7 Cy Youngs? And the only multiple winners of either award not in the Hall that are eligible are Dale Murphy, Roger Maris, Denny McLain, and Bret Saberhagen?
The thing that irks me about the Hall is that it doesn’t do enough to help add to the Fame of those who for whatever reason didn’t garner enough of it on their own. If it is just supposed to recognize baseball fame, then they can stop at Ruth, Gehrig, etc., fine. But if it is supposed to be a place to trumpet the fame of those who excelled beyond others at baseball, then I think that it falls short, which isn’t exactly surprising, for I have the same complaint about many sportswriters*, and who puts people in the hall? It frustrates me when I read about how some great talent or story is going unrecognized, and what a shame it is, and all I can think is “It’s your fault, you and your brethren!”. The whole post-season after Freddy Sanchez won the batting title leaps to mind.
*And for something completely different (thinking about sportswriters brought it up) I would love to try and find out more about sportswriters from the past who would be the equivalent of irresponsible bloggers in the eyes of Buzz, like Col. Dave Egan who made things very unpleasant for Ted Williams.
late to the party, but here’s my vote:
ruth (mainly because i get the feeling that he might still be on this list had they never turned him into a hitter… he just had skill at baseball, it seems)
gibson (by reputation only to a large extent, but i’ve just never heard any reason why he wouldn’t have been the greatest catcher in major league history had he been allowed to play…)
mays (maybe the best all around player ever??? at least he’s a personal favorite of mine among folks i’ve never actually seen play the game live)
wagner (again, mostly reputation on the fielding side… but a player with his offensive skill at a premuim defensive position? outstanding)
man, it was easy until i realized i had only one pick left.
so i guess i’ll go with cobb. an offensive machine. of all of these players, he’s the one that i wonder about most when it comes to how they would impact the game today.
no pitchers. that almost seems wrong until i realize i’m a product of the late 20th century and i think of pitchers as guys who only go out there every 5th day. and it might be against the spirit of the rules, but i’ll say we should pick 6 and walter johnson should be on my list. in fact…
c – josh gibson
1b – lou gehrig
2b – ty cobb
3b – george brett
ss – honus wagner
lf – ted williams
cf – willie mays
rf – babe ruth
how’s that for a lineup?
incidentally, i’d vote for jackie robinson first ballot with no problem based on his career even aside from his historical significance.
let’s call it the koufax/puckett rule… if your career was short for some reason, it doesn’t change how great it was if you accomplished enough. but i suppose it’s worth noting that (as an accomplished yankee-hater) i wouldn’t be heartbroken if mattingly got in. i mean, i saw the guy play and he dominated for a half-decade. it’s good enough for me and it’s the same reason i’d put davey concepcion in the hall (i challenge you – find a better ss from 73-83.)
i’m babbling here. i also think it’s a travesty that blyleven isn’t in the hall. so that shows what my opinion is worth.
Also, Roy Campanella, a Dodger, won the NL MVP in 1951.
I voted for Cobb, Gehrig, Johnson, Ruth, and Williams. I’m second guessing my pick for Williams although I can’t believe Rogers Hornsby wasn’t on the ballot. I would have voted for him very easily. He was the first power hitter of the NL, won 2 triple crowns, and put together 5 consecutive years where his combined avg was .400. Maybe the greatest feat ever.
Cobb is obvious, Johnson is as well as he had a 2.17 career ERA and won over 400 games playing for the worst team in the AL. Ruth would have made it as a pitcher if they hadn’t figured out he could hit. The one that really bothers me is the fact that Gehrig is low on the balloting. He played 14 full years and had 1995RBIs. That’s sick. He hit .340 and had a year with 20 triples and didn’t sit out a game until it was time to die. Not only that, he was all class. The fact that he isn’t getting recognized is blasphemous. I’ll vote for Bonds when hell freezes over.
“But I can’t see how a guy who got on over 95% of the ballots when every player in baseball to that point was effectively on the ballot is carrying just 21% of the ballots today with only fourteen other guys.”
Well (a) we can’t fit all 15 guys into the top 5; (b) a pretty good chunk of the guys coming in ahead of Wagner were not competing against him on that ballot; and (c) given the votes we see in the present day, one might reasonably be suspicious of the authority of that same body in 1936.
Add to that the fact that it’s pretty clear that not everyone is answering the same question you are. (By my count, at a minimum, the 23% who included Bonds, and the 4 % who missed Ruth).
Plus the voting mechanism does a lousy job of telling you how many people simply disagree in the fine evaluation of who belongs in their last spot, vs the ones like me who rushed their adjustments for the dead ball era, and simply blew it. I’m not sure if Wagner should have been in my top 5, given the barometer I was using, but I certainly blew him off two quickly.
Where’s the love for Josh Gibson? Possibly the greatest hitter ever and played most of his career AS A CATCHER. maybe not as good as Biz Mackey (or Campy) defensively, but good in his own right, plus mammoth power, ability to hit for average and get on base.
Ruth
Wagner
Bonds
Mays
Williams
I don’t like Bonds, but I voted for the guys I consider the best. Most would agree that the Babe is on this list for sure, and so did I. The only other no brainer to me is Wagner. I won’t quibble with anyone who has Cobb, but if we all building an all time fantasy roster league, I’d much rather have Wagner and a 15th ranked outfielder than Cobb and a third ranked SS.
The initial HOF class had more than five guys, and that amount as a poll would be interesting too.
Love this topic. I was, however, flabbergasted to find Wagner with only 21% of the vote, which is conclusive proof that 79% of us are freaking insane. I might suggest that those who did this off the cuff go take a look at Wagner’s stats, and consider them in the context of the Deadball Era. If I’m not mistaken, Wagner’s 1908 season was rated the best season in baseball history in terms of Win Shares (although I believe Barry may have surpassed him). Anyway, the man was a remarkable player. And he was also one of the greatest defensive shortstops of all time. There were a couple of commenters who noted that they discounted Wagner’s defense because there wasn’t enough information. This is wrong. Both the statistical and anecdotal evidence are in overwhelming agreement that Wagner was a superb defensive shortstop.
Feeling sentimental after reading Joe’s post, I voted for Robinson even though he clearly doesn’t belong with the rest of this group baseball-wise. After that, I picked Ruth, Wagner, Gibson, and Johnson.
Disappointed as I was that Wagner hasn’t received the type of support he merits, I was encouraged to find that the voters have correctly identified the one player on the list (other than Jackie) for whom there is no legitimate argument whatsoever to rank in the top 5 — that being Joe DiMaggio,
Regardess of the result of Joe’s poll of his buddies, it would have been nice to see Satchel Paige and Lefty Grove on the ballot. Both of those guys can be very reasonably argued to be the best pitcher who ever lived, and thus, among the top 5 players. Not saying I would have picked them, but they should have been on the ballot. As should Clemens and Pedro Martinez. Pedro doesn’t have the career length, obviously, but he’s far and away the best pitcher of all time in terms of peak value. That’s gotta be worth something.
I forgot to add that had my sentimental vote not gone to Jackie, my fifth choice would have been Willie Mays. It was tough to leave him off.
Also need to mention the omission of Stan Musial from the ballot — holy cow! I’ve heard reasonable people argue that he was better than Ted Williams — and Williams is running in second place in our little poll here. Didn’t Bill James, in fact, rank Musial ahead of Williams in the first Historical Abstract? I’m not saying I agree with that, but… if someone can argue that you’re better than Ted Williams, and they don’t get laughed at, you probably belong on the ballot.
Ruth first, daylight second, then it’s a crapshoot.
Well I was with the majority on the first four, but went with Mantle as number 5, not a popular choice. My problem though was having a problem with deadball era pitchers as being truly “superior” so I went with the guy who had special numbers that might have been even greater without some tough injuries.
No, Bonds hasn’t had a season of more than 59 Win Shares – I think he peaked around 54 in 2001. Which is still ridiculous, but Wagner still has the best year (or at least the best year since the mound was moved back; plenty of pitchers had more than 59 Win Shares in the 1880s).
Say Hey, Honus, the Babe, Big Train, Rajah/Ted/Barry . . . man, this is difficult . . . great idea, though!
To those responders who ask why Robinson is on so many first ballots, it’s not called the “Hall of Quality” or the “Hall of Value.”
This should be determined Family Feud-style, ask 100 yokels what old-timey ballplayers they’ve heard of.
