Oh, wait a minute ... He actually did that once. LMAO.
Posted on 01/08/2017 1:40:03 PM PST by EveningStar
By the way,
Jack Dempsey was a centerfielder
Bronco Nagurski was second baseman
and Joe DiMaggio was a halfback.
He was an impressive athlete and probably had all the tools to be one of the greatest outfielders of all time, but he simply wasn't durable enough to put up the kind of numbers you'd expect from a Hall of Famer. He played 21 years, but only managed to play in 150 or more games something like six times.
Dawson himself once suggested that he would have been better off if he played on grass over his entire career instead of playing in Montreal. It's probably know coincidence that he had the best year of his career in 1987, his MVP season that was his first year playing in Chicago.
I think Rizzuto is best known for being on Meatloaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light. (I knew him for be a Yankee announcer.)
We knew him in Florida for his “The Money Store” commercials.
Oh, wait a minute ... He actually did that once. LMAO.
Cal Ripken is probably one of the toughest ballplayers to assess in these discussions. He switched from shortstop to third base later in his career, but he probably would have been a better third baseman all along. He was very much an unconventional shortstop for his time -- tall, limited range, good power numbers at the plate, etc.
Ozzie Smith could cover two acres in his early to mid 80s prime. Sure, he had zero power but he could get on base and move the runner to second as one of the best bunters of his era. I don’t question his presence at all.
Jim Rice had a great year in 1978 and hit a lot of long home runs over the Green Monster. His defense was average at best and he struck out way too much, as sluggers tend to do. He does not belong in Cooperstown in my opinion.
Ditto Bruce Sutter, some good years and a couple of near-great years coming out of the bullpen but his control got away from him and he hung around too long playing mediocre ball for mediocre teams. It’s a toss up here.
No joke! Not all hall of famers have to hit .300 lifetime, great fielders get there too, just like pitchers!
Retracting my Sutter comments. Actually his shoulder got away from him and he languished with the awful Atlanta Braves towards the end of the decade.
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Hard to take seriously a baseball pundit who doesn’t know that Phil Rizzutto was a shortstop.
I agree with him on 3 of the 5, but I think the case can be made fairly strongly for Jim Rice based upon his prime seasons.
I played college ball, and played shortstop, second and third off and on, not at Ozzie’s level, however!
Cardinals fan still, and he was an inspiration. He also was criticized for having some errors, but most were balls nobody else would have touched a glove on.
Also, Ozzie Smith was so extraordinary on defense that a solid case can be made. Defense should not just be an asterisk, although it is harder to compare players. But Ozzie Smith deserves the term “great”....
Angels fan here but I can appreciate a good player no matter which team he plays for.
“Luis Aparicio ... now there was a Shortstop!”
Dave Concepcion from Cincy was a great shortstop.
We would go to the Feller museum when he was alive and he would tell my now 20 year old son stories about having a steak dinner with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth.
He also told us that there were a lot of players who didn’t belong but he refused to name names. One I’v heard mentioned is Hal Newhouser. At least with baseball, it has the appearance of rarity compared with football.
The metrics for pitchers eligibility are changing. Three hundred wins was the magic number for automatic induction, just as 3000 hits is the magic number for hitters. However, there isn’t a single pitcher in the majors right now who will get 300 wins, and there won’t be very many from now on. The closer has become just as important, and based on that, I have no problem with Bruce Sutter’s induction.
I have always felt that it is better for the HOF to leave out a qualified player than to admit someone who doesn’t belong. I also don’t like the base-lining that many do for the HOF. Voting someone in because he has similar statistics to someone who is already in has the possibility of compounding an earlier error. The HOF is for great players, not the really good ones. Some really good players should be kept out in order to keep the standards high.
I say Sutter belongs because he changed the game. He introduced, or at least was the first master. of the split fingered fastball. His first few years he was unhittable.
One of my favorites when I was a kid.
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