I'm really quite surprised there are as few first basemen as there are. The positional breakdown is quite eye-opening. Just ten third basemen, and none of them are named Ron Santo? Really?

Grove was on the ballot during World War II which held him up.

Grove belongs in the same category as DiMaggio or Hornsby. He retired in 1941 and was elected in 1947, 5 years after he retired. WWII doesn't enter into it.

I'm really quite surprised there are as few first basemen as there are. The positional breakdown is quite eye-opening. Just ten third basemen, and none of them are named Ron Santo? Really?

how many players are on there from other positions who finished their career as firstbaseman/dh? with the other positions great hitters can drift to first when their defense starts to diminish, but a career firstbaseman has no place to drift to as they lose their mobility.

When you read stuff like this from Pos - it becomes pretty clear that we're all wasting our time on BTF.

What we ought to be doing is forming roving bands of partisans, seizing and annexing ballots from other BBWAA members, and giving them to Joe to fill out.

A few other notes on a really good read...

How much does it make the HOMers vomit to see Lou Brock on that list of "Willie Mays HOFers"?

On the Tinkers/Evers/Chance note - it should be pointed out that Frank Chance had a pretty strong (albeit short) managerial career. I'm not saying that + his playing career + the poem = HOF... just that I don't think Frank Chance is "all poem" like Tinkers and (to an ever so slightly lesser extent) Evers.

Here here on his Bowie Kuhn rant. It gives me indigestion when I think that Bowie Kuhn is in the Hall of Fame but not Marvin Miller.

Of the Tinker Evers Chance trio, I think it's generally common belief that Tinker had the weakest career and the weakest candidacy.

Of Evers and Chance, the question is how much worth do you ascribe to Chance as a manager? As a player, I think Evers has the better argument--Evers was a key contributor to a number of fine teams, won a MVP, played a more demanding position, and had better peak seasons than Chance, in my opinion. Chance was more consistent until he basically stopped being a regular at 31. Chance should get credit for managing the great Cubs teams, but this was a legendarily great team that Frank Selee had already begun to get going. Chance had a very solid lineup (including himself) and a monster pitching staff. His post-Cubs managerial career is barely over .400 (in fairness, these were teams with few quality players).

romy and michele's high school reunion is a delightful, yes, but is it really particularly obscure?

If you've got a fan who thinks Kirby Puckett and Lou Brock are slam-dunk Hall of Famers and Eddie Collins is not, you can't really deal with that.

In his list of the slam-dunks, Posnanski conflates what the writers have done and what fans perceive. Better to simply just list the Hall of Famers by length on ballot and let the idiosyncracies (many of which he points out) speak for themselves.

romy and michele's high school reunion is a delightful, yes, but is it really particularly obscure?

when posting it about sports and your reader demographic is probably 90%+ male, then yes. I imagine most on here would have heard of it, and even could name one of the actress's in it, but that is probably the extent of their familiarity unless they happened to catch it on late night tv one night, I doubt many here paid to see it in the theater or own the dvd.

I know the movie, but have no idea what he is talking about it when it comes to post it notes.

I was disappointed that there wasn't a more nuanced take on Kuhn from Pos. But it wasn't an important part of his post. And I don't think that any positives would outweigh his negatives anyways. (I also think that exec inductions are usually glorified longevity awards. Can anyone tell me anything about Will Harridge?) As I said here:

Off the top of my head, franchises remained pretty stable. Other than Seattle and DC none moved. In the NFL, the Giants and Jets moved to NJ, the Rams moved to Anaheim, the Raiders moved to LA, and the Colts moved to Indy. There was no stadium boom during his tenure. The Yankees renovated the Stadium and the Twins moved to the Metrodome. That's all I can think of, but there were many new stadia that were under construction in the late '60s, before he took over.

Kuhn consolidated some functions that were previously league functions into the commissioner's office. FWIW, the game wasn't as commercialized back then. Some may see that as a positive. I think that Gillette was the only official MLB sponsor, there wasn't in stadium advertising like there was before and after. Also, but I haven't looked in depth into this, I think that he championed getting baseball into the Olympics.

OTOH, many if not most of his goals didn't come to fruition until much later; a team in DC and interleague play, for example...

On the positive side, his first action was to quell some labor unrest before the season of '69. Even Marvin Miller admired that. I don't think Miller applauded any other decision of his except for the time he reinstated Mike Andrews to the A's WS roster.

romy and michele's high school reunion is a delightful, yes, but is it really particularly obscure?

It only grossed $29 million, so I would guess the "post-it" quote is pretty obscure to most. I caught about five minutes of this movie once on cable and just happened to catch that quote. The joke is, they lie about inventing the Post-it note to impress their high school classmates at their reunion. Which qualifies them for the Inventor's Hall of Fame as much as Candy Cummings is qualified for the Baseball Hall of Fame for claiming to invent the curveball.

This JoPo commenter hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned:

It’s amazing how far some of these guys slipped through…Collins and Killebrew in the fourth year, Mathews in the fifth, Cochrane and Foxx in the sixth? What about Double-X would make anyone who has ever seen a baseball game or heard of the game of baseball think, “well, maybe I could be convinced eventually…but not this year, or the next, or the four after that”?

In his list of the slam-dunks, Posnanski conflates what the writers have done and what fans perceive. Better to simply just list the Hall of Famers by length on ballot and let the idiosyncracies (many of which he points out) speak for themselves.

I don't think that was his list of slam dunks - it was first ballot selections and pre-HOF retirees would have been first ballot selections had the HOF been electing players since baseball began. He probably should have broken the Cy Young type pre-HOFers that had to wait a year into another category, though.

