TOWER GROVE — When baseball anthropologists exhume this point in history, carbon dating will show the steroid era transitioning into the straw-poll era.
It’s already started.
Before anyone could finish the second 100 pages of former Senator George Mitchell’s massive volume, reporters were cold-calling their peers for thoughts on the Hall of Fame voting. ESPN.com had a rundown on thoughts from voters, and its poll concluded that Roger Clemens – whose Cooperstown-bound career takes the Mitchell report like a clean shot to the … well, you know — would get only 36 percent of the vote with a hearty 40 percent undecided. Only Mark McGwire knows the math better: For every vote against his Hall cred, Clemens needs three votes for to gain induction.
San Francisco columnist Ray Ratto has always said it best: The National Baseball Hall of Fame isn’t a church. And, Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller told The Associated Press that he has a suggestion:
“You know what I think?” the renowned right-hander said. “I think there should be two Hall of Fames. One for drug losers and one for non-drug losers.”
I have not put in enough time to be a Hall of Fame voter, and I look at that right as not only a tremendous honor but a responsibility. My feelings on these players are different than other baseball writers, but they have a vote and I don’t so that’s that. Yet, before these steroid-dipped sluggers and hurlers with their questionable numbers and tarnished legacies reach Cooperstown, here are nine players who should get their first.
THE LINEUP: The Non-Muddied Nine
Or, nine players who should go into the National Baseball Hall of Fame before any of the uncertain stars of the steroid era do.
His absence from Cooperstown confounds me. Hall of Fame writer Leonard Koppett wrote that Gordon was “the most acrobatic second baseman of his or any other day.” He’s a nine-time All-Star who won four World Series titles with the New York Yankees. That team manufactured Hall of Famers, yet Gordon has yet to gain admittance. Possibly because his death came before a real strong movement could be hatched to get him into the Hall. In addition to being superb defensively, he hit, too. He averaged 26 home runs and 101 RBIs per season over 11 seasons. In 1942, he trumped Ted Williams and won the MVP. Oh, and in case you want to dismiss his titles as a Bronx mirage: He went to Cleveland in 1948, hit 32 homers, drove in 124 runs and took the Indians to the title. He’s the very definition of Hall of Famer. Tell me you don’t look at those names listed as comparisons on his Baseball-Reference.com page (linked above) and groan a little …
The new bench coach for the Milwaukee Brewers and his Cooperstown qualifications are well-known around these parts. So simply, I’ll borrow from Bill James’ book, Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? Simmons is mentioned in the same company as Cap Anson, Stan Musial, Ty Cobb, George Brett and Honus Wagner. They all had the most hits at their position. Simmons did too, with 2,472. (He also had more doubles than any catcher.) They are all in the Hall of Fame. Simmons should be too.
In 1993, Murphy signed with the Colorado Rockies needing two home runs to reach the mystic 400-homer milestone. He left Colorado to retire still needing those two. The book Leveling the Field – a fascinating attempt to equalize statistics as if players were swinging in the same conditions — pegs Murphy’s adjusted HR total to 504, if he was playing under modern conditions. His bronze would be up already. It’s difficult to know if those two homers is what’s keeping him out of the Hall of Fame, but he’s one of only two Hall-eligible players to have won two MVPs and not be in Cooperstown. (The other is mentioned later.) Murphy won five Gold Glove and was unanimously regarded as one of the finest fielders — if not the finest players — of his era. Moreover, his reputation as a player is only surpassed by his reputation as a person. He was a gentleman ballplayer. Murphy sounded off on the Mitchell Report today, and in response to a epidemic of PEDs he said he didn’t speak out about as a player, he founded “I Won’t Cheat” to stress to young athletes that it’s not only dangerous to use steroids but ethically wrong. Enough said.
(Ed. note: If you’re interested in more from Leveling the Field, I can work up a blog on it. Reggie Jackson, for example, would have 729 career homers. Maury Wills stole 180 bases in 1962.)
Like Murphy and Jim Rice, Dawson fits the Hall criteria for many voters: He was the best at his position, or even the best in the game, for a stretch of his career. Toiling in Montreal, Dawson was a three-time All-Star and a three-time Silver Slugger winner for the Expos. Twice as an Expo he finished second in the MVP voting, and he was a top-10 finisher three times while in Montreal. When he found the national spotlight finally as a Cub, all he did was win an MVP for a sixth-place team. He had eight gold gloves, 438 homers and 1,591 RBIs. The only players with more RBIs than Dawson are either already in the Hall, still active, Harold Baines or Rafael Palmeiro.