My list was for the most Famous on the list:
Ruth: duh
Young: if you’ve heard of a pitcher who’s won a Cy Young, you’ve heard of him
Williams: spent most of his quality years dropping bombs on Nazis and Commies
Mays: all the annoying Boomers won’t stop yakking about how great he was; as our generation ages and tells our kids about ‘01 and ‘04, this slot will probably be replaced by Bonds (Sorry, haters)
Robinson: Parkways, ballfields, stamps, … Nobody goes to Honus Wagner Elementary School
My vote would be in no particular order Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Walter Johnson, Cy Young, and Ty Cobb.
In order of confidence:
1. Ruth
2. Mays
3. Robinson – Remember the point of the exercise is to re-establish the Hall of Fame, not necessarily identify the five greatest players ever. Robinson was at the center of major league baseball’s finest hour. His singular circumstances have to be taken into account.
4. Wagner
5. Johnson – So hard to fill out the fifth spot. Williams was my #6, and also considered Schmidt and Gehrig. In the end I felt like I had to include a pitcher. It feels wrong to say that three of the five greatest players ever had their peak years before the Depression, and the last fifty years of baseball have produced none of the greatest players ever. But that’s my ballot.
Among active players I could obviously see A-Rod on this list someday.
I also considered Pedro and Koufax, mistakenly thinking they were on the final ballot. In the end I would have valued longevity and voted for Johnson anyway. But if you had to win that mythical one game to save your life, I think I would take peak Pedro and peak Koufax over Johnson. At his best, Pedro would have my vote as the greatest player of my lifetime.
I would also make a brief argument for Yogi Berra. Best ever at his position, ten championships, called basically every pitch of every game for the most dominant team ever, possibly the most loved character in baseball history. I’m surprised he wasn’t mentioned even once by the original 25 voters.
Great exercise. Good excuse to pull out James’s HBA. This was fun.
Extremely hard to pick just 5, but I believe you HAVE to have Wagner on there.
Damn, I love this blog!
And it’s been great reading the various voters’ ballots.
It says something about just how wonderful the game of baseball is.
If I could afford it, we’d all convene at a ball game together and I’d just want to sit next to most of you to watch and talk about the game. I disagree with some of your choices but I can’t argue with ‘em.
Okay, I’ll argue.
Pete Rose belongs in the Hall as a player, and deserves to be banned for life for his actions as a manager. I’m not sure how to work out those logistics, but that’s what I think.
Whoever posted the dream lineup up-thread, pretty much described Heaven for me. Wonder who they’d play?
As much of a George Brett fan I am, I saw Brooks Robinson play third base. Brett was such a blue-collar guy, he worked his way to be a complete player… batting practice ’til his hands bled and so much better at third base than anyone expected… but watching Robinson play third base was like watching Picasso paint.
And people such as Bob Gibson; why did people bother to bring a bat up to the plate? They weren’t gonna use it.
It’s the history of the game that makes baseball so wonderful.
If Jim Thorpe or Red Grange were plopped into a contemporary NFL game, they wouldn’t recognize it. But if Cobb or Ruth or Walter Johnson or Satchel or Teddy Ballgame somehow would show up for this afternoon’s game, they wouldn’t miss a beat.
I’d love to sit next to just about everyone who’s involved in this blog during a ball game. We’d disagree about Shrub and Iraq and taxes and maybe everything else, but we’d love this game together.
I voted for Ruth, Mays, Aaron, Robinson and Mantle. I think I prefer and respect great hitting over great pitching (apparently). Unbelievable that Williams and Gibson off the list…
Wow, over 1,000 voters. That’s a pretty high number. Glad you decided to keep this site going.
tough call
you have to pick Mays and Ruth – they were defining winners
Bonds – had to pass due to all the other stuff
DiMaggio/Maddux/Mantle, great, but had great teams too
Cobb/Gibson/Wagner/Young – hard to compare
Ted Williams – best pure hitter – tough call, but today I put him on (tomorrow maybe not)
Hank Aaron – take away Bonds and he’s the home run leader in a time when there were fewer home runs. Plus he did it with such class under such pressure with racism still a real factor. got to give it up to him.
Walter Johnson – couldn’t go without a pitcher and had to pick him as the best on the list.
I had Wagner, but bumped him off to get Johnson on there.
Great question though.
Cobb
Ruth
Wagner
Johnson
Gehrig
I picked the first four because they were unquestionably the best in their time. The fifth caused me trouble.
I can’t include Williams (as much as I love him) due ti his lack of defense.
I have never seen Dimag as the transcendent athlete that he is seen as.
Mays was a complete player but I see Mantle as being better.
Aaron strikes me as the closest, but he was never been as the greatest player of his time.
I have serious issues with Bonds due to roids.
Jack Robbie has all the intangibles, which pulls me close to picking him, but e was never seen as the best player of his time. Heck, he may not even be seen as the best player on his team, much less his league. (Musial)
Gibson, for circumstances beyond his control, is more a mythic person than anything else for me.
So I chose Gehrig.
TheDawg makes an interesting point, but not one I think I can support: the idea that the Hall shouldn’t be as much about quality of player but about…well, fame. To demonstrate why I’m not convinced this is the way to go, let me tweak the original premise and instead name the five guys I think would be in the inaugural ‘Hall of Fame’ if fame and impact on the game were more significant criteria for selection than just baseball ability. (Not that we’re going to accept just anybody — heck, on this blog nobody’s more famous than Duane Kuiper, but he ain’t getting in.)
1. Babe Ruth – Great player, arguably the most famous baseball player of all time.
2. Jackie Robinson – Extremely talented player, made one of if not the most significant change to the game in its history.
3. Hal Chase
As a player, Hal Chase wasn’t great — he was good. His peak value according to the BJHBA puts him a bit below John Kruk, who was pretty darned good as his peak, while his career value rates about the same as John Olerud. Neither of those guys would get into the Hall on talent alone, but Chase has an edge: Hal Chase was arguably the most famous player of his era, even more famous than Ty Cobb. What he was famous for was his defense, which people raved about as legendary, and the suspicion that he was throwing baseball games, losing deliberately in order to make extra money on the side from gamblers or just to convince his owners to raise his salary. Chase was ultimately banned from baseball for throwing games — ironically in 1919 just before the infamous Black Sox series was played — but if you could measure a player’s Fame Quotient, Chase’s would be near the top, at least for his time.
4. Shoeless Joe Jackson
The most famous player in the most famous scandal in baseball history, which led to changes in the game which arguably exceeded Ruth’s — the establishment of the commissioner’s office, rules about the relationship between gambling and baseball. Heck, it’s been argued that, though American society at the time was awash in corruption, it wasn’t until Shoeless Joe got kicked out of baseball that people really started to take seriously the idea that they could and should clean things up. In that sense, Jackson’s (and to a degree Chase’s) legacy is nearly as large as Robinson’s, in that what Jackson did (or arguably didn’t do) had an impact well outside the world of baseball into the greater culture of the time.
5. Barry Bonds
We knew there were steroids in the game long before Bonds and ‘Game of Shadows’; Jose Canseco was openly proclaiming the virtues of steroids during his playing days, and Mark McGwire had a bottle of androstenedione in his locker during the famous 1998 home run derby. But just as folks didn’t ‘get serious’ about corruption until the Black Sox scandal broke, folks didn’t ‘get serious’ about steroids until the Barry revelations and the sense that he was ‘cheating’ his way to being the greatest player ever. This change isn’t as sweeping or transcendent of baseball as the others on this list, which is why I put Bonds fifth, but combine that with the argument that Bond’s numbers give him a good argument as the best player of all-time and I think the combination easily gets him into this ‘revised’ Hall of Fame.
I understand why TheDawg wants to include fame in his definition of who he’d put in the Hall, but I think you end up on the horns of a dilemma — either you recognize the most famous players regardless of whether or not that fame is ‘positive’ (which leads to the list above, which some people might not have problems with), or you restrict your definition of fame to only those players with a ‘positive’ impact (which, in combination with the idea that talent takes a back seat to fame, is why we have Ray Schalk in the Hall of Fame today). In that sense, ‘fame’ is already a crippled criterion: you’re going to qualify and argue over what it means to the point where it’s really just a wholly subjective way of putting forward the candidates you like and suppressing the candidates you don’t like.
Recognizing the most talented players and then using fame as a separator allows you to honor players like Cobb, who were truly great players but weren’t always the most pleasant or even moral players. Recognizing the most ‘positively famous’ players allows you to honor players who did admirable things, even though they weren’t all that good as players. The Hall might well be strengthened by having both types of players in it, but if you only choose to honor one of these types, I think the Hall is a more interesting and honest place for honoring the talented near-monsters than honoring the admirable-yet-harmless journeymen.
