Posted on 01/07/2010 12:11:03 PM PST by BluesDuke
The greatest second baseman ever to play the game who isn't named Joe Morgan pulled up eight votes shy of making the Hall of Fame this year. And while Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is far from the only one who is not amused, there are those---Dave Perkins of the Toronto Star is one---who say calm down, relax, Roberto Alomar isn't even close to the only no-questions-asked great who didn't make it in year one.
Calm down and relax because Joe DiMaggio did not get into the Hall of Fame in his first year's eligibility. The Clipper needed four years. (Believe it or not.) So did Rogers Hornsby, Robin Roberts, and Early Wynn. Calm down and relax because Lefty Grove, arguably the greatest pitcher who ever lived, perhaps pending the final assessment of Randy Johnson's career, needed three years to get in, and so did Grover Cleveland Alexander, Carl Hubbell, Ferguson Jenkins, and Juan Marichal. Calm down and relax because Yogi Berra (the greatest catcher of all time by just a few hairs), Whitey Ford, Nap Lajoie, and Tris Speaker needed two. Calm down and relax because, of the nineteen second basemen in the Hall of Fame, only three of them got in on the first try and, what the hey, it is no disgrace that you weren't quite enough to join Jackie Robinson (a very unique case in and of himself, also a multiposition player, but a player who would have been a Hall of Famer even if he was white), have been a Hall of Famer regardless), Joe Morgan, and Rod Carew.
Calm down and say bull.
It certainly is a disgrace that Joe DiMaggio needed four years to make the Hall of Fame, or that Robin Roberts needed likewise. It certainly is a disgrace that Lefty Grove and Juan Marichal needed three. It certainly is a disgrace that Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, and Tris Speaker needed two and, by the way, in a bigger disgrace, so did Willie Mays.
One of the two greatest second basemen ever to play the game pulled up third in the voting behind a debatable (at best) Hall of Famer (Dawson) and a career-value Hall of Famer (Blyleven) whose greatness took time to conjugate properly. If you can think of any decent reason why Roberto Alomar should have played third to that, you will have a willing audience, but it does not bind me to concur. Rosenthal can think of a few reasons. One is that there are those in the Baseball Writers Association of America who refuse to vote "on principle" for a player in his first year's eligibility. "I just doubt," Rosenthal writes, "that all 143 voters who declined to check Alomar's name adhered to a strict first ballot philosophy." It would be one thing if you did not believe a player was that obviously a Hall of Famer, but I find it a little impossible to believe myself that 143 writers didn't believe Roberto Alomar was that obviously a Hall of Famer.
My guess from the moment the results were announced is that the Hirschbeck incident plus Alomar's sad final three seasons played heavily enough into those votes. And if it did, those voters ought to be stripped of their voting rights. John Hirschbeck himself said in plenty of time for the voting that the incident shouldn't be held against Alomar, that it would be a disgrace to deny him the Hall of Fame over one out-of-character incident; I have said the same thing since Alomar retired, and I said so again after Hirschbeck spoke up. And Hirschbeck has spoken up again, saying the same thing to reporters the day the results were announced, which is a day after he spoke to Alomar to wish him luck in the voting.
As for Alomar's final three seasons, nobody including Alomar himself seemed to know the cause of that striking decline, though it left him frustrated often enough, sometimes embittered. His was hardly the most embarrassing career decline anyone has ever seen. There were probably those who accounted likewise when considering Willie Mays in his first year’s Hall of Fame eligibility and, in fairness, Mays probably should have retired about three or four years before he finally did. But that was no excuse to deny Mays in his first year, and it should not have been an excuse to deny Alomar.
Tracy Ringolsby, also for Fox Sports, makes one point: Between 1936, when the first Hall class was enshrined, and 1962, when Jackie Robinson made it on his first try, the number of Hall of Famers who got in on their first try (these included Joe DiMaggio and Bob Feller) was zero. "The voters, after all, were trying to make up for all the years before the Hall of Fame opened," he writes, "as well as keeping up with the newly eligibles each time they voted." Fair enough. "By now, however," Ringolsby continues, "it would seem that the oversights have been dealt with and first-time election would be the standard operating procedure. It isn't." Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald is not quite that kind: "We botched it. There's no other way to say it. We botched it."
Everyone in baseball seems to know it, apparently. Everyone except for 143 writers whose credibility should be challenged here and now.
The definition of irony would be the umpire Alomar spit on having the deciding vote as to whether he makes it into the hall of fame.
Another rumor/lawsuit is that he has full blown aids. No doubt his off field behavior might be contributory. Plus the fact that he was washed up by age 34.