Sure the fact he was born in St. Louis helps get him on this list (he moved when he was 8), but have you ever looked at his numbers? No, really looked. He and Jimmy Ryan are the only players to rank in the top 35 for career runs scored and not be in the Hall of Fame. “Rip” had a career batting average of .316 to go with 1,639 runs, 2,532 hits and 583 stolen bases. The best argument against his Hall call is that he only lead the league in a significant category once, when he stole 45 bases in 1900. Again, we can got back to Leveling the Field to see that Van Haltren would have been a high dollar player in his day — averaging $12.6 million salary and scoring 99 runs a year to go with his .311 average. Don’t buy that statistical voodoo? Check his comparables according to Baseball-Reference.com: Eight of the 10 are already in the Hall, and a ninth (Ryan) probably should be as well.
No need to belabor his absence from Cooperstown. He’s the class of this year’s ballot and almost certain election. The going belief is that Bruce Sutter opened the door for closers to get into the Hall of Fame and Gossage would be shortly behind him through the opening. The first-ballot anointment of Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn is the only thing that could delay the elite reliever who had 310 career saves and will probably start signing his name with an HOF ‘08 in the near future. Consider what Daily News baseball scribe Bill Madden wrote recently:
With 71.2% of the vote last year, the highest percentage of anyone not elected, Gossage - who was as dominant and fearsome as any closer ever - can be heartened by the fact that no candidate has ever received 70% and not been elected the next year.
7. MARVIN MILLER
As many reports around the country pointed out that the first time the late Bowie Kuhn defeated Marvin Miller was the last time they met as rivals — on the Hall of Fame ballot. Kuhn was recently elected to Cooperstown by a vote of the new veterans committee, yet Miller, who changed baseball forever, did not receive enough votes. Current union chief Don Fehr released a statement that said the vote was unfortunate and the Hall is “poorer for it”. He said:
“Over the entire scope of the last half of the 20th century, no other individual had as much influence on the game of baseball as did Marvin Miller, because he was the players’ voice, and represented them vigorously, Marvin Miller was the owners’ adversary. This time around, a majority of those voting were owner representatives, and results of the vote demonstrate the effect that had.”
Miller told Curt Flood he didn’t have a chance to save his career, but he could save others. Miller went with Flood to the fateful players’ meeting when Flood suggested he reject the trade and fight for free agency. Miller shepherded that future into reality. He even wrote a book about his time at the head of the union and put the perfect title for how he left the sport: A Whole Different Ball Game. Author John Helyar, whose book Lords of the Realm is a must-read, had this scathing article about the lack of votes for Miller. Miller himself had a fitting response, according to AP: “That figures.”
A sketch of him is over my desk here, so take this for what’s it worth. Jackson has the numbers (only two players have a higher career average) and the legendary career to be in the Hall. Old news. What the Mitchell Report has reminded all of us is this: Jackson and the other Black Sox have a “lifetime ban” — that’s what mars their place in history. Their names aren’t immortal, their punishment is. Can we say the same thing for players in the steroid era? Ninety years from now, will the Mitchell Report or BALCO or McGwire’s St. Patrick’s Day Clam-Up carry the same permanence as Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis’ lifetime ban of “Shoeless” Joe? Jackson will still be banned. What will Barry Bonds be?
The Hall of Fame is not run by Major League Baseball. It cooperates with MLB. It cherishes its affiliation with MLB. But it is not governed by or beholden to MLB. It chooses its voters, just like it chooses how it honors players. Jackson belongs in. Just as Landis’ unilateral ruling to ban him belongs on the plaque right by his stats.
Like Murphy, Maris has two MVPs and is not in the Hall of Fame. All of the others player with two or more MVPs are active or Juan Gonzalez. Tell me that the last three years of coverage of the last 10 years of baseball have not forever altered your view of that home run record. It took the entire history of major-league baseball up to the year 1961 for someone to hit 61 home runs in a season, any season. From 1998 until 2001, it happened six times. Sammy Sosa did it three times — yet he never led the league in homers in any of those three seasons.
Sen. Jim Bunning called for the record books to be rewritten. Kuhn told me in spring 2006 that Bud Selig should break out the red pencil and hack away at the stats from this era. All that seems a little extreme and messy. In this jumbled hamper, how do you determine the dirty numbers from the clean? No, the best thing to happen is for there to be an asterisk beside Maris’ name in the record books. At the bottom of the page it should read:
* Hall of Famer.
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Kris Benson is scheduled to throw today in Phoenix for scouts from about a dozen teams, according to various report. The Cardinals plan to have a scout (Marty Keough) on hand to see the free-agent pitcher. Benson missed the 2007 season because of a torn labrum that has been surgically repaired.
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What I learned from the Mitchell Report, I already knew: Ken Griffey Jr. is one heckuva of a player.
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