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Hall of Merit
— A Look at Baseball's All-Time Best

Monday, July 07, 2003

1904 Results: Glasscock & Rusie Elected

Jack Glassock and Amos Rusie have been elected to the Hall of Merit. Glasscock was elected easily after finishing at the top non-electee in 1901, 1902 and 1903. Rusie edged Charles Radbourn by 34 points for the other spot, it was Rusie’s first year of eligibility.

The runner-up positions are tightly bunched, 3rd place was separated from 8th place by just 131 points. Radbourn has moved into the top runner-up slot for the second time (he finished 5th in 1898, when four players were elected), he finished directly behind Glasscock in 1901, 1902 and 1903. Hardy Richardson finished 4th, and was the only player besides Glasscock named on all 43 ballots, Pud Galvin passed Joe Start among the returnees, finishing 5th.

Start edged Al Spalding by two points for 6th place and Ezra Sutton finished 8th. Harry Stovey and Sam Thompson rounded out the top 10.

The top newcomers for 1905 include Bid McPhee, Mike Tiernan, Bud Fowler and Ed McKean.

RK   LY  Player       Pts Ballots  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
 1    3  J.Glasscock  850  43.0   16  8  4  5  1  2  2  2  1              1  1
 2  n/a  A.Rusie      720  42.0    5  5  4  7  8  3  3  2  1  2  1  1
 3    4  C.Radbourn   686  42.0    6  5  6     3  3  4  5  3  4     2     1
 4    5  H.Richardson 649  43.0    1  4  3  5  4  9  3  4  4  1  1  1  2  1
 5    7  P.Galvin     610  40.0    1  3  5  8  4  2  6  2  2  1  3     2     1
 6    6  J.Start      589  38.0    5  4  2  3  3  3  4  3  3  2  1     2     3
 7   10  A.Spalding   587  38.0    7  3  3  3  3  3        2  3  4  3  1  2  1
 8    8  E.Sutton     555  36.5    2  5  7  3  1     5  1  3  2     3  1  2  1.5
 9   11  H.Stovey     517  41.0       2  3  3     4  3  2  5  8  5     1  2  3
10    9  S.Thompson   473  39.0       1  2  2  3  5  2  2  3  2  6  3  3  4  1
11   12  C.Bennett    415  36.0       1     1  4  1  3  5  1  3  3  7  4  1  2
12   13  C.McVey      394  31.5       1  2  2  3  3  2  4  4        3  2  4  1.5
13   15  P.Browning   307  31.0             1  1  1     3  1  5  2  5  7  2  3
14   14  B.Caruthers  273  25.0          2     2     5  1  2  1  2     2  3  5
15  n/a  M.Griffin    170  18.0                   1        3  1  4  3  1  3  2
16   17  L.Pike       168  18.0                   1     3  1     3  1  3  3  3
17   16  E.Williamson 126  15.0                            1  2  2  2  2  2  4
18   18  M.Welch      107  12.0                               4  1  1  3  2  1
19   20  J.McCormick  102  11.0                1        1  1        2  3  1  2
20   19  D.Pearce      89   8.0       1        1              1     2  1  1  1
21   22  T.Mullane     65   7.0                   1     1           2     1  2
22   21  F.Dunlap      56   6.5                   1                    3  2  0.5
23   24  J.Whitney     47   4.5                      1  1        1        1  0.5
24  n/a  J.Clements    46   6.0                                  2        2  2
25   23  T.O'Neill     39   3.0                1        1        1
26  n/a  B.Nash        26   3.0                            1              2
27  n/a  B.Joyce       15   2.0                                     1        1
28   26  D.Foutz       12   1.0                            1
29  27T  L.Meyerle     11   1.0                               1
30  27T  B.Hutchison   10   1.0                                  1
31   29  C.Jones        9   1.0                                     1
32  30T  D.Orr          6   1.0                                              1
Dropped out: Silver King (25); Denny Lyons (30T), Bobby Mathews (30T), George
Stovey (32).

