Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio have been elected to the Hall of Merit!

The timing for our first year electing 4 candidates could not have worked out better, since class of 2013 is the strongest in terms of electees that we’ve ever had. The top of the 1934 ballot included Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Eddie Collins, Pop Lloyd, Smokey Joe Williams and Cristobal Torriente, but only 2 were elected.

Bonds and Clemens were each unanimous at 1 and 2. I believe that’s the first ...

Slugging first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, in his second year of eligibility, was the top vote-getter this election by grabbing 70% of all possible points.

NL hurler Rick Reuschel was number two this year with 49% after 17 years on a ballot, while Met and Yankee pitcher David Cone became the last inductee of 2012 with 44% in his sixth year of eligibility.

Rounding out the top-ten were: Phil Rizzuto, Luis Tiant, Cannonball Dick Redding, Hugh Duffy, Gavvy Cravath (back in the top-ten!), Vic Willis ...

What is the Baseball Hall of Merit? A pantheon conceived of by our founder and commissioner Joe Dimino as an alternative to the Baseball Hall of Fame located in Cooperstown. Our purpose is to identify the best players in baseball history and thereby identify the omissions and errors that can be found in the other venerable institution.

Established in 2003, the HoM welcomes any new voters who are serious about inducting the most worthy candidates from all eras and positions.

Annual elections ...

IMPORTANT: If a link is inoperable, please use this link to locate the thread in question: Hall of Merit Archives
This eventually will be the only place to locate old and new threads once we set up the categorization process.

Finally, a consolidated home page, with all of our important links.

The Hall of Merit Plaque Room - Where we honor the greatest players of all-time.

Our Constitution - The rules we’ve set up. Something Better - the article that introduced all of this.

Positional ...

The Machado (2013) - The Criterion Collection.

Yesterday, Bill James wrote (subscriber-only) about Manny Machado’s chances of breaking the all-time, single-season double record. Here’s the meat, or rather the top and bottom buns; I snipped out most of the mathematical meat:

  Manny Machado has hit 31 doubles through the Orioles’ first 71 games. At that pace he would hit 73 doubles this season, which would break the major league record for doubles in a season, which is 67 (Earl Webb, ...

Milwaukee Sentinel, June 19, 1913:

As the indirect result of being hit in the head by a pitched ball during a game years ago, Earl Davenport, who played with Pittsburg in the National League in 1892, Wednesday was sentenced to serve three years in San Quentin prison for passing fictitious checks.

Before he was sentenced, Davenport told Judge Willis that he had been irresponsible ever since he was “beaned” during a baseball game. He asked the court to arrange for an operation on his skull.

He ...

“cartoon characters dressed up”? Time to cue “Tick Tock Tuckered” where Porky actually wears pants!

In Milwaukee, cartoon characters dressed up like various sausages race at each Brewers’ game; in Washington, five of our beloved presidents do their own bratwurst ramble. But the character I want to appear at every baseball game –– and at a couple of other sports, too, is ...

tick-tock,tick-tock

... the crocodile from Peter Pan who swallowed a clock and shadows a terrified Capt. Hook.

...

The Cone of Silence can’t drop on Dan Plesac quick enough.

I still like pitcher wins, warts and blemishes and gaping scars and all. Are pitcher wins perfect? Of course not. Should they be the first recourse in evaluating a pitcher’s performance? Of course not. Should they be discarded into the trash bin of ill-advised statistics, like the game-winning RBI? Of course not.

So I think it’s pretty cool that Max Scherzer is now 10-0, the first pitcher to win his first 10 decisions to begin a ...

El Paso Herald, June 18, 1913:

[Naps manager] Joe Birmingham has denied the report that Vean Gregg and outfielder Graney engaged in a fist fight on the train, the result of which Graney received a black eye. Graney admitted a black eye, but said that he bumped into the head of a Pullman porter. Gregg also denied having been implicated in an argument.

Suuuuuure, Jack. Sure. You got a black eye bumping into someone’s head.

Toledo News-Bee, June 17, 2013:

DENVER, Colo., June 17.—(Special.)—With two men on the bases and the star batter at the plate, an unknown minister attempted to interrupt a Sunday ball game here.

The minister stepped to the plate and, raising his hands in the air, started to sing a hymn. The umpire called for the continuance of the game. The ball sped from the pitcher’s hand, a hit was made and the runner from third slid over the home plate between the minister’s legs.

65 years later, the ...

Dumb Dora/Donald doesn’t pretend to be enough of an ____________ .

If an already-signed player who hits an average of 20 home runs and 80 RBIs per year makes, say, $5 million per season, then surely a second player who is averaging 24 home runs and 86 RBIs deserves $6 million per year. It made perfect sense in those honest days, before the introduction of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs to the game.

But teams made deals based on the supposed integrity of the accumulated statistics ...

It might not be a uniform…but here’s one book jacket I’m going to dislike.

So, on top of buying and selling a wealth of baseball memorabilia on ebay, including Babe Ruth signed balls, bats and gloves from the 1920s and authentic merchandise from the 1890s, Kubiak started penning his thoughts.

“What the book is is a combination of instruction and how I develop what I do with players,’ ” he said. “It mixes with my major league days, too. There’s a lot of history of the game in it like how did ...

Scat Ballou: Is this the way to make a shiity column…? You bet it is!

Now, the Sox have taken it to a new level with the Brothers Drew.

Neither is very good, but there’s something about a Drew that whoever Boston’s general manager is can’t resist, be it Theo Epstein or Ben Cherington.