Chance should get credit for managing the great Cubs teams, but this was a legendarily great team that Frank Selee had already begun to get going. Chance had a very solid lineup (including himself) and a monster pitching staff. His post-Cubs managerial career is barely over .400 (in fairness, these were teams with few quality players).

Point taken - though his post-Cubs managerial career was quite brief (though so was his managerial career overall). He still managed a winning % quite close to .600, with 2 titles under his belt... plus the all-time single season wins record. Like I said - I'm still not saying I think he's necessarily a HOFer... just that he's a fair cut above Tinkers and probably Evers, too.

I suppose that's an interesting question - what do you do with a specimen who was an HOVG player (and Chance may not even be that) and an HOVG manager? Can you add them together to get some weird sort of hybrid HOFer?

What if Torre had been canned in say.... 2000 and never got another gig?

Pos is as lively and interesting as always, but his suggestion to toss out the Negro Leaguers as a group deserves a big fat kick in the butt. Talk about triple jeopardy for the Josh Gibsons---first they're excluded from the game; then they're excluded from the Hall of Fame; and now they're to be re-excluded because their statistics weren't properly set down for posteric sabrmetricians to dissect.

Apparently his argument is that (a) we "don't know enough" about them, and that (b) Turkey Stearnes may not be as good as his plaque implies. Heaven help that we might want to use our intelligence and deductive reasoning to go beyond the raw statistics and determine which of these Negro Leaguers were in the "Mays" category and which weren't, instead of just ducking the whole question with a wave of the hand and that lame "we don't know enough" cliche.

Being as how I respect Pos as much as any writer alive today, I wish he'd clarify his thoughts on this. He can't possibly have a reductive a mind as that paragraph about the Negro Leaguers would seem to imply. He knows damn well the relative value of Oscar Charleston to Carl Yastrzemski, and of Satchel Paige to Dennis Eckersley, and of Josh Gibson to Kirby Puckett.

So, Pos: Don't duck behind formulae about "first ballot selection," which you yourself know is often meaningless, as seen by your willingness to override it. Use your brain and do the same analysis for the Negro Leaguers. I'm sure you'd do your usual first rate job.

I suppose that's an interesting question - what do you do with a specimen who was an HOVG player (and Chance may not even be that) and an HOVG manager? Can you add them together to get some weird sort of hybrid HOFer?

Like Buck O'Neil?

The joke is, they lie about inventing the Post-it note to impress their high school classmates at their reunion. Which qualifies them for the Inventor's Hall of Fame as much as Candy Cummings is qualified for the Baseball Hall of Fame for claiming to invent the curveball.

yup, and the funniest part is when janeane garofalo, herself a success in (i think) computers, knows the guy who actually invented post-its and calls them out on their lie. the idea that someone actually invented post-it notes is funny in itself to me for some reason.

lisa kudrow's in it, but without looking on imdb i cant' for the life of me remember who the other actress is (i want to say
mira sorvino, but i think she's just my go to actress for blonde and ditzy in the '90s).

This JoPo commenter hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned:

It’s amazing how far some of these guys slipped through…Collins and Killebrew in the fourth year, Mathews in the fifth, Cochrane and Foxx in the sixth? What about Double-X would make anyone who has ever seen a baseball game or heard of the game of baseball think, “well, maybe I could be convinced eventually…but not this year, or the next, or the four after that”?

Collins was when the voting was in its infancy. Certainly no shame in not being on the first or second ballot when all the Gods were being inducted. So, he should have gone in in 1938 with Ol' Pete, but come on, that's really picking nits.

Foxx was elected 5 years after he retired. Why he could logically explain this wrt Hornsby and DiMaggio but not Foxx is beyond me.

Andy,

He wasn't tossing out the Negro leaguers. He was isolating those guys who played in the major leaguers Post 1900, the guys the average fan might be able to relate to, to allow those fans to compare current players against that batch to see just what a HOFer is (and ideally, they'd come to the realization that Mays isn't the standard). Including Negro Leaguers, Pre-2000 players, Pioneers et al just clouds the issue.

boy, Poz has really been hitting them out of the park lately.

Anyway, here's one thing that caught my attention: it took Hank Greenberg 8 tries to get voted in? What's the deal there? He strikes me as the kind of players the writers would have jumped to vote in.

Pos is as lively and interesting as always, but his suggestion to toss out the Negro Leaguers as a group deserves a big fat kick in the butt.

I think you're misinterpreting what he wrote. He writes:

"OBVIOUSLY, I am not suggesting that the non-modern Major League Players are in any way less deserving to be there. In numerous cases, I think they are far, far MORE deserving."

But he's trying to break down the post-1900 MLB Hall of Fame players, because when people say "Player X should be in the Hall of Fame because he is as good as Player Y," Player Y is a post-1900 MLB player, not a Negro Leaguer.

JoPo, who has probably been the biggest advocate for getting Negro Leaguer Buck O'Neill in the Hall, is definitely not one to say that Negro Leaguers should not be in the Hall.

Edit: Or what SOSH said.

(i want to say mira sorvino, but i think she's just my go to actress for blonde and ditzy in the '90s).

You should say it then, as she's the other one in the movie.

Anyway, here's one thing that caught my attention: it took Hank Greenberg 8 tries to get voted in? What's the deal there?

Same deal as Foxx, Dimaggio, Hornsby, and Grove. There was a perception that a player should be retired 5 years before becoming eligible, but no rule. Thus, Greenberg, who retired in 1947, got votes in 1945, 1949, 50, 51, and 52 when he was eligible but not going to be elected due to too many writers feeling he should wait 5 years.

yeah, he probably should have been elected in 1953 instead of 1956, but for a high peak, short career guy who was the third best firstbaseman in an 8 team league, that's not egregious.