 

 

JoeD has the Imperial March Stuck in His Head Posted: July 07, 2003 at 07:09 PM | 22 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
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   1. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 07, 2003 at 07:48 PM (#515249)
Prelim:

1) Ezra Sutton (1)

2) Bid McPhee (n/a): Greatest second baseman of the 19th century. If any AA guys should go in, he should be numero uno. Consistently near the top of the list for second baseman (and did it longer than any of them). Best major league second baseman for 1886.

3) Al Spalding (3)

4) Cal McVey (4)

5) Dickey Pearce (5):

6) Hardy Richardson (6)

7) Joe Start (7)

8) Charlie Bennett (8)

9) Billy Nash (9)

10) Levi Meyerle (10)

11) Jack Clement (11)

12) Ed Williamson (12)

13) Fred Dunlap (13)

14) Lip Pike (14)

15) Pud Galvin (15)

Of the other new guys, Mike Tiernan was slightly better than Sam Thompson but is hurt by his short career (like Big Sam). Ed McKean's defense really drags him down. Bill Lange and Jake Stenzel were terrific players, but they make Tiernan look like Cap Anson in terms of career length.

Bud Fowler is still under consideration.
   2. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 07, 2003 at 08:02 PM (#515250)
Oops! Wrong thread for the prelim. :-)

Underrated: Ezra Sutton.

I'm going to do some more work on him.

Overrated: Amos Rusie.

One of my "quirks" (as Marc aptly pointed out concerning my ballots :-) is I don't include as many pitchers as the rest of the other voters. I actually include about the same amount that Bill James included for his Top 100 list in the NBHA (2 for every 10 players), but this is still less than the rest of you. I know my reasoning may be questionable so I don't get too crazy when I see the glut of pitchers on everybody's ballot.

With that said, if pitchers need to be selected, Spalding, Galvin and Radbourn should have gone in before Rusie. I think Amos is the worst pick so far (knocking out Monte Ward) fairly easily. But what can you do? :-)
   3. Howie Menckel Posted: July 07, 2003 at 08:06 PM (#515251)
Ecch.
   4. Howie Menckel Posted: July 07, 2003 at 08:11 PM (#515252)
I mean '25 years' after their first year, but you get the picture. Rusie got to be admired years before the contemporaries that kicked his butt even are eligible...
   5. Marc Posted: July 07, 2003 at 08:39 PM (#515253)
With all due respect, Rusie can only look like a mistake (much less the biggest mistake yet) to those who do not value peak. Among the pitchers Spalding and Rusie had the highest peaks. All the other 40 and 50 game winning seasons are noteworthy but not as far above the norm as Rusie's best years. I think what we are seeing is a balance of peak and career. Deacon White had no peak, Rusie had a short career.

Week after week I write next to Cal McVey's name that he was clearly, vastly, enormously superior at his peak to Deacon White and I find myself wondering how the heck White went in so easily. In my book, White is a more questionable pick than Rusie.
   6. dan b Posted: July 07, 2003 at 08:53 PM (#515254)
The most undeserving pick is still Barnes.
   7. Howie Menckel Posted: July 07, 2003 at 09:26 PM (#515256)
Excellent rebuttals, all.
   8. Rob Wood Posted: July 07, 2003 at 10:51 PM (#515257)
I did a semi-thorough analysis of Rusie using my personal career value prism. Amos fared very well, leading me to place him high on my ballot. I have always loved strikeouts and Rusie has a boatload of them. I am not in the least concerned about Rusie being a HOM'er. In terms of weak selections, I too think that Ross Barnes is, in many ways, the weakest selection to date.
   9. Sean Gilman Posted: July 08, 2003 at 12:52 AM (#515258)
In the HOM game this year, we force John McGraw's New York Giants to play the American League champion Boston Americans:

http://www.whatifsports.com/mlb/boxscore.asp?GameID=9393693&ad=1

Iron Joe McGinnity vs. Cy Young.
   10. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 08, 2003 at 06:19 AM (#515259)
With all due respect, Rusie can only look like a mistake (much less the biggest mistake yet) to those who do not value peak.

Not exactly. The problem is Rusie's peak was affected by his environment as much as his career value was. WARP3 and Win Shares don't take this into account. The Thunderbolt's peak wouldn't have been as pronounced if he had played with Galvin and Radbourn, IMO.

