Posted on 01/10/2006 11:09:01 AM PST by commish
Edited on 01/10/2006 12:59:51 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
NEW YORK -- Bruce Sutter was elected to the Hall of Fame on Tuesday, just the fourth relief pitcher given baseball's highest honor.
Sutter, the first pitcher elected to the Hall with no career starts, was listed on 76.9 percent of the ballots cast by 10-year members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America. The split-finger pioneer collected 400 of a record 520 ballots.
"It was the call you always hope for, but you never really expect it to happen," Sutter said, adding that he cried when he received the notification. "I can't tell you what in means to me, in words."
Players needed 390 votes (75 percent) to gain election. Boston Red Sox slugger Jim Rice fell 53 short, finishing second with 337 votes (64.8 percent), one ahead of reliever Goose Gossage.
Sutter was on the ballot for the 13th time, the first player elected so late since Ralph Kiner in 1975. Rice was appearing for the 12th time and has three years remaining on the writers' ballot. Gossage was on the ballot for the seventh time.
It might be difficult for Rice and Gossage to gain votes next year, when Cal Ripken Jr., Tony Gwynn and Mark McGwire appear on the ballot for the first time. Each voter may select up to 10 players.
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| Bruce Sutter during his pre-beard, 1979 days with the Cubs. (AP) |
Andre Dawson was fourth with 317 votes, followed by Bert Blyleven (277), Lee Smith (234), Jack Morris (214), Tommy John (154) and Steve Garvey (135).
Pete Rose, baseball's banned career hits leader, received 10 write-in votes in what would have been his final year of eligibility. Stricken from the ballot after going on the banned list for betting on Cincinnati while managing the team, Rose was written in on 249 of 7,207 ballots (3.5 percent) over 15 years.
Sutter was a six-time All-Star and the 1979 NL Cy Young Award winner, compiling 300 saves during a 12-season major career with the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis and Atlanta. He is 19th on the career saves list.
Sutter said fellow relievers Gossage and Smith also should be in the Hall.
"I just think sometimes the voters try to compare us with the starting pitchers," he said. "Without us, it's tough to win."
When he first appeared on the ballot in 1994, Sutter received 109 votes (23.9 percent). His percentage rose to 66.7 last year, when Wade Boggs and Ryne Sandberg were elected and Sutter fell 43 votes short.
Rice's percentage increased to 64.8 from 59.5 last year, and Gossage's rose to 64.6 from 55.2, which bodes well for the pair. The highest percentage of votes gained by a player who wasn't elected in a later year was 63.4 by Gil Hodges in 1983, his final time of the ballot.
Albert Belle received 40 votes (7.7 percent) and was the only player among the 14 first-time candidates to receive 5 percent, meaning he will remain on the ballot next year. Among those dropped were Will Clark (23 votes), Dwight Gooden (17), Willie McGee (12) and Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen (5).
Sutter will be inducted into the Hall during ceremonies on July 30 in Cooperstown, N.Y. The Veterans Committee doesn't vote this year, but a special Negro leagues and pre-Negro leagues selection committee meets Feb. 27 in Tampa, Fla. AP NEWS
The Associated Press News Service
But journalists never carry grudges. They've said so.
Good question. it will be interesting to see which team Sutter picks. His best Year was with St. Louis, but I wouldn't bet against Bruce Going in as a Cubbie.
Barry Bonds is a good example of this type of case. Writers can't stand the man, and probably wish he had never been born, but any writer that does not vote for Bonds first ballot is an idiot.
Blyleven should be a no-brainer. I don't get it.
Since 1900, Bert Blyleven ranks 5th in career strikeouts, 8th in shutouts, and 17th in wins.
Bert Blyleven 17th 5th 8th
Steve Carlton 6th 4th 13th
Ferguson Jenkins 19th 11th 17th
Walter Johnson 1st 9th 1st
Gaylord Perry 12th 8th 14th
Nolan Ryan 8th 1st 6th
Tom Seaver 13th 6th 6th
Don Sutton 8th 7th 9th
Ryan is the only pitcher who ranks higher than Blyleven in all three categories. That's right, there is only one pitcher in the history of baseball who has more wins, strikeouts, and shutouts than Blyleven. There are thousands of pitchers who rank below Blyleven in these three important measures, including tens of Hall of Famers and a half dozen -- Jim Bunning, Bob Gibson, Catfish Hunter, Ferguson Jenkins, Juan Marichal, and Jim Palmer -- who had overlapping careers.
Sutter was right on the precipice of not having a long enough career, he benefitted from being absolutely dominant in his area (closing). A case can be made that while Mattingly and Murphy were among the best at thier positions, they were not so dominant that they stick out.
Barry Bonds belongs in the Hall of Shame.
Gossage had 310 saves, 124-107 won-lost in 1002 games, 1809 innings, 3.01 era, 1502 K`s, 732 walks and 119 homers allowed over 22 years.
Since Sutter has the stats to make it, then Goose should be in the HOF too.
The real story is who voted for Walt Weiss?
I still love watching clips of Jim Everett chasing him off the set like the weasle beyatch that he is.
Hated him as a Cub. Loved him as a Cardinal.
Congrats Bruce! Go Braves!
Let me help explain it to (and keep in mind I'm a Twins fan and love listening to Blyleven on t.v.):
1) 2 All-Star game nominations in 22 years.
2) Only 3 years in the Top 5 for Cy Young voting in 22 years.
3) Only 2 years winning 18 or more games, with only 1 20-win season.
4) Any comparisons to Nolan Ryan vis-a-vis playing for poor teams goes out the window when you see that Blyleven won-loss record over a 162 game average comes out to only 14-12.
Bottom line is this - Bert was a very good pitcher, as were Tommy John and Jim Kaat. But he wasn't "one of the best" at any time during his career. The main problem here is what I call the "Don Sutton problem". Just because a player is fortunate enough to play a lot of years and manages to accumulate stats doesn't mean they belong in the Hall of Fame. It's an embarrassment that Don Sutton is in the Hall of Fame, just plain silly.
You should spend your time arguing for Jack Morris, a pitcher who was considered the best pitcher during his era, who was the top pitcher on 3 World Series-winning teams, was an All-Star and Top 5 Cy Young finisher 5 times each, and who won 18 or more games 6 times in 18 years. Most importantly, with his 1991 Game 7 performance, Morris has answered the question of which pitcher would you want on the hill with everything on the line.
The list of players who had their careers shortened by injury is infinite. You can't go around tacking on numbers for them to make them HOF-worthy based on imagining that injury didn't occur.
There are two issues where a player should get credit for numbers he SHOULD have had; one is where you have a player go off to the military for a couple of years and come back; since they played before and after the missing years you can reasonably extrapolate the numbers they would have had had they not been serving their country. The second is when you had a player straddle the negro and major leagues.....a guy like Minnie Minoso gets hurt by that because he didn't come to the majors till rather late; and again you can reasonably extrapolate what he would have done in the majors had the color line been broken earlier.
Wins and losses is an exceedingly stupid stat to assess pitchers by.
If the win-loss statistic didn't exist, and some baseball nerd invented it now and tried to get it accepted, he'd be laughed off the face of the planet.
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