But you raise an interesting corollary point: No umpires vote for the Hall of Fame. And you would think this is wrong, considering that umpires---for all their flaws---see at least as much of the greatest players as anyone else watching the game. Why shouldn't a John Hirschbeck (who's normally considered one of the best in the business in his own right) have a Hall of Fame vote?
For that matter, it would amaze you to know who else doesn't get to vote for the Hall of Fame. Why shouldn't Vin Scully have a vote? Why shouldn't Tim McCarver or other broadcasters who watch these teams day in, day out have a vote? Why shouldn't Bill James, whose analytical methods and approaches have revolutionised the way baseball is viewed and reviewed, have a Hall of Fame vote? Why shouldn't baseball's managers, incumbent and emeritus, have a vote? Why shouldn't writers such as Roger Angell (don't make the mistake of calling him baseball's Homer; Homer was ancient Greece's Roger Angell) who merely write for magazines without having had a daily baseball beat but who know probably more about the game than an awful lot of beat writers (how bright could the beat boys and girls have been if they could snub Alomar) have a vote? Why shouldn't George F. Will have a vote?
I don't mean to say that the franchise should go to every last human on the planet, and I sure wouldn't want to see the fans getting a Hall of Fame vote (considering what the fan vote has done to the All-Star Game I'd trust a fan vote about as far as I'd trust the federal government), but there should be more than just the Baseball Writers Association of America---whose membership rule is that you have to have covered a team daily, which leaves out too many who are at least as qualified to write about baseball---having a Hall of Fame vote.
Alomar will get in eventually — along with fellow second basemen Craig Biggio and Jeff Kent. Probably next year for Alomar — the only other real contenders on the ballot next year are Burt Blyleven (who shouldn’t get in at all) and Jeff Bagwell (who will get in, but likely not until 2012).
SnakeDoc
1. Hornsby
2. Collins
3. Lajoie
4. Gehringer
5. Morgan
6. Sandberg
7. Alomar
8. Robinson
9. Frisch
10. Carew
Does Kent make that list? Not sure. Does Biggio? I don't think so. But Kent, definitely, and Biggio, probably, will be HOF material when they become eligible. Alomar gets in next year, easily, no question.
Were Whitaker and Grich too soon dismissed from HOF consideration? Probably.
Right now, Utley is the best in baseball.
Another rumor/lawsuit is that he has full blown aids.Would you really like to see a Hall of Fame vote based upon a rumour or a lawsuit?
No doubt his off field behavior might be contributory.His off-field behaviour? Alomar was considered one of the class acts of baseball off the field. In the clubhouse, well, let's put it this way: When Alomar became a Cleveland Indian, John Hirschbeck's umpiring crew came to Jacob Fields to work a series and Hirschbeck, who'd become friendly with the stadium's clubhouse manager, couldn't stand it anymore: what, he asked the clubhouse manager, was Roberto Alomar really like.
"He's one of the two nicest people I've ever met here," the clubhouse manager replied. "And you're the other one."
That, by the way, was what provoked Hirschbeck and Alomar to go beyond the apology Alomar gave the season after the infamous incident. The two men patched it up and became friends. More than friends. Guess who hit the ground running for the foundation Hirschbeck's family established to raise money to fight the rare brain disease that killed Hirschbeck's young son.
Plus the fact that he was washed up by age 34.As if what he achieved before he was thirty-four suddenly becomes irrelevant? Granting the minimum ten-season eligibility to Cooperstown canonisation, the salient point is that the quality of your career counts. It doesn't say, "You have to have played past thirty-four without a career decline." (If it did, Dizzy Dean, Sandy Koufax, and Kirby Puckett wouldn't be Hall of Famers, and Joe DiMaggio would be a squeaker candidate.)
Alomar will get in eventually — along with fellow second basemen Craig Biggio and Jeff Kent. Probably next year for Alomar — the only other real contenders on the ballot next year are Burt Blyleven (who shouldn’t get in at all) and Jeff Bagwell (who will get in, but likely not until 2012).My call is Alomar gets in next year. I'm willing to bet Bert Blyleven will get in next year, and he does deserve the honour. (He's a career-value Hall of Famer; as a matter of fact, he meets the criteria conjugated by Bill James as an average Hall of Famer by meeting 50 of the Hall of Fame Standards for pitchers where the average Hall of Famer meets . . . 50. On the Jamesian Hall of Fame pitching monitor, the average Hall of Fame pitcher scores 100. Blyleven scores 120.)
I think Biggio and Kent will get in, too, though I'm almost willing to bet Biggio will go in first only because Kent has a lot lower reputation for character than a lot of candidates will bring to the table.
Eh? The dude had 60 shutouts. Thats more than Mike Mussina's number of complete games. Blyleven played for crappy teams often but still had almost 300 wins.
Blyleven deserves it more than Alomar, IMO.