You cannot compare pre-1960 time on the ballot to today due to different rules and procedures.

Invention of Post-its

yup, and the funniest part is when janeane garofalo, herself a success in (i think) computers, knows the guy who actually invented post-its and calls them out on their lie. the idea that someone actually invented post-it notes is funny in itself to me for some reason.

WRONG!

Garafalo in the movie invented a cigarette (or the paper it's rolled in, I believe) that burns quicker than regular cigarettes. This was due to her constant wasting of half a cigarette in between classes in high school.

Not that I'm a big fan of the movie - I'm just a big fan of remembering totally obscure and worthless facts from television and cinema that isn't all that memorable to begin with.

Anyway, here's one thing that caught my attention: it took Hank Greenberg 8 tries to get voted in? What's the deal there? He strikes me as the kind of players the writers would have jumped to vote in.

In The Politics of Glory (I think it was), James says Greenberg was a polarizing figure: many were appalled when he got in, seeing him as a serious lowering of the bar. He did have kind of a short career (partly for very good reasons, partly due to injuries).

WRONG!

dag, i lose.

Garafalo in the movie invented a cigarette (or the paper it's rolled in, I believe) that burns quicker than regular cigarettes. This was due to her constant wasting of half a cigarette in between classes in high school.

He didn't say Garafalo's character invented the Post-It - only that her character knew the guy who invented it.

There's a great scene in Romy and Michelle where Lisa Kudrow mysteriously knows exactly how the Post-It glue is created and sounds incredibly plausible as having invented it. Unfortunately, it's a dream sequence, and she can't replicate it while awake.

I like that movie a lot. I think it might have been the movie that cemented "Time After Time" as the default music played during proms in movies set in the Eighties.

(EDIT: Garofalo's character didn't know the guy that invented Post-Its; she read about him in business class and describes him as, I think, "a scientist at 3-M".)

He didn't say Garafalo's character invented it - only that her character knew the guy who invented it.

Which is also wrong. Garafalo's character learned about the inventor of post-its (I believe she incorrectly attributes it to Art Fry) in a business class.

SoSH and Harold, I know that Pos meant no real dis of the Negro Leaguers, but here's what he wrote:

(30) Negro Leagues Baseball Players.

Everyone here, i suspect, knows how much I love the Negro Leagues and how much I appreciate what the Baseball Hall of Fame has done to honor those great players who excelled on rock hard diamonds and little towns while America turned away. Everyone, in the end, must believe what they believe, but I have no doubt in my mind that Oscar Charleston, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Martin Dihigo, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard and others were as great as anyone who came before or since. But the point of this exercise, again, is to get at the heart of the Hall of Fame, and realistically knowing some great Turkey Stearnes stories is fun, but doesn’t help much in the process. We just don’t have enough information about those players.

OK, 198 players left, and we have one more cut.

If "the heart of the Hall of Fame" leaves out Gibson, Paige and Charleston (among others), that's surely one curious definition of a heart.

But I guess what I should be more charitable, and say that Pos's 4,774 word essay is only a kind of Part One. Part Two would be to come up with a real "Willie Mays" Hall of Fame, not based on formulae about first ballots and 15th ballots and Old Timers' Committees, but based on all the information we know about the entire Hall of Fame roster. And who other than maybe Bill James is better qualified to launch such a discussion than Pos?

yup, and the funniest part is when janeane garofalo, herself a success in (i think) computers,

I was responding to that portion of the statement... in my best John McLaughlin.

Wow, I've never even heard of that movie, and about 18 people on this board know it inside and out!!

If "the heart of the Hall of Fame" leaves out Gibson, Paige and Charleston (among others), that's surely one curious definition of a heart.

He's not arguing for cutting anyone out of the HOF. The topic was comparison of Trammell to Mays.

He's simply taking the complete HOF roster, and trimming certain categories away in order to get the meat of the discussion about (players like) Trammell... or at least, that seemed to the intention - but the exercise sorta didn't actually happen.

It's not a matter of the HOF per se - it's the proper portions of the HOF that make sense in discussions about whether Alan Trammell should be a HOFer or not. I would concur that you can't really discuss the HOF merits of Trammell vs. Gibson much better than you can the merits of Trammell vs. pre-1900 inductees.

what do you do with a specimen who was an HOVG player (and Chance may not even be that) and an HOVG manager?

I think a number of people on this thread are selling Chance as a player very short. The problem with his candidacy as a player is that his career was very short - only about 1200 games played. He was often injured, and he often, as manager, elected not to play himself. But when he was in the lineup he was a dominating player, including a great offensive player. You have to appreciate how run-short his times were and how much he contributed to run scoring in that environment.

The "ABC" players - Anson, Brouthers, Connor - peaked in the 1880's. Lou Gehrig was a rookie in 1925. There's a 30 year or so span in between, which is a long time in baseball history. How many first basemen better than Chance can you name? We've elected two to the Hall of Merit in George Sisler and Jake Beckley; both were backlog selections who had to endure "decades" of argument before creeping to the top of the ballot. Anyone else? Ben Taylor (who also pitched) of the proto-Negro Leagues gets some support. And beyond that ...? (Of course, we have things like great hitters playing 2B rather than 1B in that time.)

I think Chance's candidacy as a player is the strongest of Tinker-Evers-Chance. He does fall short, because of playing time, but he's not a joke candidate. I don't really think of Tinker or Evers as joke candidates either, although I wouldn't put them in. The joke was in picking Tinker and not either George Davis or Bill Dahlen.

Best modern case I can think of in the same category as Chance, not a HOF-level player, not a HOF-level manager but in the HOF somehow: Red Schoendienst.

Joe Torre has a stronger case on both sides; in fact we put him in the Hall of Merit purely as a player.

