Baseball
Established in 1936, and currently based in Cooperstown, New York, the Baseball Hall of Fame may be the most prestigious of any Sports Hall of Fame. Although Baseball may have taken a backseat to Football in recent years, there is no doubt that Baseball’s version of the Hall of Fame is by far the most relevant and the most difficult to get enshrined in. At present, a player has to receive seventy five percent of the votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America, which has proven to be no easy task. Failing that, a player could be inducted by the Veterans committee, though few have been inducted this way. Our list will focus on the players only, and although we could easily do a tally focusing on mangers, broadcasters or other vital personnel, as always it is far more enjoyable to discuss the merits of those on the field as oppose to those off of it.Until Then, Let’s get some peanuts and cracker jacks and cast some votes of our own!
Sincerely,
The Not in Hall of Committee.
If you win the Triple Crown in baseball, should you be considered somewhat immortal, right? Well, if you do in the age before film and before Home Runs meant anything, that accomplishment becomes a hidden accolade. In the early days of Baseball, Hines was a hitting machine and actually had more base hits than anyone in the National League from 1875 to 1880. Hines was a two-time Batting Champion and led the league in other offensive categories multiple times. Little has been said about his playing days, but with the recent wave of sabermetrics, a look at Hines reveals a…
What more would Thurman Munson have accomplished had he not been killed in a plane crash on August 2, 1979? We will never know, but prior to his untimely death, Munson’s accomplishments on the diamond were already sizable. Thurman Munson was a leader on the field, in the clubhouse, and everywhere else in life. He broke through in the Majors in 1970 and won the coveted Rookie of the Year, cementing himself as a force to be reckoned with in the catcher’s position for the decade. For a catcher, he hit the ball well and consistently provided a solid Batting…
Hoyt Wilhelm generally receives credit for being the game’s first great reliever. History may eventually show that Wilhelm was not the only prototype for relievers, as Roy Face deserves to be included in that discussion as well. Roy Face was the first pitcher to ever record twenty saves in a season. He would lead the senior circuit in that category three times. Roy Face still holds the record for the highest winning percentage in a season with a whopping .947 (18 wins to 1 loss). Face used his forkball to get Pirate teams out of jam after jam and racked…
It is often the case for various Halls of Fame to discriminate based on the likeability of the candidate. Carl Mays was not necessarily the most liked player in his day, and his brushes with controversy probably pushed Mays on the opposite side of the bubble. Sadly, Carl Mays is not best remembered for his four World Series rings or his 208 career wins. He is best known for a beanball he pitched that killed the Cleveland Indians’ Ray Chapman. Mays was also not the most liked player and was a spitball pitcher (legal at the time) which has not…
Maury Wills did not make the Major Leagues until he was 26 years old yet still managed to rack up over 2,000 hits in his career. What numbers would he have put up if he had cracked a big league roster earlier, and would it have been enough to make him a member of the Hall of Fame? Maury Wills might be known first in any baseball reference guide as the winner of the National League MVP award in 1962, but his real contribution was how he changed the perception of how runs could be scored. Wills was not the…
For over a decade, Mark Buehrle was either considered an ace or a player close to the top of the rotation. Five times, Buehrle was named an All-Star and is a member of the 200 Win club, a mark that is becoming increasingly elusive. A finesse pitcher with a wide arsenal to use, Buehrle’s best season was in 2005, when he finished 5th in Cy Young voting and helped the Chicago White Sox win the World Series. Buehrle was also known for his defensive skills, as he was a four-time All-Star and had a career bWAR of nearly 60.