Aaron, Mays, Ruth, Wagner, Young.
Wow, this was way too hard to fill out. Also, no Tris Speaker mentioned by any of the people polled? I rank him above Joltin’, but I know that Joey D has so much mythos around him.
1. Ruth – No one else belongs because of the unique combination of pitching and hitting greatness.
2. Bonds – Had two careers; early on he was an incredible all-around player, amazing on-base skills mixed with great speed, good fielding and great power. Second career, a lot less speed, shaky in the outfield, but the most dominating run for any hitter ever.
3. Ted Williams – I know he couldn’t field or run very well, but man could he hit; plus, leaving the game for two wars and not missing a beat, that’s something real special.
4. Honus Wagner – Gotta give The Dutchman some props, though it’s very, very hard to leave Mays and Cobb off the list.
5. Walter Johnson – This list needs a pitcher, and the Big Train was the best ever IMO.
The idea that Williams lost “most of his quality years” to war is… interesting. He had 7 seasons of 90+ games with OPS+ better than 200, and lost most of 5 seasons to military service (which is still more than almost anyone else in baseball history). But he still had a ton of quality years, certainly a lot more than 5.
Jack Robinson should go in to the Hall in a class by himself.
While reading this I was thinking of the passage in your book where Mays and Buck are at the Hall of Fame and Mays breaks down a bit after seeing the statues of the Negro Leagues players. And I’m just thinking, but if we could really start the Baseball Hall of Fame over again, I think the very first class should go to those who we might have missed.
Of course, many players missed time for many reasons–racism, military service, illness, family obligations, and even an “something else” category for those banned players.
It seems to me that Jack Robinson should go in alone, as the representative of all of those groups. He battled illness, served his country, faced racism, and never backed down when asked to be a leader or a representative. I know he had mixed feelings about always being asked to shoulder the burdens of groups, but I can’t think of a better way to start the Hall off right than to ask, again, Jack Robinson to be the representative of all those games we could have seen.
So, after that, give me Mays, Aaron, Ruth, and Gibson. Though I’m tempted to include DiMaggio just so I know we can read and write about him…good stuff comes from that.
Jackie Robinson fifth in the overall voting? I’m sorry, but it’s not clear that he was even the *third* best player on the Boys of Summer. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even the best black player in Brooklyn. And I’ll start by saying that I’m a lifelong Dodger fan, and I put Josh Gibson (and bemoaned the lack of Satchel Paige) on my list, because I’m sure the charges are going to come. But Robinson wasn’t that great a baseball player, and attempts to rewrite history offend me.
Career OPS+ 132. Snider’s career OPS+ was 140 in a much longer career (almost 800 more games).
Campanella (who I think should have been the barrier breaker, but the Dodgers liked Robinson’s college degree and war record as being points that would make it easier for Robinson) won three MVPs.
Reese was ranked in the MVP voting 12 straight years.
The contention that Robinson could have won MVP every year from 1949 to 1953 is ludicrous since he was never first in the league in OPS+, the Dodgers didn’t win the title every year, and the only year he actually won MVP he got it because the Dodgers finished first when two players clearly had better seasons. The only year in his career where he had more than 95 RBI was also the only year he led the league in batting average and the year he won his MVP, 1949. He never led the league in runs or hits, never was close to a leader board in homers. You could easily argue that Kiner (led the league with 54 homers far outpacing Musial’s second with 36, led the league in RBI with 127, and led in OPS+ of 186) or Musial (second in homers, OPS+ of 176) had better years than Robinson’s OPS+ of 152. But the Dodgers won the pennant, and Robinson played a more important defensive position than Musial or Kiner (and finished first in batting, second in RBI, first in steals) so I’m not going to argue Robinson didn’t deserve his MVP. But it’s not clear cut, and it’s the only season in his career where Robinson was clearly the best Dodger, let alone the best in the league.
In 1950 Musial was clearly the best player, Snider led Robinson (by a smidge) in OPS+ and by a fair amount in Runs Created, and Campy was right there in OPS+ while also catching, and even Hodges (32 homers) drew more MVP votes. It’s not clear Robinson deserved Brooklyn’s MVP, let alone the league’s. Just because Musial was cheated doesn’t mean that Robinson (not a pennant winner) had any chance to finish ahead of him.
In 1951, Campanella had a better OPS+, more runs created, was third in the league in homers, fourth in RBI, third in doubles, and he was still a catcher. Musial and Kiner had the two best seasons. No way did Robinson deserve MVP ahead of any of them, and again was not Brooklyn’s MVP.
In 1952, Musial had 66 more points in OPS, 17 more in OPS+, 28 more Runs Created, led the league in Batting Average, Runs, and was on the board in RBI and Homers (Robinson was not amongst the league leaders in RBI or Homers). Musial finished fifth behind Sauer, who led the league in RBI and Homers, and then three pitchers were 2, 3, 4; one of those pitchers also a Dodger. So while it’s not clear that Robinson didn’t have a better year than Sauer, it’s also not clear that Robinson was even the MVP of the Dodgers, and it’s absolutely clear that Robinson wasn’t close to Musial.
In 1953, Campanella’s OPS of 1.006 and the league lead in RBI won him the MVP, Snider’s 1.046 finished third, Robinson’s .927 finished back in the pack. So Robinson was at best the third most valuable Dodger. No, wait, Erskine went 20-6, and Carl Furillo had a .973 OPS for the Dodgers while leading the league in batting, so Robinson was probably at best the fifth most valuable Dodger. Pee Wee Reese also finished ahead of Robinson in the MVP voting, and Hodges batted .302 with 31 dingers. Also noted were Eddie Mathews finishing second (1.033 OPS, led the league in homers) and Musial’s 1.046 only good for eighth. Heck, it looks like they just got tired of giving Musial the MVP every year, because once he had three of them they kept on ignoring him. But it’s hard to argue that Robinson is even on the winner’s stand for the MVP in Brooklyn.
So in Robinson’s career he was clearly the best Dodger once, arguably the best Dodger once, and not the best Dodger a lot of times, and that his one MVP was in large part because he was the best player on the pennant winner, even though there were much better seasons by two other players.
Sure, segregation probably kept him out of the big leagues as soon as he deserved. But it kept out Campy as well. And Robinson was serving in the armed forces 1942-1944, so he probably lost as much time to WWII as to segregation. His first two seasons he only OPS+ed 111 and 118, so it’s not clear he was ready very much earlier, or would have added much value to his MLB career. .His last two seasons were his worst two. OPS+ of 96 and 107, batted .256 and .275, his speed was mostly gone, his last two seasons were also his worst two slugging percentages (.363 and .412), and he’d moved down the defensive spectrum so he *needed* to hit like he did in his prime to stay on the roster. If the color barrier had broken in the 1930s (by, say, Gibson and Paige, catapulting the St. Louis Browns into unlikely contention) you can’t say that Robinson would have had a much better career.
Robinson was a fine player who would never be in the Hall of Fame were it not for him being chosen to break the color barrier. He did a great job at maintaining his poise, and if he hadn’t, it’s unclear that the major leagues would have fully integrated so quickly. But only one player could be the first to break that barrier, and I think other better players *could* have broken the barrier competently. There is no reason to think that Satchel Paige couldn’t have been pitching as well or better a year or three earlier.
This is the Hall of Fame we’re voting on here, not the Hall of Social Relevance. Robinson is the most socially relevant player in MLB history. But on the field, he’s not going to make my list of top five second basemen, and number one on that list (Rogers Hornsby, #2 all time in batting average) wasn’t even a voting option. Robinson only had five seasons where he played more than 22 games at second base; he played only 748 games at second base lifetime; his last four seasons he was moved down the defensive spectrum. As a second baseman, I put him behind Hornsby, LaJoie, Eddie Collins, Joe Morgan, and Ryne Sandberg, and then there are a lot of players (Frisch, Grich, Alomar, Mazeroski, Kent, Biggio, Whitaker) where you have to consider quality versus quantity, speed versus power, offense versus defense, not to mention up and comers like Utley and Uggla and probably many I’ve forgotten. Sure, Robinson’s last four years were solid, but they weren’t at second base, and they were nowhere near HOF caliber offensively at 1B, OF, or 3B.