Chance should get credit for managing the great Cubs teams, but this was a legendarily great team that Frank Selee had already begun to get going. Chance had a very solid lineup (including himself) and a monster pitching staff. His post-Cubs managerial career is barely over .400 (in fairness, these were teams with few quality players).

Point taken - though his post-Cubs managerial career was quite brief (though so was his managerial career overall). He still managed a winning % quite close to .600, with 2 titles under his belt... plus the all-time single season wins record. Like I said - I'm still not saying I think he's necessarily a HOFer... just that he's a fair cut above Tinkers and probably Evers, too.

Chance, from what I've read, had the nasty habit of stopping inside pitches with his head, which shortened his playing career, and probably didn't help his managerial career either.

You're right, OFC -- that's the biggest reason I never tried to get into the HOM voting, though I lurk a lot.

While I most certainly understand the concept of era adjustment, my mind just has a lot of trouble making the connection.

No love for Harry Steinfeldt, eh :-)

If "the heart of the Hall of Fame" leaves out Gibson, Paige and Charleston (among others), that's surely one curious definition of a heart.


I think you've figured it out. Joe Posnanski doesn't care about the legacy of the Negro Leaguers, and wrote that fantastic Buck O'Neil book to cover his tracks. Well done.

By the way, Joe missed the catchers voted in by the VC in his survey. Guys like Rick Ferrell and Ernie Lombardi.

If you're looking at HOF balloting, a blue ribbon committee that meets irregularly, decades after the players discussed retired, doesn't fit nicely into the format Posnanski uses. Which ballot did Martin Dihigo get elected on?

Actually, that's more interesting as a real question than a rhetorical one. Is there some list of players making the HOM by years on the ballot?

Who can break down Romy & Michelle 2, the prequel?

Hornsby was on the ballot three times, but there was already this sense that a player should wait until five years after he retired — five years after Hornsby retired he was voted in. Grove was on the ballot during World War II which held him up. And the DiMaggio Hall of Fame balloting was a mess — they put him on the ballot just two years after he retired, nobody was quite ready for him, it didn’t go the way anyone wanted.

He's on to something here, but it's a bit more widespread than he lets on. All players could be voted on provided they had been retired for at least one full season until the DiMaggio candidacy forced a change in the rules. From memory, Carl Hubbell & Mel Ott were also elected quickly by modern standards.

13th year choices (3): Ralph Kiner; Bruce Sutter; Bill Terry.


Hmmm . . it was Kiner's 13th year on the ballot, but they only voted every-other-year for a while. This was his last year of eligibility. (Also, he shouldn't have been eligible for his first year on the ballot, but that's another story.

This JoPo commenter hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned:

It’s amazing how far some of these guys slipped through…Collins and Killebrew in the fourth year, Mathews in the fifth, Cochrane and Foxx in the sixth? What about Double-X would make anyone who has ever seen a baseball game or heard of the game of baseball think, “well, maybe I could be convinced eventually…but not this year, or the next, or the four after that”?

Disagree, up to a point. Comparing pre- and post-DiMaggio candidates alongside each other is very dangerous. Players were put onto the ballot very quickly - so early that literally no one got 75% of the vote for a quarter century. Once they instituted the five-year wait, first-ballot inductions became much more common. That doesn't expalin Killebrew or Mathews, but it does for the rest.

Edited to add: What miserlou said.

Chance should get credit for managing the great Cubs teams, but this was a legendarily great team that Frank Selee had already begun to get going. Chance had a very solid lineup (including himself) and a monster pitching staff. His post-Cubs managerial career is barely over .400 (in fairness, these were teams with few quality players).

Selling them waaaaaay to short. He turned 90-win talent into 100-116 win seasons.

Seriously, look at their roster. They had one great pitcher, and many good players in their primes. You can look through baseballh history and find numerous teams with more talent. Yet Chance was the one who set the record for most wins in one season. And the most wins in two years. And the most wins in a three year period. And the most wins in a four year period. And the most wins in a five year period. And the mos wins in a six year period.

He wasn't there long, but he did as good a job as humanly possible. Noting that Selee assembled the talent glosses over the fact that they wildly exceeded their potential. Assembling is one thing, getting the most out of what is on hand is another. Chance did as good a job with that as anyone you'll ever see. He's the anti-Charlie Weis.

how many players are on there from other positions who finished their career as firstbaseman/dh? with the other positions great hitters can drift to first when their defense starts to diminish, but a career firstbaseman has no place to drift to as they lose their mobility.

this is interesting. i bet if you broke down games played by position for all hall of famers (besides pitchers obviously), first base would be higher than we think.

If "the heart of the Hall of Fame" leaves out Gibson, Paige and Charleston (among others), that's surely one curious definition of a heart.

I think you've figured it out. Joe Posnanski doesn't care about the legacy of the Negro Leaguers, and wrote that fantastic Buck O'Neil book to cover his tracks. Well done.

Obviously you've got it figured out even better: Clip one sentence from what I've written in two complete posts, ignore everything else, and come up with a conclusion that satisfies your preconceived notions.

Here's a hint: Try to read before you post. But since that seems beneath you, here are a few snippets to spare you the strain of scrolling:

Being as how I respect Pos as much as any writer alive today, I wish he'd clarify his thoughts on this. He can't possibly have a reductive a mind as that paragraph about the Negro Leaguers would seem to imply. He knows damn well the relative value of Oscar Charleston to Carl Yastrzemski, and of Satchel Paige to Dennis Eckersley, and of Josh Gibson to Kirby Puckett.

So, Pos: Don't duck behind formulae about "first ballot selection," which you yourself know is often meaningless, as seen by your willingness to override it. Use your brain and do the same analysis for the Negro Leaguers. I'm sure you'd do your usual first rate job.

