Joe- I agree with your comments on Murphy. I think the challenge is to recall what everyone thought of the player at the time and they veterans on the committee should be able to do that. They should remember that for a period of time, Dale Murphy was the consensus best outfielder in baseball. Yes, he played on bad Braves teams, but he was fantastic.
This is particularly true of guys like Murray, whose career stats seem to scream "longevity without excellence", who never led the league in anything and never won an MVP. But, those of us who were alive know that for a while, Murray carried that mantle of the "most feared hitter in baseball", the guy you did not want to face in the 9th inning with runners on base, they guy they invented the awkward "Game Winning RBI" stat to track his exploits. I think they just need to figure out a way to remember the excellence of their peers and a chunk of these guys will show up as deserving as we remember them to be.
Whitaker is -- and will remain -- the biggest crime here. Just don't get it at all.
But I share your confusion about Murphy. And to a lesser extent Mattingly. Not saying either one should go in (Murph I'm kinda on the fence; Mattingly no), but as anyone old enough to have been a big fan in the 80s recals, these were two of the guys that everyone CREAMED over! And they have the MVPs to back that up. For a random collection of players and execs and media types, all of who were alove and cognizant (and active0 in the 80s to ignore these two fellas is simply bizarre.
Again, I'm not talking about deserving -- deserves got nothin' to do with it -- but simply the dissonance these votes cause.
Great post and I agree with your sense of frustration about the seeming inconsistency of these elections.
I did want to point out that you listed the six contemporaries of Murph's (Brett, Ozzie, Eck, Yount, Murray, Carew) who could have better supported his cause. I look at that list and see that there's only a single NL guy out of the six of them. So really five of those six rarely saw him play at all. They were around but they hardly ever played with him aside from all star games. By the way he was fine, but hardly distinguished himself in his seven all star game appearances (https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/playerpost.php?p=murphda05&ps=asg)
Given that this is a pre-interleague play era, isn't that in itself a major problem, that the committee has six players, five from one league and only one from the other? Or are the low vote totals for Dewey and Whitaker sufficient enough evidence that there's no AL bias at play here?
Your point is well-taken but I think it's always going to be a challenge to get appropriate balance, especially because a lot of players, even in the '70s and '80s, played in both leagues.
Murray and Eckersley both played in the NL, though Murray didn't get there until 1989, after Murphy's last good year. Eckersley was a starter with the Cubs from 1984-86 and faced Murphy 17 times in his career -- Murphy hit .235/.235/.471 against him.
This ballot had a MASSIVE midwest contingent. By my count, four of the six players played the majority of their careers on teams in the Central time zone. Same ratio for the execs - Glass, Melvin, Jocketty, and Ryan. Ringolsby is the only writer to spend solid time there, but fair or not, I tend to credit the writers with doing the most homework on these committees.
I this goes a long way to explaining Simmons, who spent the better part of two decades contemplating Miller vs. Bud.
It's not foolproof - Jocketty spent the 80s in Oakland, for example - but I think these votes are less about how a player looked at the time, and more about how their legend echoes.
Thanks Joe, terrific summary as always. Sweet Lou *sigh* I’ll always feel a bond because when my wife was in the hospital having our first child Lou and his wife were in the next room doing the same. What is it going to take? Or is he forever the charter member in the Hall of Very Very Good? The media - and you - are all believers in the validity of WAR as a true identifier of excellence, but for some reason that same opinion never makes it into the room when it matters most
I'll take Costello, Cheech and Fey.
Joe- I agree with your comments on Murphy. I think the challenge is to recall what everyone thought of the player at the time and they veterans on the committee should be able to do that. They should remember that for a period of time, Dale Murphy was the consensus best outfielder in baseball. Yes, he played on bad Braves teams, but he was fantastic.
This is particularly true of guys like Murray, whose career stats seem to scream "longevity without excellence", who never led the league in anything and never won an MVP. But, those of us who were alive know that for a while, Murray carried that mantle of the "most feared hitter in baseball", the guy you did not want to face in the 9th inning with runners on base, they guy they invented the awkward "Game Winning RBI" stat to track his exploits. I think they just need to figure out a way to remember the excellence of their peers and a chunk of these guys will show up as deserving as we remember them to be.
Whitaker is -- and will remain -- the biggest crime here. Just don't get it at all.
But I share your confusion about Murphy. And to a lesser extent Mattingly. Not saying either one should go in (Murph I'm kinda on the fence; Mattingly no), but as anyone old enough to have been a big fan in the 80s recals, these were two of the guys that everyone CREAMED over! And they have the MVPs to back that up. For a random collection of players and execs and media types, all of who were alove and cognizant (and active0 in the 80s to ignore these two fellas is simply bizarre.
Again, I'm not talking about deserving -- deserves got nothin' to do with it -- but simply the dissonance these votes cause.
Ok, carry on . . .
Ugh, typos. Recalls. Alive. (
(Note(s) to self: coffee in early morning and proofread. Ugh.)
Great post and I agree with your sense of frustration about the seeming inconsistency of these elections.
I did want to point out that you listed the six contemporaries of Murph's (Brett, Ozzie, Eck, Yount, Murray, Carew) who could have better supported his cause. I look at that list and see that there's only a single NL guy out of the six of them. So really five of those six rarely saw him play at all. They were around but they hardly ever played with him aside from all star games. By the way he was fine, but hardly distinguished himself in his seven all star game appearances (https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/playerpost.php?p=murphda05&ps=asg)
Given that this is a pre-interleague play era, isn't that in itself a major problem, that the committee has six players, five from one league and only one from the other? Or are the low vote totals for Dewey and Whitaker sufficient enough evidence that there's no AL bias at play here?
Your point is well-taken but I think it's always going to be a challenge to get appropriate balance, especially because a lot of players, even in the '70s and '80s, played in both leagues.
Murray and Eckersley both played in the NL, though Murray didn't get there until 1989, after Murphy's last good year. Eckersley was a starter with the Cubs from 1984-86 and faced Murphy 17 times in his career -- Murphy hit .235/.235/.471 against him.
In reference to M Miller - is there not an option for him/his representatives to simply decline?
This ballot had a MASSIVE midwest contingent. By my count, four of the six players played the majority of their careers on teams in the Central time zone. Same ratio for the execs - Glass, Melvin, Jocketty, and Ryan. Ringolsby is the only writer to spend solid time there, but fair or not, I tend to credit the writers with doing the most homework on these committees.
I this goes a long way to explaining Simmons, who spent the better part of two decades contemplating Miller vs. Bud.
It's not foolproof - Jocketty spent the 80s in Oakland, for example - but I think these votes are less about how a player looked at the time, and more about how their legend echoes.
Every one of those guys would be a worthy Hall of Famer. Celebrate those who were selected, agitate for those who weren't.
Thanks Joe, terrific summary as always. Sweet Lou *sigh* I’ll always feel a bond because when my wife was in the hospital having our first child Lou and his wife were in the next room doing the same. What is it going to take? Or is he forever the charter member in the Hall of Very Very Good? The media - and you - are all believers in the validity of WAR as a true identifier of excellence, but for some reason that same opinion never makes it into the room when it matters most