What it comes down to is that voters are saying that a guy who might have been only tenth best all time at his position deserves to be one of the first five picks into the Hall of Fame. And that’s political correctness at its worst. I voted for Josh Gibson even though he never got a chance to play in the majors because I’m persuaded that he was the best catcher of all time, and I would have voted for Satchel Paige if he were on the list. It’s the same mentality that got Robinson some MVP votes his final season (OPS+ 107, only 115 games, batted only .275). I’ll grant that Robinson was a great man who did a great thing, and the great thing plus sufficient competence on the field earned him his deserved place in the Hall of Fame. But he wasn’t that great a baseball player. I might jump him over 100 better players on the field in my HOF voting, if we were to repopulate the HOF again. But I can’t jump him over, what, 200?
Go to http://www.baseball-reference.com/players.shtml and look at the list of names by last initial and consider whether aside from the color barrier they were better or worse than Robinson. These guys are clearly better: Aaron, Bonds (sigh), Boggs, Brett, Cobb, Clemente, Carlson, Dimaggio, Foxx, Fisk, Ford, Gehrig, Gwynn, Henderson, Hornsby, Johnson (Walter), Koufax, Kaline, Lajoie, Mantle, Mays, Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Musial, Niekro, Ott, Piazza, Ruth, ARod, Rose (sigh), Ryan, Ramirez, Spahn, Sandberg, Schmidt, Ted Williams, Winfield, Wagner, Young, Yastrzemski, and Yount. That’s not looking at active players (except Bonds, Pedro, Maddux, and ARod – go ahead and argue against those four if you will), that’s not breaking down the initals (other HOFers with last initial M include Marichal, Mathews, Mathewson, Mazeroski, McCovey, Medwick, Mize, Molitor, Murray, and Musial), that’s not even getting into point of view arguments like Killebrew and Jackson (great power, not much defensive value, not great batting averages, longer careers) or Smith and Vizqel and Maz (great defensive value and longevity, not much offense) or other actives like Piazza, Clemens, Glavine, Frank Thomas, and Griffey Jr. who are sure to go into the HOF but maybe somebody could argue with a straight face that they aren’t better than Jackie Robinson. Heck, I don’t think Jackie’s even the best Robinson in the HOF; my pick goes to Frank there.
I don’t want to spend more hours on this poll than I already have. I think I can safely and comfortably say that aside from the color barrier (which I think Campy could have broken every bit as well, and probably Paige and Gibson) there are at least a hundred better baseball players. Robinson is tied for 127th in career OPS+, and without looking at them all I’d bet that at least 120 had longer careers. And that’s without looking at pitchers. I’ll give Robinson a big boost for breaking the barrier. But I’m not going to jump him over 150 or 200 better players on the field to put him in the first HOF class. He is so far and away the weakest in the field of the guys we were allowed to vote on that it’s almost Sesame Street time: one of these things is not like the other.
Great human being, I’ll give him that. Ground breaker. I’ll even name him the most important American of every MLB player of all time. But this isn’t Profiles in Courage. It’s the baseball HOF. He does not deserve to be in the inaugural class for the HOF as a baseball player.
Ruth
Mays
Wagner
Johnson
Williams
Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Gehrig, Johnson.
I just don’t understand anyone — and particularly anyone who is a fan of this site — voting for Josh Gibson. Readers of this site mock the old-line sportswriters for voting for Jim Rice as HOF’er because he was “feared” and ignoring park effect and other stats. And then you accept — no, rely on — the anecdotal stories of Buck O’Neil (contained in a great book) and others and decide that Josh Gibson deserves to be crowned as one of the first five inductees. Look, I never saw Ruth and DiMaggio and Williams and Musial play. But I can study the numbers (and read the stories) and know where they belong in baseball’s patheon. Same with the players I did see — Mays, Aaron, Seaver, Gibson, Carlton, Maddux, A-Rod. Do I have any problem with Josh Gibson as a Hall of Famer. Of course not. Was he possibly an all time great. Perhaps. But without numbers and a context in which they were derived, we don’t know and will never know. So I just can’t vote for him and don’t see how others can.
For what it is worth, my five are:
Ruth, Wagner, Mays, Williams and Johnson (followed by Cobb, then Aaron, then Young).
Bill James had Gibson ninth on his list, so it’s not THAT out there.
He also had Oscar Charleston fourth.
Andy, my understanding is that the statistics we have available from the Negro Leagues show Gibson to be the best hitter in the history of those leagues, and translating them to the majors indicates him as the best catcher ever, at least. Some of the other posters around here can probably address that more thoroughly than I can, though.
… there were a couple of reasons Snider had a longer career. Robinson wasn’t allowed to make his MLB debut until he was 28. And even if he had been, there was a war going on so he might not have played in some of those years anyway. The service didn’t delay Duke (born in 1926) too much.
I find it difficult to vote for any pre-integration player, even, Babe Ruth.
joe: next should be the top 5 at each position. good luck with the RHP.
Wagner, Ruth, Robinson, Mays & Bonds
There are plenty of statistics around on the Negro Leagues, and they’ve been number-crunched by plenty of sabermetricians, and the stats show that Josh Gibson was exactly as good a hitter as his reputation. Disqualifying Negro Leaguers for stat-related reasons is willful ignorance.
And even if we didn’t have stats, the lack of stats cuts both ways. We don’t have the stats on Babe Ruth batting against all the best pitchers, black and white. By the logic used to exclude Gibson, perhaps we should also exclude Ruth since we have no stats which prove he was better than Josh Gibson or Oscar Charleston.
Ruth
Bonds
Walter Johnson
Ted Williams
Mays
Brown’s actual nickname was “Three-Fingered”. It’s been distorted over time.
Back to Gibson:
No one cited any Negro League statistics, let alone then explained how to compare them to the major league statistics, when they listed Josh Gibson. Rather, we heard that :
“I couldn’t leave Gibson out after reading “The Soul of Baseball†and visiting the Negro Leagues Museum” or “My Number 4 was Josh Gibson, based mostly on hearing Buck talk about him” or “And yeah, Gibson is in there mostly because of Buck and because I think the Hall needs character people in addition to statistics. So, really, I clicked on “Gibson†because “O’Neil†wasn’t on there.”
I agree with JJF3,. who stated that “the one player I wish I could make better sense of is Josh Gibson. . . . I don’t really have any way to value his hitting against the best of all time. If I had some real numbers that made sense to me that backed up his “storiesâ€, well.
Would I love to read a biography about Gibson, of course. It would probably be fascinating. Should he be in the HOF — yes; but one of the first five inductees, no.
I went with balance.
Ruth-seriously, can you leave out the greatest player of all time
Williams-best…pure…hitter…ever(give him the war years back and his numbers are even gaudier)
Johnson-best pitching career ever
Wagner-best overall infielder ever
Robinson-for obvious historical reasons, and an historically great all around player
Man I love reading this blog. Took me too long to fill this out, and just as I was about to fill out I started reading some of the comments and taking things into account that I hadn’t thought about before.
1. Babe Ruth: As obvious to me as its been to everyone on this board.
2. Honus Wagner: I love reading all the comments about the man, all that offense at SHORTSTOP. As great as ARod is, and as much as I love watching this man play baseball, if there was a SS in today’s game who had his bat (well actually better) and was regarded as the premier defensive player at his position also… they’d name the team, the stadium, and possibly the city after him
3. Jackie Robinson: Yeah I know, he’s not at the offensive level as the other men on the list. But he was damn good, the best player not named Stan Musial (who should be on him) during the late 40’s early 50’s. Not to mention the real reason everyone is voting for him (which reminds me that I still think Larry Doby should get a lot more credit for what he did, in a different league and different cities)
4. Josh Gibson: My final hitter, just because I think that somehow the Negro Leagues has to be truly represented in a new HOF, and since he is the only true representative on here, I voted for him. Not to mention I love hitters at premier defensive slots.
5. Walter Johnson: Mostly out of my need for a pitcher, but also because of his astounding dominance over such a long period of time on some pretty bad teams. Switch him with Matthewson and we’d have to rename the Cy Young award to the Walter Johnson is GOD award or something of that nature.
I had serious misgivings about leaving Teddy off the list, the man understood hitting more than anyone; it’s tough to leave off the man with the highest OBP of all-time. Mays and Aaron were also particularly tough, Mays because of my aformentioned love of offense and defensive positions, and Aaron because he’s always been my favorite historical player.
Ditto on Frank Robinson. I’d put him in any top five all time.
In regards to Stan Musial, that’s easy. He never played in NYC. Don’t you all realize that baseball was not played outside of NYC in the 1940s and 1950s, at least according to Ken Burns.
Richard:
Wait, Omar Vizquel? Compared to Jackie Robinson? Seriously?