But I guess what I should be more charitable, and say that Pos's 4,774 word essay is only a kind of Part One. Part Two would be to come up with a real "Willie Mays" Hall of Fame, not based on formulae about first ballots and 15th ballots and Old Timers' Committees, but based on all the information we know about the entire Hall of Fame roster. And who other than maybe Bill James is better qualified to launch such a discussion than Pos?

You can agree or disagree with any of that, but to claim that I'm saying that Pos "doesn't care about the legacy of the Negro Leaguers, and wrote that fantastic Buck O'Neil book to cover his tracks" is borderline slander. That sort of shlt is worthy of a troll, and I'm more than a little surprised, because I've never noticed that tendency in you before.

Frank Chance would be a better HoF candidate as a player only than lots of guys (liek im Rice and Tony Perez).

Here are the top=rated 1Bmen by 'win shares per ful season'
Rank Player WS per 648 PA
1 Lou Gehrig 32.80
2 Dick Allen 30.30
3 Frank Chance 30.12
4 Dan Brouthers 29.97
5 Johnny Mize 29.71
6 Jimmie Foxx 29.15
7 Frank Thomas 29.02
8 Mark McGwire 28.93
9 Jeff Bagwell 28.48

Because WS does not adjust much for change over time, this UNDERrates first baseman who played when 1B was more of an important defensive position (like Chance). WS underrates contributions from teams whose team defense was so good that it cannot be properly 'distributed'; and the early White Sox may have been the best defensive team ever.

Yes, Chance's career was short, but if you miss 20 games a year (AS you are managing yourself and teammates) while your team regularly waltzes to a pennant, and then play every post-season game your team ever has, and play very well in the post-season, how much can you dock a guy for those missed regular season games?

Andy, drop it.

Glad too, now. But I wasn't going to let a lazy-asssed post like #37 just sit there without a response. And I doubt if you would, either.

But I wasn't going to let a lazy-asssed post like #37 just sit there without a response. And I doubt if you would, either.

Andy, I believe Poz could say the exact same thing, but substituting 14 or 30 for 37. You took a couple of words out of a 4,000-plus word blog post to criticize him for an opinion you know he doesn't hold.

Andy, I believe Poz could say the exact same thing, but substituting 14 or 30 for 37. You took a couple of words out of a 4,000-plus word blog post to criticize him for an opinion you know he doesn't hold.

Somewhere, Alanis Morisette is smiling...

Who can break down Romy & Michelle 2, the prequel?

I believe that would be Romy and Michele: In the Beginning, starring the lovely Katherine Heigl and Alex Breckenridge.

He's the anti-Charlie Weis.

Anti-Charlie Weis is unworty of carrying anti-Gerry Faust's jockstrap.

Chris (re #43):

The one thing I see is that Selee built one great team in Boston, then started over in Chicago and laid the groundwork for another great team. He had a plan: emphasize defense and (this was innovative) spread the pitching load among more pitchers, working each one less. Chance operated within this system - but you're right, he took it beyond where it was when Selee left it to him. Then those guys all grew old, or drifted off to the FL, or whatever - that always happens eventually. Once that first great team was gone, Chance didn't assemble a second great team. (That's a very high standard, of course - who else did outlast one great team to build another one? It's not a long list.)

WS underrates contributions from teams whose team defense was so good that it cannot be properly 'distributed'; and the early White Sox may have been the best defensive team ever.

Typo there, Tom - you mean Cubs, not White Sox. One of the things that jumped out at me when I looked at those Cub teams was the great years turned in by pitchers who weren't even any good when they pitched for other teams. Sure, Brown was a great pitcher (but not, once you subtract the contributions of the team defense, Mathewson-level great) and Reulbach was very good - but who were those other guys? The system (and the defense) worked very well indeed.

Of course Tom is fully aware with his list in #48 that a pure rate stat presents Chance in the best possible light and glosses over his major weakness, which is playing time. But I did say up in #34, "But when he was in the lineup he was a dominating player, including a great offensive player." and Tom's table shows that very clearly.

Andy, I believe Poz could say the exact same thing, but substituting 14 or 30 for 37. You took a couple of words out of a 4,000-plus word blog post to criticize him for an opinion you know he doesn't hold.

Except for the fact that I made it abundantly clear that while I was disagreeing with one particular paragraph, I found the overall essay interesting and that I knew he meant no disrespect. I notice that Pos himself, who often lurks here, has taken no offense at what I wrote, even though I'm sure he'd say that I'd misconstrued his wording---a fair criticism which both you and Harold had made earlier. But contrast those three posts of ours to the tone of 37, which made no such qualification. It's the difference between strong disagreement and personal attack. I don't take offense easily, but that was plain over the line.

And at this point I will drop it. Honest. The more interesting discussion would be one that tries to fill that Willie Mays Hall of Fame, with no hard and fast rules for qualification, only the sort of analysis that writers like Pos bring to the table. And as I said, that essay of his above was a good beginning.

i bet if you broke down games played by position for all hall of famers (besides pitchers obviously), first base would be higher than we think.

We actually argued a little about whether the Gehrig should be considered the greatest first baseman or whether that distinction should belong to Stan Musial. If you regard outfield as three different positions, then Musial's plurality position was 1B. And he played it more when he was young than when he was old.

this was the environment Larry Doby had to thrive in. And he did thrive. He was the first black All-Star in the league (1949, same year as Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella). He was the first black man to START an All-Star game in the league (1950, cracked two hits, including a double). He was a truly great player and an inspiring figure.

Seven votes in 1966. Ten votes in 1967.

