Too bad Heyman didn't play in the majors. Would he have been given the nickname "Buster"

What does Biggio have to do to get in? The voters do realize he was a middle infielder, and not a DH, right?

It seems like around 30% of the writers aren't going to vote for Biggio. That raises an interesting question: Are 30% of the workers in any profession totally incompetent at their jobs, or is it something exclusive to sportswriters? If I get on a bus, is there a 30% chance that the driver will just go wherever he wants, instead of following his assigned route? If I go in for surgery to have a kidney removed, is there a 30% chance that I'm going to wake up with two kidneys, no gall bladder, and a new pair of DD breasts?

If I go in for surgery to have a kidney removed, is there a 30% chance that I'm going to wake up with two kidneys, no gall bladder, and a new pair of DD breasts?

Something I learned from the most recent entry from xkcd - what if?, via CNN: "According to a 2006 study looking at the frequency of surgical errors in the United States, each year there could be as many as 2,700 mistakes where a surgery is performed on the wrong body part or the wrong patient. That's about seven per day."

Was he generally considered an "ace"?

Perry was considered the kind of guy who was an ace on a bad team, maybe like Zack Greinke today. It's almost comical the way Perry made the circuit of the most-ignored teams in baseball, from the Indians to the Rangers to the Padres to the Mariners. (I'm not old enough to recall his time with the Giants.)

Perry was always considered the #2 (to Marichal) on the Giants. The one year Marichal got hurt (1967) was the year McCormick won his fluke Cy Young Award. Furthermore, Perry was hurt by getting substantially less offensive support than did Marichal. In 1968, Perry and Marichal had very similar stats -- but Marichal went 26-9, & Perry went 16-15.

If I ever have surgery, I'll be one of those guys who writes on himself in magic marker WRONG LEG and YES, CHOP THIS LEG OFF.

NYT, August 1987:

Gaylord Perry, who won more than 300 games, is almost certain to be elected to the Hall of Fame despite admitting that he relied on the illegal spitball throughout his career. He was suspended briefly after being detected in 1982. Whitey Ford, a Hall of Famer, recently said that he tampered with the ball in his final years. Tommy John and Rick Rhoden of the Yankees, Don Sutton of the Angels and Mike Scott of the Astros are among those often accused of dirty tricks nowadays. Sutton even threatened to sue Umpire Doug Harvey for defamation of character when Sutton was accused of defiling baseballs a few years ago.

January 1991:

The election of Carew and Perry kept intact the Hall of Fame streak of players who have collected 3,000 hits or 300 victories. All 15 players in each category who have been eligible for the hall have been elected.

Perry had failed in his first two years on the ballot, falling only 13 votes short a year ago. One assessment of his failure was that his admission of throwing illegal pitches -- spitballs, greaseballs -- hurt him.

February 1991:

To the Sports Editor:

I'm not sure if Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame; I am sure that Gaylord Perry doesn't. Perry's induction mocks the principles of the game. His lasting achievement isn't that he won 300 games, but that he did so while eluding the fair-play doctrine of baseball. His contributions to the game are as transparent as the Vaseline on the brim of his cap. JIM ENGLISH Flushing, N.Y.

Also amusing from January 1988:

''Do you think I'll be a unanimous choice?'' Rose once asked Jack Lang, the writers' association secretary-treasurer who counts the ballots each year. ''Do you think I'll be the first unanimous choice?''

''Hank Aaron wasn't even unanimous,'' Lang said. ''Who knows how the writers will vote? Some guys think Bo Derek is a 9.''

Among Roger Clemens' many sins: he did not use public defenders.

Cheating has been ever-present in baseball, and has even been thought charming and perfectly legitimate. And then suddenly, it was learned that players were doing steroids, which was considered cheating, and that -- that -- was cheating that could. not. stand.

Quoting from a 2003 SI article:

Cheating is to baseball as Bernoulli's principle is to fixed-wing aircraft: the invisible constant that keeps everything aloft. Hitters erase the back line of the batter's box; catchers "frame" pitches to induce called strikes; infielders occupy a different congressional district from second base when turning a double play; sluggers juice up on steroids till their forearm veins resemble bridge cables; and outfielders pretend that a one-hopper was in fact caught on the fly, holding up the baseball to the umpire like a prized tomato in a produce aisle.