Look, I’m a diehard Tribe fan. I absolutely adore Vizquel. I’ve debated for a loooooong time that he deserves to be a HoFer when his career is over because I feel he’s either equal or superior to Aparicio and his career WARP3 beats like 7 other HoF SSs, but let’s look at the facts:
WARP3 isn’t perfect, but it’s a nice quick and dirty method to evaluate players from different time periods. Jackie Robinson is trailing Omar Vizquel in WARP3 by about 8 points. Vizquel accumulated his WARP3 over about 20 seasons of work, give or take. Robinson did his in just under 10 seasons.
Omar was a guy who has been consistently good, always adding some value to his team and he has lasted long enough to rack up career value that eclipses guys like Sewell and Rizzuto and Maranville and Bancroft. But compared to Robinson? Robinson’s peak years are fantastic, they blow anything Little O ever did out of the water, in pretty much every aspect of the game, and yes, that includes fielding.
Comparing his peak years to some more modern 2B who *should* be in the HoF someday:
Robinson’s best years by WARP3: 1951, 13.9, 1949, 13.1 and 1952, 12.0
Roberto Alomar’s best years by WARP 3: 1999, 11.6, 1996, 11.4 and 1992, 11.2
Jeff Kent’s best years by WARP3: 2002, 12.3, 2000, 12.1 and 2001, 10.5
Craig Biggio’s best years by WARP3: 1997, 13.5, 1995, 10.6 and 1998, 10.4
Like I said, WARP3 isn’t a perfect metric, but it is a good metric, and its efficient for comparing guys across eras. I think we can agree that those three 2Bs are probably the best of the 90/00s (Alomar/Biggio for the 90s, Kent more for his peak in the early 00s), and Robinson’s three best years top all of them.
You could also compare him to members of the 2B pantheon. Nap Lajoie, for instance. I don’t think many here would argue he is one of the greatest 2B ever; not the best, but in the conversation. His best three WARP3 years were: 14.0, 13.7 and 13.5 (1910, 1906 and 1904, if you were curious). So Lajoie wins over Robinson, but it’s neck and neck.
I think Jackie deserves tons of credit for breaking the color barrier, but I believe that sometimes it causes people to overlook his actual baseball skills. The man, at his peak, was a tremendous player, and his career is almost entirely peak.
Someone mentioned Brooks Robinson a few posts ago. His 1970 World Series was the most incredible display of fielding ever. He wouldn’t be anywhere near my first class list but as a third baseman, he was the best in the field and I don’t think anyone would disagree.
It was so hard to vote for that 5th guy as it seems to have been for many. For me it was between Williams and Honus. I went with Williams and have been questioning that ever since. It still bothers me to see the lack of votes Gehrig gets as well as the fact that Rajah wasn’t even on the ballot.
Jackie Robinson is important, but if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. There were too many good players in the Negro Leagues to just ignore them forever. I understand the need to celebrate the man for triumphing over the time he lived in. He was a great man, but his stats were fairly inferior overall. One of his comps is Mike Greenwell and another is JOE RANDA? I don’t consider either of those guys close to HOF level.
Here are two lines
.307 .358 .471 127 OPS+
.311 .409 .474 132 OPS+ Jackie Robinson
The one with lower OBP belongs to Don Mattingly, and I think we all know he isn’t getting in. They were essentially the same player with short careers but Robinson got on base more often. In fact, if you look at their 162 game averages on baseball reference you’ll see that they are very comparable except Jackie got about 20 more steals per season and more walks, while Mattingly hit more homers. Yes, Jackie was the better player (obviously he has positional value too), but I don’t think that Jackie is the no doubt HOFer without the context of the time he played in.
Aaron,
Yes, someone else would’ve broken the color barrier eventually, but not with the class and quality that Robinson did. He was definitely the right man for the moment. He played under the microscope like no other before him, the pressure must’ve been intense, and he still put up great numbers.
There is simply no way to compare his accomplishments by solely looking at the numbers of other players.
He’s definitely in my 5.
Andy, conservative estimates from the Hall of Merit project for Gibson’s numbers, had he been able to play in MLB, look like this:
ba .327
obp .431
slg. .595
OPS+ 175
From a CATCHER. These aren’t half-assed approximations, either. They’re based on serious study of the Negro Leagues and MLB history. Imagine putting Lou Gehrig behind the plate for fifteen years and you begin to get an idea of what Gibson could have contributed.
It’s no surprise that a lot of people want to put that guy in their initial Hall of Fame class.
Maddux but not Clemens on the candidate list? Say wha??
Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Wagner, Cobb.
Ruth, Bonds, Gibson, Schmidt, Williams
“I don’t think that Jackie is the no doubt HOFer without the context of the time he played in.”
That’s the point, no? You make it seems like adding context is a *bad* thing.
Ruth
Bonds
Mays
Williams
Cobb
it’s impossible to comment or defend this… five is really too little, I may very well vote for five different guys a couple minutes from now…
I logged my five (Ruth, Wagner, Gibson, Mays, Robinson), but I wish I could have voted for Lefty Grove.
It’s like picking your five favorite M&Ms.
Ruth, Wagner, Aaron, Gibson, Maddux (timeline adj.).
I went with Ruth, Mays, Wagner, Johnson and 5 was tough but I finally went with Cobb. As brilliant a hitter as Teddy Ballgame was, at this level, the fact that the man played disinterested defense gets in the way for me.
On a separate note, I am stunned by the lack of respect Wagner is getting in this poll. If we polled all the readers as to the best at each position, Wagner would, undoubtedly, win his position by the greatest margin. It is, with all due respect to A-Rod, who may be a 3B by the time he’s up for vote, the only position where there is really no argument to be made…Honus IS the best SS ever.
Circle me Bert!! (sorry…)
Nice post…I read a lot of “baseball garb”…that’s what I call it…I’m convinced you’re the best writer out there…Surprised Cobb’s vote is so low…
How good is Pedro Martinez? #1 on ERA+…the distance between him and number 2? the same as between #2 and #15!!!
WOW…that is all I can say…he has to go in…
I went Babe Ruth (perhaps the player who most influenced baseball history) number one with a bullet, then Jackie Robinson (the player who most influenced history) and Hank Aaron (fitting that the man who broke Ruth’s record was an heir to Jackie’s legacy). From there, I wrangled with Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Josh Gibson, Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb before finally settling on Willie Mays and Ted Williams since it would be impossible to have any “Greatest Player of All-Time” discussion with nearly anyone and NOT have their names come up. And I’d like to suggest another name for consideration: Frank Robinson.
Cobb
Ruth
Williams
Mays
Young
My top 3 were very easy to decide. I think Ruth, Mays, Bonds are the top 3 players of all-time rather easily. I then chose Walter Johnson because I believe he is the best pitcher of all-time. I heavily debated the 5th spot, then went with Jackie Robinson because he was both an outstanding ball player and had such a humongous impact on the game. So, in summation, my 5:
Ruth
Mays
Bonds
Johnson
Robinson
I’m shocked Williams isn’t first. I know extrapolating isn’t all the rage but you ‘normalize’ his statistics during his enlistment and subsequent recalling (first in wwii and then korea). Almost 4 more seasons of Ted would not have been fair to any subsequent hitter.
Personally, I believe Babe Ruth would hit today, as an aside. I don’t know that he’d stand astride the league looking down on all the other hitters but he was too far ahead of the competition not to be a major leaguer in any other decade.
Oh, and I have to add….If he would have been a choice, ARod would have bumped Robinson off my ballot and taken the 5th place. Joe, how is ARod not on this list?
One nice BP stat is DERA, which is computed by taking the pitchers RA (not ERA), adjusting it to a 4.50 run environment, and then adjusting that number up or down depending on the quality of the pitcher’s team’s defense. In essentially the same career length, they have:
Clemens: 3.17 DERA
Maddux: 3.63 DERA
Clemens just destroys Maddux; after a quick search, the only starter I could find with a better career mark than Clemens is Pedro at 3.10. Clemens has tended to pitch in front of poor defenses, Maddux good ones (although Maddux himself played a role in his team defenses being so good!) If you look just at peak seasons, the gap is a little closer:
Clemens top 5: 2.21, 2.23, 2.53, 2.54, 2.59
Maddux top 5: 1.90, 2.10, 2.62, 2.90, 2.96
Maddux’s two best seasons were slightly better on a rate basis than anything Clemens did, but it should be mentioned that they were strike-shortened seasons.
The bottom line is that Clemens’ on-field performance was significantly better than Maddux’s. I understand that some people would want to discount that superior performance, but that should have been a choice that the voters got to make. Factoring in the dearth of recent ballplayers, I would say that Clemens’ exclusion is the most egregious error on the list, worse even that Musial.
aaron, johnson, mantle, ruth, williams.
put em’ on the ballot:
Griffey Jr, Dandy Randy Johnson, Pedro, A-Rod.