Being an exact contemporary for Mantle, Mays and Snyder can't help.

Poz:

Robin Roberts, I must always say when his name comes up, is an extremely nice man and undoubtedly the only Hall of Famer to ever call me up cold and ask me to give him a tour of a museum (he said, ”Hi, my name is Robin Roberts. I’m a former baseball player …“)

That's too funny.

So, another topic. It does seem that, in fact, Dan Quisenberry was just as good as Bruce Sutter. I certainly heard more stories about him, though I did not notice baseball until around 1997.

What's this though?

Can’t let a chance go by: Sutter won the ‘79 Cy Young, (though it could have gone to J.R. Richard who threw about three times as many innings and struck out 313). Dan Quisenberry lost the ‘82 and ‘83 Cy Young Awards to inferior starting pitchers. Sutter had only one good year in his last four, but because of his situation he picked up 85 late-career saves. Quiz pitched as well or, often, better than Sutter his last four years, but because of his situation only picked up 27 late-career saves. Sutter played a role in popularizing the split-fingered fastball, I guess. Quiz just said lots of funny and wise things.

"because of his situation"? what does that mean? It can't refer to his illness...it's just that when he was on the 1988 Royals, they let Steve Farr get the saves, and when he was on the 1989 Cardinals, they let Todd Worrell get the saves, and so on. What situation?

I think the situation referred to Sutter getting the closer role by default despite poor stats, while Quiz was passed over while having solid stats.

Last four seasons for Burce: when Sutter was 30, he posted a 86 ERA+ and saved 21 games. Great year when he was 31, compiling 45 saves with a 229 ERA+. Followed that up with an 85 ERA+ and 23 saves. Scrounged up 17 in the following two final years with ERA+ somewhere in the 80s for 63 IP.

Quiz posted 153, 166, 72, and 137 ERA+ in his last 4 years and only got 27 saves.

"because of his situation"? what does that mean? It can't refer to his illness...it's just that when he was on the 1988 Royals, they let Steve Farr get the saves, and when he was on the 1989 Cardinals, they let Todd Worrell get the saves, and so on. What situation?

I think it means that despite still pitching extremely well in 86, 87, and 89, Quis was no longer allowed to be the regular closer, whereas Sutter, despite only pitching well in one of his last 5 seasons, was allowed to keep his duties as closer. Of course, that one good year was a hell of a good year - 1.53 ERA in 122.7 innings. Basically, Quis' situation was that teams had decided that they had other people who they would rather have as their closers than him, just as you said.

You can agree or disagree with any of that, but to claim that I'm saying that Pos "doesn't care about the legacy of the Negro Leaguers, and wrote that fantastic Buck O'Neil book to cover his tracks" is borderline slander. That sort of shlt is worthy of a troll, and I'm more than a little surprised, because I've never noticed that tendency in you before.

But contrast those three posts of ours to the tone of 37, which made no such qualification. It's the difference between strong disagreement and personal attack. I don't take offense easily, but that was plain over the line.


Wow. Pretty clearly you indicated elsewhere in your initial post that you respect Posnanski's work. Pretty clearly, as well, you inexplicably had a problem with what was a throwaway line in Posnanski's piece- enough of a problem to revisit it in a subsequent post.

I read what you wrote. All of it. And the line I quoted of yours came across like a petty attack on a single line in a piece. And the idea that pointing this out is "borderline slander"- well, that is arguably more ridiculous than your initial point.

But let's put it another way- why did you go back to the line a second time? In other words, if you weren't taking the Posnanski line "heart of the Hall of Fame" and pointing out that this didn't include the greatest Negro Leaguers to make a point about Posnanski's leaving them out, why did you return to it?

Quotes from Moscow Hiding In The Shadows:

"Apparently his argument is that (a) we "don't know enough" about them, and that (b) Turkey Stearnes may not be as good as his plaque implies."

Or, the article is about ranking players based on how long it takes them to become enshrined, and Negro League players have followed an untraditional path to enshrinement, making them irrelevant to the point of the article.

"I notice that Pos himself, who often lurks here, has taken no offense at what I wrote."

Because he didn't respond to your comments, Pos doesn't object to them? Pos loves killing puppies. Pos, if you don't respond to this acquisition, you love killing puppies!

I'd like to thank Andy and others for making this thread a stupid one. Bravo. And I also want to point out that the proper spelling of the nickname is "Poz," not "Pos." The 'z' is critical.

And at this point I will drop it. Honest. The more interesting discussion would be one that tries to fill that Willie Mays Hall of Fame, with no hard and fast rules for qualification, only the sort of analysis that writers like Pos bring to the table. And as I said, that essay of his above was a good beginning.

Yeah, I really have it in for both Pos and Poz.

Wow. Pretty clearly you indicated elsewhere in your initial post that you respect Posnanski's work. Pretty clearly, as well, you inexplicably had a problem with what was a throwaway line in Posnanski's piece- enough of a problem to revisit it in a subsequent post.

I read what you wrote. All of it. And the line I quoted of yours came across like a petty attack on a single line in a piece. And the idea that pointing this out is "borderline slander"- well, that is arguably more ridiculous than your initial point.

So first you realize that I respect the man's work. Then you see that I disagree with one paragraph. And so you quote one line out of my criticism and write this:

I think you've figured it out. Joe Posnanski doesn't care about the legacy of the Negro Leaguers, and wrote that fantastic Buck O'Neil book to cover his tracks. Well done.

Which is complete bullshlt, and you know it. You knew I wasn't implying any disrespect of Poz for the Negro Leaguers, and yet you pretended that I did, and that I was dismissing him as some sort of a closet racist. Which is, yes, a borderline slander.