BTW, I don't think he was a bad pick. I just think he should have waited his turn.

As for Barnes, his peak is just too huge to ignore. Unlike Rusie, he was the player at his position for his time (if not the player - period)!

while Gore may look more and more like a mistake as some of our bubble guys lose their chances in the next 5 years, and we realize we, by electing 4 men in 1898, possibly elected the weakest class.

I think Gore should have waited a little, but just a little. He was a legitimately great player.

Week after week I write next to Cal McVey's name that he was clearly, vastly, enormously superior at his peak to Deacon White and I find myself wondering how the heck White went in so easily.

Hey, I like them both, but White has twice the career of McVey (I'm still not using the western years). BTW, don't you think saying that White had no peak borders on hyberbole?
   11. Rusty Priske Posted: July 08, 2003 at 12:49 PM (#515260)
Most Overrated: Ezra Sutton

Most Underrated: Tony Mullane
   12. Marc Posted: July 08, 2003 at 01:04 PM (#515261)
John, re.

>don't you think saying that White had no peak borders on hyberbole?

Yeah, I suppose it does. My point is that among the best players of all time a PEAK needs to be a little higher than when just comparing contemporaries. In my hyperbolic terms, Rafael Palmeiro has had no peak, eg. Mark McGwire had a peak. A peak is an MVP caliber year or close.
   13. Sean Gilman Posted: July 09, 2003 at 03:06 AM (#515263)
My Own Personal HOM:

Paul Hines
   14. David Nieporent (now, with children) Posted: July 09, 2003 at 06:18 AM (#515264)
Hi. I spent a lot of time reading through the HoM threads, sometimes with a lot of fun, sometimes with the unpleasing sentiment of having lost my time. Nevertheless, I consider it a pleasant (I hope) and useful endeavour.

I hesitated a lot before joining in, because a lot of the voters seem to have an agenda - read: get on a guy's bandwagon and stay on it whether it turns out right (Barnes) or not (Start). I also felt some of the discussions were useless or futile: Williamson VS Sutton for two and a half weeks: for me, it comes down to the following question: does Ken Reitz belong in the Hall of Fame (or Merit)? Well...

Also, some guys are still carrying Meyerles and Pearces on their ballots: in the eyes of outsiders, that takes a lot of credit out of the HoM, IMHO.

Anyway, I finally decided to give it a shot; hope it'll be worth it.

I'll provide you with my prelim as soon as it's ready

P.S. If I need to registrate, please let me know how it can be done.
   15. Sean Gilman Posted: July 09, 2003 at 06:33 AM (#515265)
I don't know if registering in the Yahoo Group is required or not, but here's the address:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HallofMerit/
   16. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 09, 2003 at 07:31 AM (#515266)
I don't know if registering in the Yahoo Group is required or not, but here's the address:

All you have to do is present a ballot for the election thread and give reasons for all choices.
   17. jimd Posted: July 09, 2003 at 03:07 PM (#515267)
Welcome, David. Because you're giving it a shot, I'll guess that the good outweighed the bad. I hope it continues that way for you. Enjoy the trip. I know that I am.
   18. jimd Posted: July 14, 2003 at 03:31 PM (#515270)
Young outdueled McGinnity 4-3. Boston got 3 in the 2nd; Giants tied it in the top of the 8th, but Jimmy Collins doubled with two out in the home half of the 8th, and Parent knocked him in with a ground single into RF.
   19. Sean Gilman Posted: July 16, 2003 at 08:49 AM (#515272)
"hey Sean Gilman who won the HOM game? the box score is not available or found at the site."

I think they must take them away after a few days. . .that's too bad.

and y'all can call me 'Sean'. :)
   20. Marc Posted: July 16, 2003 at 01:19 PM (#515273)
I know, nag, nag, nag. But one of the things that worries me about this HoM project is that we enjoy our
   21. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 16, 2003 at 02:44 PM (#515274)
<i>McPhee (perhaps) goes in with shocking ease
   22. John (You Can Call Me Grandma) Murphy Posted: July 16, 2003 at 02:45 PM (#515275)
I think Big Sam needs to wait a little bit more

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