Aaron, Robinson, Ruth, Williams, Walter Johnson.
Young, Wagner and Mays are awfully hard to leave off.
Ask me again in 10 years and I expect A-Rod to have bumped Aaron off my ballot.
Voted before reading this (more or less on purpose), then immediately skipped ahead to read it (I’m always a few days late with these things).
But yes, Jackie Robinson was among the five I voted for (I WAS wondering where Lefty Grove was, so I voted for Walter Johnson instead, along with Williams, Ruth, Aaron, and of course, Robinson, in no particular order). Interesting to see I picked five of everyone else’s top six, and Robinson is number six.
Interesting, also, that batters are apparently worth about four times as much as pitchers. Not counting Ruth as a pitcher.
Be really interesting to keep this going as a “Fan Hall of Fame” or something. I’d be curious to see who eventually got in, and who didn’t. New Poscars?
I can appreciate that someone could make an argument against Jackie Robinson, but I fervently disagree.
My list of 5 — Jack Roosevelt Robinson, The Babe, Big Train, Hammerin’ Hank, and The Say Hey Kid — is a list of the five best baseball players on that list. (Very difficult choices, if not impossible, decision. I could have voted for any of them except DiMaggio and Maddux. And, really, give me those two to start a championship team, and I’ll take my chances.)
It all depends on how one defines “best.” I like to think that adjective encompasses — hell, defines — Jackie Robinson. If I could only vote for one, it would have been him. And if Branch Rickey were a choice, I would have voted for him second.
I’ve got JEFFSOL’s – Ruth, Wagner, Johnson, Mays, Cobb – the hardest thing was leaving out Bonds who is the best I’ve seen. I’m probably just too close the “sins” to decide about him properly, though absent any of that, Cobb was just so great for so long at everything pre-Ruth baseball was, it’s hard to leave him off. His slugging doesn’t look great now, and his agressiveness may have created some extra outs, but it’s like measuring Mays by his stolen bases. He could have stolen as many as he wanted, but what was going to be the best strategy to win the game THAT day?
I’ve no doubt Gibson was great and the best catcher ever, it’s just the sample size against good competition that keeps him out of running for me.
Wow. What an amazing discussion. As someone said, wouldn’t it be tremendous to get together with Joe, his “posse” that he had vote, and the many, many people with so much passion for this great game, and watch this great game? Awesome.
You guys are a little over-dramatic, stressing out about how “difficult” it is to construct a ballot of just 5. There is an obvious, factual answer to this: Ruth, Williams, Bonds, Gehrig, and Johnson.
Even though I am a die-hard Red Sox fan, I have to say that Mariano Rivera belongs on that last. Although Papelbon may soon be better than him.
I voted for
- Ruth (best player ever.)
- Williams (Best pure hitter ever. I love the mystique of the “last .400 season” )
- Cy Young (simply because of some of the things he did in pitching. I realize it was a different age and all, and pitchers were used differently, but 15 straight seasons of 320+ innings – and the 320 was the low mad Mantle should be on there, but I had to give a hug to Greg.
Sigh. Firefox really does not like your website for some reason, Joe…
I voted for
- Ruth (best player ever.)
- Williams (Best pure hitter ever. I love the mystique of the “last .400 season” )
- Cy Young (simply because of some of the things he did in pitching. I realize it was a different age and all, and pitchers were used differently, but 15 straight seasons of 320+ innings – and the 320 was the low mark. He had 5 400+ innings seasons in 6 years. – 749 complete games, a fantastic .618 winning percentage, just all speak to me, because they’ll never be done again. When the “best pitcher” award was named Cy Young Award, it was very apt.)
- Jackie Robinson (I was one of the people who said his statistics really aren’t the greatest ever, but he gets a vote because of what he did and what he stood for and what he had to endure.)
My final vote went to Greg Maddux. Simply because he is the best pitcher I’ve had the pleasure to actually watch.
Randy Johnson has been more dominant than Maddux, so has Pedro, but they’re both power pitchers, and there’s something about watching Maddux consistently get guys out without a 98mph fastball. Also, Pedro and Johnson aren’t on the ballot.
Obviously Gehrig and Mantle should be on there, but I had to give a hug to Greg.
I just cannot fathom that 100 people have not voted for Babe Ruth. Why leave him off the ballot? What’s the possible reason? A top 5 without him would be like a top 5 basketball players without Michael Jordan, a top 5 hockey players without Wayne Gretzky, a top 5 golfers without the Golden Bear, a top 5 horses without Secretariat. Just unfathomable to me. Babe Ruth IS baseball.
Had Stan Musial been on your ballot, I would have left either Maddux or Young off in favor of him. In fact, I’d put him second right after Ruth.
I can never go to a Cardinals game without spending several minutes just staring at Musial’s statue.
Sometimes I think that if I had one wish, I’d wish I could go back in time and watch all these amazing guys play ball. The very first player I’d go see would be Musial.
Impossible. Sophie’s Choice x 15.
So instead I’m going with the best 5 nicknames:
The Sultan of Swat
The Splendid Splinter
Big Train
The Say Hey Kid
Fifth place toss-up: The Iron Horse vs.
Three Fingered Brown.
Also, can’t believe these guys didn’t even
get a single vote in the original survey of
“experts”:
Rogers Hornsby
Roger Clemens
Frank Robinson
Steve Carlton
Tom Seaver
Christy Matthewson
A-Rod
Bo Belinsky (kidding)
A little more love for Mickey:
The most beloved, even worshipped,
athlete of my lifetime. Career started
slipping around age 32/33 because of
injuries and alcohol, but take a gander
at his numbers for the ‘56 Triple Crown
season. Also, when he made the majors
(at age 19) he was widely considered to
have the most power AND the most speed
of any player in the bigs! R.I.P, Mick.
On the point of Robinson receiving “only” 77.5% of the vote – in context it is quite an honor that he got that number in his first year of eligibility, during an era when no one got in in their first year. The process was even more screwed up in those days than it is now, as described here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/how-joe-dimaggio-forever-changed-cooperstown-voting/
As for Blyleven, it’s sad. The fact that he was so underappreciated during his career (in terms of AS teams and Cy Young votes) is also a result of people’s obsession with a pitcher’s W-L record. His stats (apart from record, which is very similar) are way better than Hall of Famer Robin Roberts, who also pitched for some bad teams. Maybe next year…
My top 5 (no pitchers):
Babe Ruth: Dont think i need to waste time with an explanation
Ty Cobb: Longevity, Consistency, Dominating Peak, excelled at all phases of the game (relative to his era)
Wagner: Infielder who dominated at a time when infielders just didnt do that
Mays: Like ruth, u just cant do this kind of list without him
DiMaggio: The greatest winner in baseball history (10 for 13, 9 for 10)… supposedly a pretty decent all around gamer to
just missed……….
Aaron…. incredibly consistent, just not quite a top 5 immortal
Williams…. I dont hold it against him for not winning a ring, i hold it against him for being a loser.. if you know what i mean
Mantle….. Suddenly became a much better player decades after his career when on base percentage became the new batting average, maybe im being unfair but that kinda turns me off
Gehrig…. not enough longevity, seemed better off in the shadow of ruth and dimaggio
Musial… unbelievable player, not an immortal
Bonds… its not the steroids, something else is missing, not sure what
“Come on, Jackie Robinson in the top five? Are we all collectively a Tavis Smiley guest under the direction of Mr. Pos? There is nothing i can say (obviously) to immunize myself against the political correctness/courage argument for the wonderful Mr. Robinson. But no way do you keep out any of the true giants for affirmative action sake – it’s not a travesty for Mr. Pos, who probly wouldn’t himself give Robinson the nod, maybe maybe not, but come on…”
But isn’t that the whole point of the thread? To some, the baseball Hall of Fame should be made up of nothing but numbers. To others, it should be made up of those who made the biggest impact on baseball. I don’t think anybody ever made/left a bigger impression on baseball than Jackie Robinson.
That’s what makes it so cool.
And finally, I think the Honus Wagner argument is an excellent one, as he really is one of the absolute all-time greats. I think a lot of people have trouble putting a player who played in the 1890s into perspective. I know I do.
And while I agree that Honus is the all-time greatest SS ever, good old Rogers Hornsby doesn’t even make it on the ballot?