Look, I don't give a f*ck if you disagree with anything I write, or if you think that my interpretaion of that one paragraph of Poz's was crazy or misguided. But when I want to call someone a racist, I know how to spell the word. I don't need you to put words in my mouth or thoughts in my head.

Which is complete bullshlt, and you know it. You knew I wasn't implying any disrespect of Poz for the Negro Leaguers,

Of course you were, in your usual snide way about "triple jeopardy," especially since your snide position was actually true: we don't know enough about them, and no amount of racial guilt-tripping will change that.

Well, that's one of the bigger losses of the whole deal--by that standard, we don't really know about any of the players of the period as they were not competing with the best players available simply as a result of racial bigotry.

The difference is that one group benefitted strongly and their group had a choice.

From a pure baseball standpoint, I can understand why you would weight the better documented field of work.

From a Hall of Fame with a character clause standpoint, I think if you had to exclude one group, it would be the whites.

Then you see that I disagree with one paragraph. And so you quote one line out of my criticism

By definition, if quoting less than the full post, I suppose it is out of context. But you went ahead and re-posted the whole point, which is fine. I still don't understand, given all the context that exists, what your point was.

Which is complete bullshlt, and you know it. You knew I wasn't implying any disrespect of Poz for the Negro Leaguers, and yet you pretended that I did, and that I was dismissing him as some sort of a closet racist. Which is, yes, a borderline slander.

Well, this is a point that is, at best, ignorant of the law. But again, I'll be happy to take your word for it- what was your reason for pointing out this one paragraph, then re-posting it, and noting Posnanski's oversight of the best Negro Leaguers in his "heart of the Hall of Fame"? Only you can clear up this horrible slander of mine, assuming slander now includes sarcastic, implied criticism of a statement actually made.

I'd like to thank Andy and others for making this thread a stupid one.

I do apologize for my part in taking us off of the discussion of the HOF makeup, a discussion I enjoy far more than the one I'm currently having.

From a Hall of Fame with a character clause standpoint, I think if you had to exclude one group, it would be the whites.

So, the owners not allowing people with dark skin to play in the majors is a mark against the character of the white players?

So, the owners not allowing people with dark skin to play in the majors is a mark against the character of the white players?

I'm guessing that what he meant was that, of the assorted players elected to the Hall of Fame, we know a lot more about the bad things which the white players have done - possibly because they (as a group) were just involved in more troubling incidents, or possibly because since their careers were just better documented, we just know more about the troubling incidents in which they were involved.

As an aside, it should be noted that it wasn't only the owners who didn't want people of dark skin to play in the majors - there were quite a few players who apparently agreed with the sentiment. Hell, wasn't the ban originally instituted at least partially in response to players like Cap Anson, who wouldn't take the field against anyone who wasn't white?

You knew I wasn't implying any disrespect of Poz for the Negro Leaguers, and yet you pretended that I did, and that I was dismissing him as some sort of a closet racist. Which is, yes, a borderline slander.

Well, this is a point that is, at best, ignorant of the law. But again, I'll be happy to take your word for it- what was your reason for pointing out this one paragraph, then re-posting it, and noting Posnanski's oversight of the best Negro Leaguers in his "heart of the Hall of Fame"? Only you can clear up this horrible slander of mine, assuming slander now includes sarcastic, implied criticism of a statement actually made.

Howard, does this sound as if I'm slandering Pos /Poz?

But I guess what I should be more charitable, and say that Pos's 4,774 word essay is only a kind of Part One. Part Two would be to come up with a real "Willie Mays" Hall of Fame, not based on formulae about first ballots and 15th ballots and Old Timers' Committees, but based on all the information we know about the entire Hall of Fame roster. And who other than maybe Bill James is better qualified to launch such a discussion than Pos?

In addition, I've already said that it's a legitimate criticism to say that I misinterpreted the thrust of that one paragraph.

I do apologize for my part in taking us off of the discussion of the HOF makeup, a discussion I enjoy far more than the one I'm currently having.

I couldn't agree more, which is why I wrote that paragraph I just re-quoted above. I don't know which is more absurd, the idea that Poz is a closet racist, or the idea that I'm accusing him of being one.

Perhaps we can now argue about which members of the Hall of Fame---Negro Leaguers, 19th century players, executives, umpires and all---belong in that Willie Mays wing. Which seems to me to be the logical followup to Poz's original essay.

I'm guessing that what he meant was that, of the assorted players elected to the Hall of Fame, we know a lot more about the bad things which the white players have done - possibly because they (as a group) were just involved in more troubling incidents, or possibly because since their careers were just better documented, we just know more about the troubling incidents in which they were involved.


There is nothing in E-X's post to suggest that this is what he meant.

As an aside, it should be noted that it wasn't only the owners who didn't want people of dark skin to play in the majors - there were quite a few players who apparently agreed with the sentiment. Hell, wasn't the ban originally instituted at least partially in response to players like Cap Anson, who wouldn't take the field against anyone who wasn't white?

Then it should also be noted that there are a lot of players from that era whose position on the segregation of MLB is totally unknown. Maybe they supported it, maybe they opposed it, maybe they didn't give a #### either way. E-X's post suggests that we should hold it against all of them with no actual evidence as to their personal position and disregarding the fact that they had effectively zero control over the situation.

Howard, does this sound as if I'm slandering Pos /Poz?

Only one of us accused the other of slander. And no, you appeared to be unfairly criticizing Posnanski in the line I quoted, not in the lines I didn't quote.

In addition, I've already said that it's a legitimate criticism to say that I misinterpreted the thrust of that one paragraph.

Then we have no disagreement.

I couldn't agree more, which is why I wrote that paragraph I just re-quoted above. I don't know which is more absurd, the idea that Poz is a closet racist, or the idea that I'm accusing him of being one.