"Cheating is baseball's oldest profession," wrote Thomas Boswell. "No other game is so rich in skulduggery, so suited to it or so proud of it." The game's greatest moment—the Shot Heard Round the World—was allegedly authored by a batter, Bobby Thomson, who knew precisely what pitch was coming, his Giants having employed a spy to steal the catcher's signs from centerfield.

Corking isn't even the most egregious equipment modification in baseball, much less sports, as any pitcher who has loaded a loogie onto his fastball can attest. Gaylord Perry knows KY ain't just the postal code for Kentucky. Whitey Ford said he took an entire toolbox to the mound. Former journeyman pitcher George Frazier denied ever having applied foreign substances to a baseball. (He preferred, he said, domestic substances.)

What is cheating, and who's to say? The New England Patriots, in 1982, had one swath of their field snowplowed, helping them to kick a fourth-quarter field goal in a 3-0 win over the Miami Dolphins.

Can be compared to only three batters after age 33: Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Bonds. Before that, he was compared to Jay Buhner.

I have no idea where Heyman came up with this and how an editor allows it to go through.

If I ever have surgery, I'll be one of those guys who writes on himself in magic marker WRONG LEG and YES, CHOP THIS LEG OFF.

My wife did this before a surgery to remove a plate, screws and a pin from her ankle. They were there mainly because when she suffered the initial break of both the tibia and the fibula, the ER doctor and later her family doctor only noticed one of the fractures, despite the fact that my layman self pointed out both of them to the radiology nurse.

Chuck Norris' beard fears Jack Morris' moustache...

Are you retarded?

Ugh. Can we use a different word, please?

There are some great stats around somewhere about how many years Perry and Marichal pitched as teammates, with both racking up a lot of good innings but Marichal having far superior W-L records because the Giants kept scoring more runs for him than for Perry.

Plus Marichal had a cool leg kick and elegant air (when he wasn't swinging a bat at a catcher's head, anyway), while Perry seemed like the innings-eater that Morris was - even though his best years were a LOT better.

EDIT:
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/hall_of_merit/discussion/juan_marichal

from dagnabbit, post No. 2:

"From 1964-71 Marichal's run support was equivalent to the career run support of Allie Reynolds. For those same years Gaylord Perry had run support reminiscent of Phil Niekro's career mark. That's right -- the same line-up would hit like the Casey Stengel Yankees for one guy, and the Ted Turner Braves for another."

For those of you who are older than me, what was the contemporary opinion of Gaylord Perry in his prime? I know he won two Cy Young awards, but the second one looks like it was a "no better options" vote, as he and Ross Grimsley (84 K in 263 IP!) were the only 20-game winners in the NL. He made "only" 5 All-Star teams in 22 seasons, which seems relatively low. He had his best years with some bad, forgettable Cleveland teams in the '70s -- probably a lot of fans didn't even notice.

Was he generally considered an "ace"? How about a "future Hall-of-Famer"?

Perry was considered #2 on Giants behind Marichal even though he outpitched him some years. When Gaylord went to Indians he did pick up "ace" label although, as others have mentioned, he was on some really bad teams.

Now, here are some things I think are interesting in this context - per the table in #44 above, Perry and Carlton are the two pitchers with the highest # of games in which they were able to go 8+ innings. They had close to the same # of decisions - Carlton 331, Perry 339. They had almost identical ERAs, both pitching very effectively, as one would expect when a pitcher is able to go at least 8 innings. Carlton had a 1.84 ERA in these games, Perry a 1.87. But look at the W-L records - Carlton went 274-57(!) whereas Perry "only" went 240-99 in these games. That's a huge difference, giving one the impression that Carlton was getting much better run support than Perry in these games. As we now know, back then not many people paid attention to run support, but if you look at that table you'll see the usual suspects - pitchers the writers always labeled as "just barely a .500 pitcher" or "not in the same class as the truly elite pitchers like Carlton or Seaver or Gibson" - pitchers like Perry, Ryan, Blyleven and Niekro are in the bottom portion of the table based on winning %. These pitchers were thought at the time to be "compilers" needing to get to 300 wins to really have any chance of enshrinement - their pitching accomplishments on their own were not considered to be worthy of Cooperstown. And they knew it, thus the tendency to maybe hang on a bit too long at the end of a career. Had Perry perhaps received Carlton's run support, he would have reached 300 wins much sooner and wouldn't have had to hang around so long as a journeyman pitcher at the end.

