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.
Virtually every write-up you will find on Rick Reuschel you 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
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”…
It is strange to say that Willie Randolph played in a bit of a shadow as he was a long-time Yankee but that is somewhat true. He was in the shadow of other more flamboyant New York stars, and his strong defensive play never got him a Gold Glove as he played at the same time as Lou Whitaker or Frank White. Hell, even his current Coaching career seems to overshadow his accomplishments on the diamond. It shouldn’t though as Willie Randolph was a very good ballplayer.
Bartolo Colon was a rotund individual, but pound for pound he was one of the most charismatic players in baseball, and doesn’t that say something?
How is it possible to hit .361 and hit 41 home runs without anyone noticing? The answer is to perform that incredible feat the same year that Roger Maris hit 61 Home Runs.
Seriously, is this not the coolest name on this list? Just that name alone would make him a star in any era. Make no mistake, Shocker was a star, but as his best years were with the St. Louis Browns, he was often not in the spotlight despite having dominating seasons in the early 1920s.
The baseball historians have been batting a kind eye to Jack Glasscock, who many have regarded as the best defensive infielder of the 1880s.
One of the more consistent hitters in his era, Carlos Delgado was only named to two All Star teams due to the glut of top tiered First Basemen in his time. He had great power numbers (473 Home Runs and 1,512 Runs Batted In) and had a very good career OPS of .929 which sound like Hall of Fame numbers, but his career WAR of 44.3 while although good, is not on par with a lot of the current players they are looking at.
Mickey Lolich spent most of his career with the Detroit Tigers, where he was a proven starter for a dozen seasons in Motown.
Playing all but one game of his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Babe Adams was one of the best control Pitchers of his day.
We are going way back for this one, as the career of Tommy Bond began in 1874, where he became the first Irish born baseball player to be a professional.
Nobody shot out of the gate quicker than Fred Lynn, as he made history when in 1975, he became the first player in Major League history to win the Rookie of the Year and the MVP in the same season. As the other one who accomplished that feat was Ichiro Suzuki, who was already an established veteran of the Japanese Leagues, this is a beyond spectacular achievement.
Playing his entire career with the New York Mets, David Wright would become one of the better Third Baseman in his time in baseball.
Don Newcombe was more than a great Pitcher, as he was a trailblazer in terms of African Americans in baseball.
There was a time that Dwight Gooden was the best Pitcher in baseball, but as we know, drug use rendered him a shell of what he was well before his time. One of the incredible things about his career, though, was how long he played and remained a serviceable hurler.
Torii Hunter had an excellent career, and the man they dubbed "Spider-Man" was a SportsCenter highlight reel with his acrobat catches. Hunter would win 9 Gold Gloves and was also decent with his bat, earning a pair of Silver Sluggers.
How many times is an athlete described as “small in stature but big in heart”? This analogy has been used more times than we can determine but far too often but it was an accurate assessment when describing the turn of the century ballplayer, Tommy Leach.
There are many people who think of John Olerud only as the guy who wore a batting helmet in the field, which he did so to protect his skull as (he had a brain aneurysm as a teenager. He was undoubtedly a lot more than that!