Well, this is the third time you've now neglected to answer why you chose to quote and then re-post that line about "heart of the Hall of Fame"- you know, the line of yours I actually had an issue with, rather than the other paragraphs you keep quoting instead. It read as if you believed there was a racial component to it. We both agree, that was absurd. What I'd like to know is why you posted that and criticized it.

But if you are simply saying that you misinterpreted the "heart of the Hall of Fame" line, so be it. And as this is a tiresome argument that takes away from the baseball discussion, I'm happy to let it go.

Then it should also be noted that there are a lot of players from that era whose position on the segregation of MLB is totally unknown. Maybe they supported it, maybe they opposed it, maybe they didn't give a #### either way.

I didn't mean to imply that all of the players supported it, or that we even know the percentage which did/didn't/weren't sure. That's why I qualified it as "quite a few", rather than "most" or "all". We've got a pretty good idea that not all of the players supported the ban, since so many of them were willing to compete against non-whites in exhibitions, barnstorming tours, and the like. (EDIT: And that many were supportive of Jackie Robinson when he did break the color line)

As you note, we really don't have a clear idea of the split between the for/against/don't care groups. My comment should only be taken as an observation that it wasn't just the owners who didn't seem to want to have non-whites in MLB - there were others who also were against the idea. It's even likely that some of the owners may have wanted to add various black players to their teams - we just don't know which ones, because it was never discussed publicly (except for the possibly true Veeck story).

Perhaps we can now argue about which members of the Hall of Fame---Negro Leaguers, 19th century players, executives, umpires and all---belong in that Willie Mays wing. Which seems to me to be the logical followup to Poz's original essay.

I tried starting part of that conversation, at least the players part of it, with post #53 in this thread. Most of the responses came much later in the thread, after about post #92.

As an aside, it should be noted that it wasn't only the owners who didn't want people of dark skin to play in the majors - there were quite a few players who apparently agreed with the sentiment. Hell, wasn't the ban originally instituted at least partially in response to players like Cap Anson, who wouldn't take the field against anyone who wasn't white?

Not really. Anson tried to take that stand, and the league told him to shove it -- and Anson played. A while later, he did so again, and by then, the color line was being raised everywhere, in other baseball leagues and in society, and they went along with it. By no means is Anson innocent morally speaking, but he's innocent causally; baseball was segregating with or without him.

We've had this discussion before, but it's worth noting that the American Association, after briefly letting Fleet and Moses Walker play, segregated just as thoroughly as the National League did, even though Anson had nothing to do with the AA.

From a Hall of Fame with a character clause standpoint, I think if you had to exclude one group, it would be the whites.

This made me think...is there a white player who, once the color line had been entrenched, could have done something to stop it on his own? The only guy who I'd think would have had a chance would be Babe Ruth c. 1927. If he had said around that time that he was quitting major league baseball unless black players were allowed to play, would it have had any meaningful impact? Would he have gotten other players to join him, or would the Yankees have signed Oscar Charleston rather than let Ruth retire? What if Ruth had signed with the Black Yankees? Can someone run a reverse-MLE? Where does this alternate history lead?

As an aside, it should be noted that it wasn't only the owners who didn't want people of dark skin to play in the majors - there were quite a few players who apparently agreed with the sentiment. Hell, wasn't the ban originally instituted at least partially in response to players like Cap Anson, who wouldn't take the field against anyone who wasn't white?

Not really. Anson tried to take that stand, and the league told him to shove it -- and Anson played. A while later, he did so again, and by then, the color line was being raised everywhere, in other baseball leagues and in society, and they went along with it. By no means is Anson innocent morally speaking, but he's innocent causally; baseball was segregating with or without him.

This is clearly true, and if Babe Ruth himself had spoken out against it in his prime, the likely result would have been that they would have simply made jokes about how he was only covering his own ancestry. Some of you may have heard what Ty Cobb's favorite bench jockeying term for the Babe was, and it wasn't "jidge."

OTOH by the late 30's the Daily Worker---back when Red Rolfe was writing a column for them---did an extensive polling of Major League players and found widespread support for letting blacks play. This was primarily due to what so many of them had seen in their postseason barnstorming tours, more than a sense of crusaderism, but some of the biggest names in the game (Joe Dimaggio, for one) spoke up in favor of it. IMO the biggest cause for the delay had more to do with fears of losing those lucrative Negro League stadium leases than anything else. That and the fear of dealing with travel arrangements, since before WWII the North was nearly as segregated as the South in that respect.

Some of you may have heard what Ty Cobb's favorite bench jockeying term for the Babe was, and it wasn't "jidge."

I'm tempted to say that Cobb could have ended the color line, in a Nixon-Goes-to-China kind of way. But then again, a figure as influential as John McGraw wasn't able to sneak a black player onto his roster, so maybe it couldn't have been done at all, at least before the 1930s.

But then again, a figure as influential as John McGraw wasn't able to sneak a black player onto his roster, so maybe it couldn't have been done at all, at least before the 1930s.

Leo Durocher needed a catcher one year, and was allegedly asked by his owner who to try to trade for, he said, "Josh Gibson"... well that didn't get far...

Veeck claimed he planned to break the colorline during WWII , but Landis stopped him...

Some players with African ancestry (but very light skin) did pass as white and play in the MLB or affiliated minors between Fleetwood Walker and Jackie Robinson

Some of you may have heard what Ty Cobb's favorite bench jockeying term for the Babe was, and it wasn't "jidge."

If it's (N word) Lips, or some variation thereof, that went back to Ruth's earliest days at St. Mary's School.

That's what it was, all right, and Ruth was very sensitive about the term, to the point where he once got into Cobb's face about it.