Speaking of Carlton and Perry, here is a one-year analysis to illustrate what I mean. In 1972 each won the Cy Young award in his respective league. Carlton, as we know, went 27-10 for a horrible Phillies team that won only 59 games all season long. He also had an outstanding 1.97 ERA in 346 innings. Dominant. Perry, meanwhile, posted a 1.92 ERA in 343 IP, also outstanding, although it should be noted in context that the AL was much more of a pitching dominant league that year than the NL (AL league ERA 3.06, NL 3.45). Much of what was written that year was how Carlton had the significantly better season - I think WAR goes along with that as well.

But here's some details no one paid attention to:

Carlton - record when getting 2 runs or less of support: 10-7 (undeniably outstanding!)
Record when getting at least 3 runs of support: 17-3

Slightly less than half of Carlton's decisions were impacted by poor support, to be expected when playing on such a poor team, and he was actually outstanding in those games, somehow still putting up a winning record even with poor run support.

Perry - was 24-16 overall, not close to Carlton's 27-10 record. Here's the breakdown:

When getting 2 runs or less of offensive support: Perry went 9-16. That's not good, certainly nowhere near Carlton's 10-7. On the other hand, 25 of Perry's 40 starts - 62.5%! - resulted in poor run support, the highest % of starts for a major name pitcher that I've seen in any season ever.

Record when getting at least 3 runs of support: a perfect 15-0!

Now, whereas everyone talked at the time about how Carlton was on a much poorer team (true), the Phillies actually played much better as a team behind Carlton than the 72-win Indians did behind Perry.

What if the percentage of time each pitcher received poor run support was reversed? Each putting up the same identical stats as before, giving up the same number of runs per game they actually did - only the run support % changing - here's how the W-L records would look:

Carlton - 37 total decisions x 62.5% with poor support = 23 decisions in poor-support games. A 0.588 winning % in these games would translate to a 14-9 record.

Taking Carlton's actual 17-3 record in games with at least 3 runs of support and translating that down to only 14 decisions yields a 12-2 record. Overall W-L record: 26-11 (only one game worse than actual).

For Perry - with Carlton's level of poor support - 40 total decisions x (17/37) = 18 decisions from poor-support games with a 6-12 record.

This leaves 22 decisions from games with at least 3 runs of support - and a sparkling 22-0 record in these games! Overall record: 28-12.

So did Carlton really have the better year? Yes, probably so. But the gap isn't nearly as big as most people thought it was at the time.

Gaylord Perry had one of the most dominant seasons ever in 1972 but most people didn't realize it because of the 24-16 W-L record he was stuck with.

19 Jack Morris 248 Ind. Games 150 74 .670 2.38 1.03
20 Frank Tanana 216 Ind. Games 129 65 .665 1.81 0.95

Thank goodness I've finally found out what all this has to do with Frank Tanana!

Thanks for that, Moeball, very interesting. When I was looking at Perry's BB-Ref page yesterday I realized that his 1972 season was truly outstanding -- 1.92 ERA (168 ERA+), 342.2 IP, 10.4 WAR -- yet people hardly ever talk about it.

Interestingly, it was a close vote for Cy Young that year. Wilbur Wood finished second, pitching 34 more innings than Perry (376.2!), throwing 8 shutouts (Perry had 5), winning 24 games (same as Perry), with 10.3 WAR.

Despite those stats, Perry didn't get a whole lot of black ink: Wood led in games and innings; Luis Tiant took the ERA crown with a 1.91 (but in only 179 IP); Nolan Ryan led in strikeouts and shutouts; Catfish Hunter led in winning percentage. Perry only led in wins and complete games.

Not sure the best place to put this, but did anyone see the MLB Network roundtable? Costas, Leiter, Reynolds, Verducci, Russo, and Posnanski discussed who should/shouldn't go in. It was a collection of nonsense and misinformation, and I felt demonstrated the biggest problem in the whole discussion. Posnanski was constantly shouted over (Russo did this to everyone), and was the only one willing to try to meet the others somewhere in the middle and not step on toes. Of course, no one responded in kind.

Verducci said that steroids compared to every other form of cheating was like nuclear weapons compared to conventional weapons. Costas all but said his number-one-with-a-bullet concern was the breaking of records that happened in the last twenty years. Apparently there were no noteworthy record book achievements from WW2 until Canseco showed up. Russo was incapable of doing anything but shouting. He would set a standard for the Hall, and break it five minutes later.