In all seriousness (my first post WAS a joke) it does not surprise me to hear that Mr. Hirschbeck supports Alomar.
And I agree with you that ceratin umpires should be allowed to vote on the Hall of Fame. They are, after all closer to the game than anyone other than the players themselves.
Perhaps it would also be appropriate for the Hall of Fame to develop an application/resume process (to be reviewed by the Veteran’s Committee?) by which well-credentialed “others” could apply to get a Hall of Fame (this would allow interested parties like the Scullys, Jameses and Wills of the world to have a crack at getting a “vote”).
I am a baseball fan- I am also a baseball purist. So I will tell you straight-up: I don't care how good Alomar was. He was also a classless POS. Players who spit on umpires and insult their families don't deserve to be in the hall of fame.
You may disagree. If so, I expect you to start lobbying for Pete Rose this very second.
Charles,
In defense of Biggio,
let me say, that he played the game.
Shut his mouth,
Didn’t get in trouble.
Was a credit to his team and the sport.
Was far above average.
And left the game better than when her arrived.
Unlike so very many others in the hall.
JMO
Listen, I saw him play in Baltimore and he was great, but the HOF is about being great for a long time. . In any event, he'll get in eventually, IMO.
I said I think Biggio will probably make the Hall. I just wouldn’t put him in the top TEN at 2b, that’s all. There are more than ten in the Hall.
Outstanding post. Wonderful points, all well taken.
Ryne Sandberg is an intriguing case. There's no question but what he's a Hall of Famer, but I wonder what his statistics would resemble if the Cubs had bothered themselves to bat him where his skill set should have had him batting. How many more runs batted in would he have nailed if he'd been batting third or cleanup, for which he clearly had the skills? How many more runs produced or runs created? The same question, by the way, could be applied to Mark Grace---who clearly had the skills of a number-two hitter, and who probably would have posted Hall of Fame-worthy statistics if he had been batted according to his skill set.
Easy enough. The Cubs weren't willing to think outside the proverbial box, and they batted each man according to his field position and its supposed lineup concurrency, and not according to each man's actual batting skills. And because they weren't willing to think outside the proverbial box, on that and on so many other matters, they kept Ryne Sandberg from putting up a more complete statistical accounting of his no-questions-asked greatness (and may have kept themselves from winning quite a few more games in the bargain) and Mark Grace from putting up a Hall of Fame case, period.
Rod Carew I'm not sure about. I can never decide whether he's overrated thanks to those gaudy batting averages, and he wasn't as sharp with the glove as his reputation. But he does belong in the discussion of the top ten.
Were Whitaker and Grich too soon dismissed from HOF consideration? Probably.
Bobby Grich may have been hurt the same way Mark Grace was. Lou Whitaker will probably end up getting in by way of the Veterans Committee in due course, though I think I know of one thing that might have hurt him with the baseball writers: he was damn fool enough, during the 1994 strike, to show up for a bargaining session in a stretch limousine. At a time when the writers were already blind enough not to recognise the real issue in that strike---that the owners pushed for it by trying to jam down the players' throat proposals that the players had already rejected, several times over, before the expiration of that bargaining agreement---and to slam the players accordingly, a player showing up for a barganining session in a stretch limousine was probably not the smartest move one could make. (Even Jack Morris---who showed up for a meeting with the Minnesota Twins in an expensive fur winter coat, during the earlier collusion years, when he ended up being forced back to Detroit when nobody else would sign him---wasn't that stupid.)
Chase Utley's on the Hall of Fame track, no questions asked. Whether he'll shake out as having been better than Morgan or Alomar is anyone's guess, but right now he's the best second baseman in baseball.
Blyleven was slightly above average for a long time. He was never even regarded as great when he was playing. He’s good — but not HOF material.
Alomar is likely the best all around 2nd baseman since Sandberg. Kent is a better hitter, and Biggio is in the ballpark as well — but Alomar likely gets the nod. Blyleven wasn’t even considered among the best pitchers in the game when he was playing.
SnakeDoc
Spitting on an umpire and then mocking said umpire's family difficulties might have something to do with it. I am a baseball fan- I am also a baseball purist. So I will tell you straight-up: I don't care how good Alomar was. He was also a classless POS. Players who spit on umpires and insult their families don't deserve to be in the hall of fame.
I refer you to what I wrote in late November, when Hirschbeck spoke up for Alomar as the Hall of Fame balloting began. I don't excuse Alomar but I think you ought to see the full story.
You may disagree. If so, I expect you to start lobbying for Pete Rose this very second.There is no comparison between Roberto Alomar, who was jobbed over one out-of-character incident, and Pete Rose. My views on Rose are on the record, by the way . . .
He had an awesome curve ball that looked like it rolled off a table. He was fun to watch.
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