It seemed like Bobby Bonds was always in someone’s shadow. As a kid breaking into the Giants, he shared an outfield with Willie Mays. In his final years, he remained a talented pro but was relegated to journeyman status, bouncing around the league. He is also Barry’s father. We prefer to think of him as one of the early prototypes of the modern baseball athlete. Bobby Bonds was one of the great leadoff men of all time. He combined power and speed in ways that nobody had before, and in the 1973 season, he was a home run away from…
Considered by baseball historians to be the best Third Baseman of the Deadball Era, Heinie Groh quietly won two World Series Rings, one controversially with the Reds in 1919 and another with the Giants in 1922. It was in Cincinnati that Groh had his best seasons, where he twice led the National League in On Base Percentage and was a hit-and-run machine. He was also considered one of the best defensive players at his position in his era. This has garnered Heinie Groh a second look from a lot of modern baseball pundits, as though his traditional accumulative stats do…
One of the main staples of this website is to discuss the overlooked. We certainly are not the only ones to do this, as other websites and blogs discuss those they feel are Hall of Fame-worthy, but no matter how you slice it, it is hard to find anyone with more HOF credentials who has been completely abandoned than George Van Haltren. A star of the last decade of the 1800’s, Van Haltren was a hitting machine who slapped away at singles like they were mosquitoes. He was constantly in the top ten in multiple Batting categories, and he was…
If you look at the career of Harry Stovey, accumulatively, the offensive statistics seem very good, but not Hall of Fame good. 1,775 Hits, 122 Home Runs, and a .288 Batting Average don't stand out, but another look shows that is not the case at all. Stovey played from 1880 to 1893, an era not known for offensive greatness. Beginning his career with three decent seasons with the Worcester Ruby Legs of the National League, he would join the first incarnation of the Philadelphia Athletics, an inaugural team of the American Association. With Philadelphia, Stovey had four seasons in which he led the…
A master of the changeup, Cole Hamels was in the hunt for an extended period of time as one of the top southpaws in Baseball. Hamels was taken in the First Round of the 2002 Draft (17th Overall) by Philadelphia, and he worked his way to the rotation in 2006 with a decent rookie year (9-8, 4.08 ERA). The southpaw went to his first All-Star Game as a sophomore (15-5. 3.39 ERA) while also securing his first of four top-ten Cy Young finishes. There was no All-Star for Hamels in 2008, but that was likely his most fulfilling season in Baseball. Hamels had another…
What a year 1988 was for Orel Hershiser. He didn’t just win the Cy Young that year, getting better to the point of being unstoppable as the season wound down. He broke Don Drysdale’s consecutive scoreless innings record to end the regular season, then went on to win three games in the postseason (including one save) and propelled the Dodgers to a World Series win, and won the World Series MVP in the process. What a year! Hershiser did not duplicate that year (who could), but he suffered a severe shoulder injury that threatened his career. Hershiser did come back…
While Bobby Abreu is not considered by many to be a Hall of Fame baseball player, the fact remains that he is a very patient hitter with a high On Base Percentage who was a master of working the pitcher’s count. He would finish his career a shade under 60 bWAR and 2,500 Hits and had a much better career than the average baseball fan realized.
Dustin Pedroia debuted in 2006 with the Red Sox two seasons after being drafted in the second round, and it did not take him long to prove that he belonged in the upper tier of American League players. Playing at Second Base, Pedroia was still considered a rookie in 2007, and he would win the Rookie of the Year award with a .317 Batting Average and 165 Hits. That season, he helped the BoSox win the World Series, cementing Pedroia as a nationally known baseball star. Pedroia had an even better 2008, winning the AL MVP, leading the league in…
As much as we keep studying Baseball, we can’t help but be amazed by the staggering amount of innings pitched by the pre-1900 hurlers. Would they look at us with a puzzled look if we went back in time and suggested a “pitch count”? One of those Pitchers we speak of is Charlie Buffinton, who first became a workhorse for the Boston Beaneaters. Throughout his career, Buffinton relied on a particularly effective sinkerball, fanning 1,700 batters and winning 233 games. He also finished with a career WAR of 56.1, which is another impressive career tally. Buffinton retired mid-season in 1892…
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Talk about being forgotten. Darrell Evans is one of the few eligible players to hit more than 400 Home Runs and not get elected to the Hall of Fame. He actually never made it past the first ballot. He only made the All-Star Team twice. He was a great fielder but Mike Schmidt won all the Gold Gloves at third. He won a World Series with Detroit but was overshadowed by Whitaker, Trammell, Morris, and Hernandez. A lot of this may have happened because he had a lifetime Batting Average of .248. Darrell Evans did get a lot of notoriety…
The start of Vada Pinson’s career showed promise of a Hall of Fame career as he was a five-tool baseball player. So just how does a player who had this much promise still compile over 2,700 hits and yet have what was considered a journeyman career? The easy answer may be that Vada Pinson had many very good seasons, but none that could be considered great. He racked up many hits (four times he compiled over 200 in a season), but wasn’t always considered a clutch hitter, as shown when he batted .091 in his lone World Series in 1961. …
Virtually every write-up you will find on Rick Reuschel, you will find the word “portly”. He did have a stocky frame and lived up to his “Big Daddy” nickname, but he was as athletic as they came. Frankly, we think there are better adjectives that should be thought of immediately when you think of Rick Reuschel Reuschel was more than just a good Pitcher. He was a decent fielder (two-time Gold Glove) and was even used as a Pinch Runner on occasion. Of course, it was on the mound where he excelled, as he became one of the stars at…
You would think it would be hard to rank a Pitcher who once lost 20 games in a season on a list for Hall of Fame consideration. Actually, it wasn’t that hard at all. In the year that Jerry Koosman lost twenty games, his stat lines were actually decent. In fact, he led the National League in Strikeouts per Nine Innings that season; however, the run support that he received from his woeful Mets was virtually non-existent. It wasn’t always that way, as he was the lefty half of a powerful combination (with Tom Seaver) that propelled the “Miracle Mets”…