Reigniting the Dale Murphy Hall of Fame Debate

How do we factor in popularity and command of the spotlight?

Jay Jaffe comes to mind. I woke up this morning trying to think of all the people in the world who have written more about the Baseball Hall of Fame over the last 30 or so years, and I’d say Jay certainly has. There might be someone else. There have been a few Hall of Fame books that have come out, so I’d bow to those authors.

But I think most people would agree that I’m among the leaders in words spent on the Hall of Fame, and that is simply because I love the place so much.

I didn’t spend even one minute thinking about the Hall of Fame until late Sunday afternoon.

I’ve been trying to figure out why.

Late Sunday afternoon, Brilliant Reader Jay (not Jaffe) sent in an email asking the question, “Was Andruw Jones THAT MUCH better than Dale Murphy?” Jay is one of many Brilliant Readers devoted to the Dale Murphy Hall of Fame cause, so I wasn’t surprised by the question. But I was surprised by the fact that it was Hall of Fame weekend. I had totally forgotten.

How could I just forget that it was Hall of Fame weekend?

Isn’t this a bit like Bruce Springsteen forgetting the words to “Born to Run?”

And then I tried to remember who was being inducted. Obviously, there was Andruw Jones. But there were two more, right? It took me a shamefully long time to remember that the other two were Carlos Beltran and Jeff Kent.

I just finished a book called FIFTY SEASONS (check out that snazzy cover), which means that I have spent the last year or so obsessively thinking about the things that we remember. I call these the 50 individual seasons that echo all these years later, Yaz in ‘67, sure, and Pedro in ‘99, of course, and Brett in 1980, sure, but also Fidrych in ‘76 and Belle in ‘95 and Wilbah in ‘71 and Ol’ Hoss in 1884.

I’ve been thinking about echoes because they are at the very heart of why I love baseball so much. They are at the heart of why I love the Hall of Fame so much. I go to Cooperstown, and I wander around, and I listen for the echoes — of Mays going back on a long fly ball, or Satchel calling in the outfield and then striking out the side, of Musial ducked into his peek-a-boo batting stance, of that cobra strike swing of Mike Schmidt, of what it must have sounded like when one of those tobacco juice soaked baseballs smacked into the tree trunk bat that Honus Wagner swung.

I don’t hear any echoes this year.

I mean, sure, I have powerful memories of all three guys. Heck, I covered Carlos when he was still a scared kid who didn’t think he belonged. I can picture Andruw patrolling center field. I can see Kent at the plate, sort of, though I have to share with you my latest favorite Jeff Kent statistic.

Number of times that Barry Bonds was intentionally walked so teams could face Jeff Kent: 132

Number of times that Jeff Kent was intentionally walked so teams could face Barry Bonds: 0.0.*

*To be fair, Bonds almost always hit third and Kent fourth, but there were times when they were swapped in the order. Anyway, they could have played together for 500 years with Bonds always hitting behind Kent; the number of intentional walks would still be 0.0.

The point is, sure, they were all very fine players. But none of them was ever the best player in baseball. None of them was ever close to the best player in baseball. None of them was ever the face of baseball. None of them was ever close to being the face of baseball. The only MVP in the group was given to Jeff Kent the year teams intentionally walked Barry Bonds 21 times to face him, and Todd Helton had an OPS 140 points higher. The only World Series they won was at the end, when a 40-year-old Carlos Beltrán won it with the Astros, a World Series marred by a sign-stealing scandal that he was apparently at the very center of.

This is not to say that they don’t belong in the Hall of Fame. Heck, I voted for two of them, and Kent was elected by the Veterans Committee. They’ve all had worthy careers.

No, I’m saying that I’m just not excited about them getting in. They are not legends. Their plaques will not be surrounded by fans and their iPhones. They do not represent the time when they played.

They simply do not echo. At least not for me.

Which takes us back to Jay’s question: Was Andruw Jones that much better a player than Dale Murphy? WAR would say yes — Andruw’s combo WAR is 65 and the Murph’s is 45, and 20 wins is a HUGE difference, right?

But who echoes louder? Is that even a question? Dale was widely regarded as the best player in baseball … or at least he was in the photo. He was idolized by the entire South and countless more people around the country. Pat Conroy would write about him in his novels. He was on the cover of magazines. He was the leading vote-getter for All-Star Games (Jones never started one). He won multiple MVPs. He got bags and bags of fan mail. He was SI Sportsman of the Year. He won the Roberto Clemente Award and the Lou Gehrig Award, and he once reluctantly promised to hit a home run for a six-year-old girl in the hospital and then hit two.

I guess in the end, this year’s Hall of Fame voting is the latest chapter in a continuing saga that, if I’m being honest, I helped write: It has become a WAR game. And look, I’m all for the most productive players to be elected to the Hall of Fame, I have been fighting that battle for 25 years. I want Dwight Evans in the Hall of Fame. I want Lou Whitaker in the Hall of Fame. I want Bobby Grich in the Hall of Fame. My cases for them are statistical. They were high WAR players.

But I don’t think Hall of Fame cases should start and end there. Who changed the game? Who symbolized the time? When you were sitting in the stands or watching closely on TV, who made you think, “I am watching one of the greatest to ever play this game?”

Murph made me think that. Honestly, Don Mattingly made me think that. For a time, Johan Santana made me think that. Of course, Bonds and Clemens and McGwire and Sosa and ARod and MannyBManny made me think that too, but they’re in a different kind of limbo.

I guess I didn’t get excited about this year’s Hall of Fame because, as good as they were, none of those players made me think that.