I voted for Ruth, Cobb, Williams, Johnson, and Gehrig, but I voted too quickly and would have voted for Mays over Gehrig if I had been paying more attention. Less interesting than supporting my votes, I want to ask about the collective hard-on for Honus Wagner I’m sensing on this comment board. I know he was a fantastic player, but top 5 of all-time? Really?
His career spanned almost exactly the same time frame as Nap Lajoie (Lajoie started in 1896 and finished in 1916, Wagner started in 1897 and finished in 1917). Both of them finished with a career OPS+ of 150. Lajoie had a higher average, Wagner had a higher OBP, and Lajoie had a higher slugging percentage (by .001). Lajoie had 2 seasons with an OPS+ over 200, Wagner had 1. Wagner had 5 seasons with an OPS+ over 175, Lajoie had 4. Wagner never hit higher than .381, Lajoie hit .426 in 1901 and hit .384 in 1910. Nobody on here is making an argument that Lajoie deserves to be in the “first class” of HOFers, yet I see a lot of people arguing that Wagner should. Now, Wagner stole a lot more bases than Lajoie did (722-380) and was probably a better fielder at a more important position, but do those two factors make such a huge difference between Wagner and Lajoie? I mean, Wagner’s team was never named after him, so shouldn’t that count for something for Nap?
And that’s just comparing him to one of the better deadball players. Cobb blows Wagner away in pretty much every category (summed up by the 167-150 OPS+ advantage). Tris Speaker also compares pretty favorably, crushing him in the rate numbers and has a 7 point advantage in OPS+. Shoeless Joe may have been the best hitter of all of them, he compares pretty favorably with Cobb and has the highest career OPS+ of any deadball era hitter. And that’s just the deadball era.
I’m not arguing that Wagner wasn’t a great player or a worthy hall of famer. I’m not even arguing he wasn’t the best shortstop ever, which I think he was. I’m just saying I don’t see him being such a standout that he belongs in over the other players listed here (and some who aren’t ::coughHornsbycough::
One last thing – here’s how the offensive players listed (plus Hornsby, b/c it’s ridiculous he’s not on here) rank in career OPS+:
Ruth – 207
Williams – 191
Bonds – 182
Gehrig – 179
Hornsby – 175
Mantle – 172
Cobb – 167
Mays – 156
DiMaggio – 155
Aaron – 155
Wagner – 150
Robinson – 132
1. Ruth — the man changed how the game is played.
2. Robinson — same reason.
3. Wagner — totally dominated his era.
4. Bonds — regardless of why.
5. Mays — see below.
I voted for Bonds because in 59 years of watching baseball, I have never seen a player whom the opposition feared more. Like Ruth (as I’ve read) and Robinson and Mays (as I saw myself), his presence changed every game he was in. He may have been on steroids but so were a lot of other guys, and nobody else was so terrifying that he drew 200 walks in a year.
The #5 slot was a tough one, since Gehrig and Cobb both dominated their eras to an even greater extent than Mays did. But both are tainted somewhat, to my mind, by the inflated hitting environment of the 1920s and 1930s. Plus Mays, in addition to being the great hitter he was, could also dominate a game on defense to a greater extent than any ballplayer of my lifetime.
No pitchers, though Johnson came close. Neither Young and Maddux were universally regarded as the best pitchers of their times, and Maddux’s win total is inflated because he was on the dominant team (in the NL) of his day.
BTW, why is Tom Seaver off this ballot? Won over 300 games with a great winning percentage, with teams that were collectively under .500. He’s the modern version of Johnson, without the advantage of pitching in the dead ball era. And the only serious difference in his durability is the expectations of his managers, who would have been fired if they’d pitched him as often as Johnson did.
Chris in DC:
I think Hornsby was a fantastic hitter, but I just feel Wagner is significantly better as an all-around player.
Quick WARP1 and WARP3 comparisons:
Hornsby: WARP1 201.9, WARP3 162.8
Dutchman: WARP1 252.5, WARP3 203.0 (His amazing 1908 season is a 20.8 WARP1; almost 21 wins over a replacement player in seasonal context!)
The Wagner/Lajoie comparison is a matter of degree, Wagner had the 150 OPS+ a little longer with more speed and versatility, mostly at a more difficult position and was league leader in a more difficult league in the major stat categories more often. Eight batting titles. He gets credit for putting the 1909 team on his back to beat Detroit, and a lot of credit for keeping his team in that close race against the Cubs in 1908. Not that he’s to blame, but there’s no ring for Lajoie.
Ruth – best outfieder, and probably best player in the history of baseball.
Cobb – best BA of all-time, unquestionably best player ever before the live-ball era.
Wagner – unlike Cobb, everything you’d want in a person as well as a ballplayer.
Johnson – Possibly the best pitcher of all-time, certainly the best pitcher on this list. You might be able to convince me another pitcher should take his place, but you can’t convince me the first class shouldn’t have a pitcher.
Robinson – First off, he’s a good enough player, even if his career is a bit short. Second, and more importantly, has there ever been an ahtlete who has given more to his sport, and his country? Has there ever been an athlete who went through worse? Is there anyone’s story you would more enjoy telling your son??
“Less interesting than supporting my votes, I want to ask about the collective hard-on for Honus Wagner”
Try this description: “As valuable as Ted Williams with the bat, while earning a reputation as an excellent shortstop.” One might reasonably find that just a touch arousing, don’t you think?
Win shares puts these two hitters together in career value (at least, that was the case in the original printing).
You don’t have to agree with that assessment (I didn’t), but it should be easy to see that it is trivial to build a logically consistent case that Wagner belongs in the top third of this group of players.
As for Lajoie, I answer that this problem was hard enough with the players given, adding more good players to the mix just doesn’t help.
My suspicion is that Hornsby might have made the ballot, but Bill James gave him a couple of negative votes just in case.
Ruth
Johnson
Mays
Williams
Wagner
“But isn’t that the whole point of the thread? To some, the baseball Hall of Fame should be made up of nothing but numbers. To others, it should be made up of those who made the biggest impact on baseball. I don’t think anybody ever made/left a bigger impression on baseball than Jackie Robinson.
That’s what makes it so cool. ”
-Creston
——————-
Crest-
Your point is patent and well taken. BUT, however cool this thread/discussion is, it’s coolness doesn’t hinge on the Robinson question. The reason is that the two camps (HOF playing greatness vs. HOF social impact and moral virture) are totally distinct in their criteria and deliberations and the gap in orientations just does not brook any swing voting.
No one that is voting on numbers is even considering Robinson’s case. Conversely, for any voter enamored of the overriding significance of the color barrier’s obliteration, Robinson apparently supercedes even Ruth.
So the question is essentially political and philosophical – and,to adopt a more strictly political analogy – the debate is carried by the number of voters in each camp. Suppose Obama wins in the fall. He will jump into Top 5 lists, whether his presidency is consequential, mainly indifferent (say, Ford or Bush 41), or worse.
Yes, it is great fun to deliberate between Washington (Ruth?), Jefferson (Gehrig?), Jackson, Lincoln (Ruth?), Roosevelts, Reagan, etc….but a Wash-Lincoln square-off is to an Obama (or, more convolutedly, JFK) case, as a Ruth-Bonds debate is to Robinson’s.
A slopping bath-tub full of gin and mirth to splash about, but the fun is overlayered onto a handicapped or un-handicapped open roster: five spots or four spots. There is no true debate over the handicapping of rosters; politics settles that beforehand.
Ruth, Young, Johnson, Williams, Mays
[...] Joe Ponanski on Baseball Hall of Fame voting. Interesting read if you’re into that [...]
I really think that if you reversed their first names, sportswriters would vote tough, gritty man’s man Jack Blyleven into the Hall of fame. And he would certainly have gotten more votes than that silly ol’ muppet-like Bert Morris, who was a nice guy but kind of a wuss and not tough enough to come up big in the clutch. Jack? yes. Bert? No.
No offense to any Berts, it’s a fine name but not one that motivates sportswriters to consider you a tough guy. Jack, on the other hand, that’s a tough man’s name. You just know Jack would come up big in the postseason, while Bert would lose in a head-to-head playoff matchup, and not come back to pitch a rematch three days later with the pennant on the line. You could look it up– if you’re not a sportswriter. They don’t need to look things up, they remember the story.
No offense to the sportswriter Bert Posnanski. He’s a nice guy, he won’t mind.
Joe–I love you and am KC true and true…..BUT, how can Stan Musial not be on this list?? Check his offensive stats..he is in the top 5 in almost every category except HR’s. He might not be in the 1st 5–but he sure would be in the next 5–way ahead of Joe D, Jackie, Gehrig and Mantle.