The majority of the table made up their own whimsical standard and would only act shocked when someone else disagreed, and just immediately move on to shouting their standard, and shouted over Posnanski when he tried to respond (he was way too nice, this can't be said enough). There needed to be someone more willing to challenge these guys, and a moderator that forced them to actually respond to the challenges. Needless to say, I was pretty disappointed (albeit, my expectations were way too high to begin with).

Costas is going to be pretty much useless in a discussion like that. I don't know who Russo is, but sounds like he's a talk radio type of guy.

If you had any expectations at all from that panel, those really were way too high.

Posnanski has some massive flaws, including the Paterno book that made him richer and his publisher poorer, while he ignores those facts and feigns piety. Or more likely, as a pretty decent person, he rationalized guaranteeing his family permanent financial security justified his inclinations that weren't very groundbreaking anyway.

But he would be the most reasonable and intelligent person in that HOF ballot crowd, at least.

Not sure the best place to put this, but did anyone see the MLB Network roundtable?

I did. Posnanski looked quite lonely and, as you said, it seemed like Harold Reynolds or Chris Russo interrupted him everytime he tried to make a point.

And Costas was indeed insufferable at times, particularly when he brushed aside the impact of Aaron/amphetamines and Bonds/steroids. In particular, I wish he would try to explain how Bonds was able to have a monster '04 season after league-wide testing had been implemented.

Costas all but said his number-one-with-a-bullet concern was the breaking of records that happened in the last twenty years.

This seems to be Andy's concern as well.

If you had any expectations at all from that panel, those really were way too high.

I kind of expected more out of Verducci.

It's funny because the average age on that panel is like 54 and yet Posnanski is the only one with a strand of gray hair.

Performance enhancing pigments?

It seems like around 30% of the writers aren't going to vote for Biggio. That raises an interesting question: Are 30% of the workers in any profession totally incompetent at their jobs, or is it something exclusive to sportswriters?

This time of year drives me nuts because, besides just me, people get frustrated and go too far and I find myself "defending" the BBWAA ... I feel unclean. And Vlad, you're usually so sensible.

I mean, Biggio is 11th on this ballot in career WAR (and JAWS for that matter) so a strict career WAR voter wouldn't go for him. Three guys behind him are Piazza, McGwire and Sosa who one could argue are more deserving (or not).

Now voting for nobody or voting only Morris or voting for Mattingly over Biggio or that insane ballot with Shawn Green on it ... now you're talking sheer incompetence or pointless point-making.

And the answer to your question, at least before the internet drove them all out of business, was large chain record store employees.

69 - Yeah, Russo is "Mad Dog", talk radio at its finest.

70 - I guess my expectations were set before I saw the names on the panel. I wish someone like Sheehan was there instead of Russo (who knew nothing, and was insistent on demonstrating as much), and having a second former player added nothing (I'd remove Reynolds before Leiter). Add Brian Kenny to moderate, a position that show desperately needed with all the talking over each other, and I think you can get a legitimate discussion between guys who have a serious interest in the game and its history. Would that really have been less appealing to viewers than having a talk show host make #### up as he went along and Reynolds frequently repeating the "Morris just knew how to win" thought over and over? Maybe, don't answer that question.

I mean, Biggio is 11th on this ballot in career WAR (and JAWS for that matter) so a strict career WAR voter wouldn't go for him. Three guys behind him are Piazza, McGwire and Sosa who one could argue are more deserving (or not).

Yea, but you would have to be a certified idiot to vote strict career war. That is akin to voting for Morris in my book.

Moeball (#65),

Terrific bit of analytical breakdown. Besides "only" having a 24-16 record, though, I think that Perry suffers from the fact that Carlton's record leads to so many easy pegs**, which made it almost impossible to consider any other pitching performance by comparison. Ironically, the most ink I ever remember Gaylord Perry getting came two years later in 1974, when he ran off a 15 game winning streak before losing an extra inning game to Vida Blue. At that point his record was 15 and 1, and I almost had to look it up to remember that he only finished 21 and 13 that year.


**Just to take one example, Carlton's WP was better than the 1927 Yankees, while the rest of the Phillies staff's WP was worse than the 1962 Mets.