OK, J.D. Drew had a couple of respectable seasons with the Red Sox. And, OK, Stephen Drew is a good defensive shortstop. Still, starting with Opening Day of 2010, Boston has committed $37.5 million ...

Bill Madden! Elias Sports Bureau! Partridge Pattern Cords! It’s all here!

Why have extra innings, which used to be looked upon with great anticipation, instead been replaced by a sense of dread? And why are there suddenly so many of them? According to scouts and baseball execs I talked to, it starts with the gradual decrease of runs and homers since baseball instituted its ban of amphetamines in 2006.

“There’s less power in the game,” said one exec, “less examples of one swing of the ...

Lee Carbo?  Pretty sure Toots Mondt used to book him all the time at the rickety Sunnyside Garden Arena.

And Bill Lee would like to keep the ball in play too, “talk about speeding up the game, use the same seven or eight balls during the game, what is the story? Tell the Fox Network not to run long commercials. And don’t have the girl with the tweater thing, the twit thing between innings, I don’t care what anyone says calling in - unless it’s the Flying Stilarsky Sisters.”

...“Get the drugs ...

That’s how far Albert Pujols has fallen in the year-and-change since moving from St. Louis to Orange County. Last year, he was a victim of a very poor start to the season which colored everyone’s perception the rest of the way, but come June he hit his stride, with a .941 OPS the rest of the way. This June has also been his best month of the year so far, but whereas last June he hit .326/.409/.568 (.977), this June has only seen him hit .262/.327/.548 (.874) so far. A slugging-heavy .874 OPS is ...

Washington Herald, June 14, 1913:

It is not often that [an outfielder] comes dashing in and makes a put-out between third and home plate, as was the case yesterday when [Howie] Shanks came flying in and intercepted a throw from John Henry as the catcher, Laporte, and McBride were attempting to run down Mattick after the last-named had been forced off third base when Henry and McBride caught Weaver napping at second.

Shanks is always in the game. He uses his head all the time, and for a ...

Larry…“In light of the news from Japan yesterday, here’s what some were writing about the juiced ball during the 1987 season. Frank Deford, George Will, and Murray Chass all have great opinions on the matter!”

Frank Deford wrote about the rumors for Sports Illustrated. His piece was as dismissive of the rabbit ball as Sparky Anderson was certain of it. Among a list of possible explanations for how such a conspiracy would come about, Deford winked, “The major league owners had a secret meeting ...

600* BBWAA writers voted, but no one saw a thing.

* give or take

This, I think, was what made the Bert Blyleven-Jack Morris Hall of Fame discussion so interesting. The statistics made it abundantly clear that Blyleven was not just a better pitcher than Morris but light years better. But Blyleven just doesn’t have the Van Doren Gene … and Morris does. And so the debate over which pitcher was better raged on; in some quarters it rages on still. People don’t just see Morris as a Hall of ...

El Paso Herald, June 13, 1913:

John J. O’Connor, manager of the St. Louis Federal baseball team, is to test the legality of organized baseball in the federal courts.

The petition…charges that the National baseball agreement is a violation of the Sherman anti-trust law. The legality of the “reserve clause” in baseball contracts is attacked.

This wasn’t the lawsuit that resulted in the exemption, but it’s interesting to me that there were multiple cases from the Federal League that were about ...

Good thing Arthur Lee Maye got in under the Wire…

The epochal boom of the sports card industry in the US can be traced back to 23 February 1989, when Upper Deck – an upstart producer of classy baseball card collectibles based in Anaheim, California – delivered its first case of individually wrapped card packs to George Moore of Tulsa’s Baseball Card Store in Oklahoma. Upper Deck’s cards differed wildly from those of their competitors. Topps, Fleer and Donruss had long traded ...

Praying for a second chance…

Ryan Howard being on pace for just 18 home runs this season:

“That’s just unacceptable. Is he healthy? I would think Ryan Howard would hit 18 home runs if his eyes were closed.”

Ryan Howard’s approach at the plate:

“His job is not to go up there and work the coun. Hey in the eyes of a lot of people he earned his $20 million, that’s just the way baseball’s played today, but you got to have a guy that can make some contact sometimes when you got a ...

Kunio Shimoda…I hear the Trost - Levine regime is hiring.

After months of denial and an inexplicably huge surge in home runs, Japan’s baseball chiefs have admitted they secretly switched the design of the ball to make the game more exciting.

Players and fans had repeatedly quizzed Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) bosses after seeing a 40 percent rise in the number of balls that were slugged out of the park so far this season.

In April NPB said the specifications of their ball—each of which ...

The [Shreveport] Caucasian, June 12, 1913:

Richard C. Klegin has announced an international baseball league in Europe.

Teams have already been formed in London and Paris, and the proposed league will include also Berlin, Brussels, Copenhagen, Monte Carlo, Milan, and Nice. Klegin has leased the stadium in London. The players hail from the United States.

This is a terrific idea, Mr. Klegin. I suggest you start in, say, the summer of 1914.

Also, yes, the newspaper really was called “The ...

I accept responsibility for those two uhh three uhhh four uhhhh five days.

Andy Pettitte locked up his 250th career win this past weekend against the Mariners. It now could be said the win also locked up his Hall of Fame candidacy, something that many thought was dead and buried after his retirement in 2010.

The naysayers will point out how Pettitte is the anti-Hall of Famer. He is good, not great. He is more a model of consistency than dominance. You could even point out the advantages ...