Steve or anyone else who can answer, I’ve got 2 questions. First, what were Hornsby’s WARP numbers in his best season(s)? Wagner played in 500 more games than Hornsby, so the difference in career WARP numbers isn’t too shocking.
Second, where would one be able to find stats like WARP and Win Shares? Are there any websites out there that have them? My one pet peeve with baseball-reference is that it leaves out some of the more modern stats like those.
Brian — when you called Williams a loser, were you referring to his heroic service as an Air Force pilot, or something else we don’t know about? Please, elaborate how DiMaggio is a humanitarian (deserving induction), Ty Cobb is a saint, and Williams is a loser. I’m dying to know.
Brian — when you called Williams a loser, were you referring to his heroic service as an Air Force pilot, or something else we don’t know about? Please, elaborate how DiMaggio is a humanitarian (deserving induction), Ty Cobb is a saint, and Williams is a loser. I’m dying to know
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This is a BASEBALL discussion, as I see it…. I didn’t call Williams a loser in life, I called him a losing baseball player, and in my book players with “loser intangibles” don’t deserve the highest possible honor that can be given, which this is (theoretically).
There’s been a lot of revisionist history with Williams… for starters, he couldn’t run, field, throw, was a terrible leader in the clubhouse, came up very small in the biggest games of his career (‘46 series, ‘48 playoff, final 2 games of ‘49 season)… but I can get past all that because he was such a great hitter…. however
what I can NOT get past is that he didn’t even make an effort in the field or on the basepaths, he didn’t even try to be a leader for his ballclubs, and he honestly cared more about his own hitting than the teams success.. When the best player on a team cares more about whether he gots his hits than if the team actually won the game, it creates a negative trickle down effect
People generally overlook these things because nobody likes to say mean things about a dead man (rightfully so).. but a terrible all around player and a guy who did not play all out to win cant make my top 5 for something like this…..
Theres a reason why NOBODY liked Ted Williams when he was actually playing, not even most Red Sox fans (reallly).. it wasn’t until many years after retirement until he became this beloved figure, do the research if you don’t believe that
Please, elaborate how DiMaggio is a humanitarian (deserving induction), Ty Cobb is a saint,
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Who said anything about DiMaggio as a humaritiarian or Ty Cobb as a saint.. im talking about them as BALLPLAYERS..
DiMaggio was a winner, he just was… he played all phases of the game to WIN at all times, and he could go 0-4 and still BEAT YOU
Cobb, despite never having won a single title.. was also a winning ballplayer, he wasn’t just content to pile up batting titles, he tried to be a great baserunner and play a great center field to (he wasn’t really a great defensive CF, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying)
… again, not calling Williams a loser in the grand scheme of things, just a losing ball player… the only “all time great” who u could say that about
I used to think baseball was a team game.
But no, Brian makes a good point: Ted Williams was a loser, A-Rod’s a loser, but Luis Sojo, he won a bunch of championships, he was a winner. With the game on the line, you want Luis Sojo up there instead of Ted Williams because Sojo would do the little things. He might go 0-4 but he would beat you. He wasn’t a losing ballplayer like Williams because he won FOUR championships! Sojo FOUR, Williams ZERO. Four is more than zero. Figures don’t lie. Sojo wasn’t very good but he was more of a winner than Ted Williams, who was a loser.
Their teammates had nothing to do with their team’s successes or failures.
Williams had 16 seasons of 400 or more plate appearances. His (usually poor-pitching) teams had winning seasons in 14 of those 16 years, winning over 93 games 5 times, compiling a .546 overall winning percentage.
He won a lot of games for a loser.
Chris in DC:
Win Shares I’m not sure, I think the Lahman Database has them but you have to buy that. WARP (all variations of it) along with EQA, BRAR/BRAA and so forth are all available on Baseball Prospectus, free of charge. Just look up any player on the website and it will give you their “DT Card.” PECOTA cards for active players cost money (you need a subscription), but thankfully the DT cards are free.
As for Hornsby vs. Wagner is seasonal win shares, let’s compare their Top 5 WARP3 seasons:
Hornsby: 15.3 (1924), 14.3 (1921), 13.4 (1920), 13.2 (1927), 13.1 (1929) (Average of 13.86)
Wagner: 17.1 (1908), 13.2 (1907), 13.1 (1909), 12.8 (1912), 12.5 (1905) (Average of 13.74)
Very, very close in terms of peak value. Wagner has more career value, but you’re correct, they’re nearly identical as peak performers. Of course, there’s the subjective elements (Hornsby was abrasive and managed to be traded multiple times even though he was a Top 5 player in all of baseball every year, Wagner was a gentleman and played almost exclusively for the Pirates), but on pure performance, it’s very, very close.
That being said, a 17.1 WARP3 is insanity. Babe Ruth has one year better, his 18.0 WARP3 in 1923. Ted Williams has no years that high; neither does Barry Bonds, or Willie Mays, or Lou Gehrig. Walter Johnson had an 18.3 WARP3 in 1913 which is pretty mindboggling as well, but 17.1 from a shortstop is pretty remarkable.
I have two sources for Win Shares numbers. First, they’re published annually for the last ten years in the Bill James Handbook. Second, the career and seasonal totals are listed for a lot of really good older players in the New Historical Abstract. Of course, they’re also given for just about everyone historically in Win Shares, the book, but I don’t own that one…
They’re only availabe free (at least as far as I know) for the last few years at the Hardball Times website.
U still dont get it.. i love when people go on and on about “rings” and they always bring up either luis sojo or scott brosius for some reason
Did i not specifically say that Williams wasn’t a loser because he didn’t have a ring…. i said he was a loser for other reasons….
MANY great players never won championships because there teams weren’t good enough and thats fine… but it went beyond that with williams… he had a loser feel to him his whole career, he HIT, he didnt play good all around baseball….
And u talk about “teams winning championships”… but what does it say for a team when the best player doesn’t give crap about the team or even his own fielding or baserunning, as long as he’s hitting .350 and leading the league in home runs????
Oh I see, he had a “loser feel” to his whole career, and you know somehow that he “didn’t give a crap” about his team.
Well, no one can argue against your personal feelings and secret knowledge of Ted Williams’ inner motivations, but I don’t think you’re going to convince anyone to change their minds with that evidence.
Oh I see, he had a “loser feel†to his whole career, and you know somehow that he “didn’t give a crap†about his team.
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Again, do the research since u were probably born well after he retired
One of us is actually old enough to have observed the man’s career first hand… one of us probably isn’t and is just looking at the gaudy hitting stats and wondering “why did people in the 40s and 50s not respect this guy more”????
Well, im old enough to have been there, and im trying to explain why.. but if u dont wanna be convinced, even though u werent there, fine
Not sure if the voting’s closed, but if those 15 are the choices, here’s my five:
Ruth
Wagner
Bonds
Mays
Mantle
Hank Aaron (VOTE) Tremendous offensive achievements only underscored by the vast adversity in which they were accomplished.
Barry Bonds (NO VOTE) His best tool….himself. He’s a tool.
Ty Cobb: (VOTE) My decision to give him a vote was strictly based upon the fact that if I had to start a team, it would go Ruth, Cobb….. and the rest wouldn’t matter.
Joe DiMaggio (NO VOTE) A great, great player. Just not in my top 5.
Lou Gehrig: (NO VOTE) Luckiest man to bat behind Babe Ruth.
Josh Gibson: (NO VOTE) Simply because its unfair to compare him without firm statistics, and by unfair I mean unfair TO him.
Jackie Robinson (NO VOTE, Unless we are voting strictly upon human spirit, then he’s #1).
Walter Johnson: (VOTE) Outrageous career
.
Greg Maddux: (NO VOTE) Put Johnson on the 90-03 Braves and Maddux on those Senators teams, then we’ll talk.
Mickey Mantle: (NO VOTE) I wont blaspheme by issuing an opinion.
Willie Mays: (NO VOTE) Extend it to top 6 and yeah, a vote.
Babe Ruth: (VOTE) He’s the Babe Ruth of…..er um, you get the point.
Honus Wagner: (NO VOTE, and I’m ashamed about it)
Ted Williams: (VOTE) If, if , if….. Ugh, 7 more prime years.
Cy Young: (NO VOTE) Just have a hard time being logical about his amazing career because its so off the charts in some ways.
Ruth, Cobb…then it gets tricky.
You make a convincing case for Jackie. It’s semi-insane to pick Aaron over Mays, but, like Jackie, there’s more to this than a slgiht on-field advantage.
The Big Train makes it 5.