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The 2022 Hall of Fame BBWAA Election, Part A

Status is about numbering, counting, ranking and ultimately about excluding. Andy Crouch

January 15, 2022

In earlier posts, I discussed the twenty candidates under consideration by the Early Baseball Era and Golden Days Era Committees [10 players each] for their possible 2022 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. For my evaluation of whether these old time players were worthy, I used an analysis based on the WAR [wins above replacement] statistic from the Baseball Reference website. Now I will use the same procedure to analyze the 30 candidates being voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America [BBWAA]. These results will be announced on January 25, 2022. Basically my method was simple. Starting with the assumption that the Hall of Fame only wants to honor the very best players, I asked this question: “How many eligible players have already been inducted into the Hall of Fame before 2022?” Unfortunately, I had to exclude the players from the Negro Leagues. But I also had to include some players elected as either Executives or Managers (that would have been elected as Players too). With those two qualifications, the answer to the question of how many eligible players have already been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame before 2021 turned out to be 235.

My Rating System

My second assumption was that the Baseball Hall of Fame always meant to honor the best 235 eligible players. Using that assumption, I then asked who was the 235th best eligible player in the history of Baseball according to the Career WAR calculation on Baseball Reference [bWAR]. The answer to that question turned out to be Bid McPhee with 52.5 bWAR. The career WAR total of this 235th best player then established the lowest common denominator for entry into the Hall of Fame. In other words, if a player has more than 52.5 bWAR, that player should be inducted. If not, then they should be barred. A nice simple clean objective system. However, as is usual with all supposedly nice simple clean objective systems, there is still the possibility of an error or even an injustice if the player does not amass the requisite 52.5 bWAR. One obvious injustice would be: “Was the player a victim of discrimination (such as the Negro League players)?” Another example of a possible error would be: “Was the player primarily a catcher (a position that wears players out faster)?” Yet another problem would be: “Does the player’s career bWAR number fall short because their career was interrupted by Military Service?” The lowest common bWAR denominator is the beginning of the conversation, not the end of the debate.

These three exceptions are the obvious major problems with using Baseball Reference’s bWAR calculation as a bright shining line. The bWAR calculation also does not give any extra credit for a player’s post-season heroics. Not giving David Ortiz, a first time candidate for induction in 2022, bonus points for his incredible performances in the post season seems to miss the essence of the Baseball Hall of Fame. On the other hand, a debit should be made for any player who constantly underperformed when the lights were brightest (Billy Wagner, on the current ballot, and his post-season ERA of 10.03 would certainly qualify). On top of all this, there is the essential question of: “How good is all the information going into the bWAR calculation itself?” Like any system built to spit out ratings, the end result will only be as good as the data going in the front door. There are other systems that attempt to rate the total career value of baseball players: Total Value, Win Shares, and several different versions of Wins Above Replacement. Although I currently believe that bWAR is the best current system, I could be wrong.

One Glitch in the System

The biggest flaw in any of these systems is simply the fact that all baseball statistics are not created equal. There are basically three types of statistics to measure a baseball player’s career: Batting, Pitching, and Fielding. The Batting metric is relatively straight forward and all measurements of this value highly correlate to the player’s worth. The Pitching metric is a bit more complicated. There are problems separating the value of the Pitching from the last metric, Fielding. To complicate matters, this problem has a Time Line component. In other words, the farther back in time that you go, more and more value that is attributed to Pitching is actually Fielding. The last metric, Fielding, is the great unknown. A good example of this would be the current baseball enthusiasm for shifts. A player could play for a team that uses fielding analytics well and maximizes his defensive positioning. Because of this, the player looks like a great fielder. Meanwhile, with another team that is poorly run with little or no defensive analytics, the same player could seem to be a bad fielder because his positioning is bad. In other words, the value is not intrinsic to the player. It is simply caused by his situation (like the difference between two exactly equivalent pitchers, but one backed by a great defense while the other is supported by a team full glove-less wonders). For this reason, I take Fielding statistics with a much greater grain of salt.

The Ratings Themselves

Without further ado, I will list the 30 Candidates eligible for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 24, 2022, by the BBWAA. They have been listed in the order of their career bWAR rating. After their name, their career bWAR value is listed, followed by their defensive WAR rating [also from the Baseball Reference website]. By my system, sixteen [16] of the 2022 candidates qualify for induction and fourteen [14] do not. It does occur to me that 16 qualified candidates for election seems very high. My next post will discuss these thirty players in a more detail after the election results are announced. Once again, my system concludes that any player with 52.5 career bWAR (or more) should be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hall of Famers on the 2022 Ballot [Player/Career WAR/Defensive WAR]

1. Barry Bonds [162.7 ~ 7.6]
2. Roger Clemens [138.7]
3. Alex Rodriguez [117.5 ~ 10.4]
4. Curt Schilling [80.5]
5. Scott Rolen [70.1 ~ 21.2]
6. Manny Ramirez [69.3 ~ -21.7]
7. Andruw Jones [62.7 ~ 24.4]
8. Todd Helton [61.8 ~ -5.0]
9. Andy Pettitte [60.7]
10. Gary Sheffield [60.5 ~ -27.7]
11. Bobby Abreu [60.2 ~ -10.9]
12. Mark Buehrle [60.0]
13. Sammy Sosa [58.6 ~ -0.3]
14. Tim Hudson [56.5]
15. Jeff Kent [55.5 ~ -0.1]
16. David Ortiz [55.3 ~ -20.9]

Non-Hall of Famers on the 2022 Ballot

1. Torii Hunter [50.7 ~ 4.0]
2. Mark Teixeira [50.6 ~ -0.9]
3. Jimmy Rollins [47.6 ~ 15.9]
4. Omar Vizquel [45.6 ~ 29.5]
5. Carl Crawford [39.1 ~ 1.5]
6. Jake Peavy [37.2]
7. Billy Wagner [27.8]
8. Justin Morneau [27.0 ~ -6.6]
9. Joe Nathan [26.4]
10. Prince Fielder [23.8 ~ -20.5]
11. A.J. Pierzynski [23.8 ~ 8.4]
12. Jonathan Papelbon [23.3]
13. Tim Lincecum [19.9]
14. Ryan Howard [14.7 ~ -17.3]

Notes: Negative defensive WAR listed in red type. If players are tied, player with better offensive WAR listed first.

The above lists of the current 2022 candidates should probably generate a little sympathy for the BBWAA members who are voting this year. There are sixteen fully qualified Hall of Famer players eligible on the 2022 BBWAA Ballot. A Ballot which is limited to just ten spots. With this many qualified Baseball Hall of Famers on the Ballot, the candidates are bound to cannibalize votes from each other. This will make it much harder, if not almost impossible, for any single player to meet the 75% requirement of votes cast to be inducted. On the other hand, one could easily argue that the BBWA itself is completely responsible for this predicament by riding the moral high horse and refusing to elect any players who used or were suspected of using steroids, so perhaps no sympathy is warranted.

Interestingly, this problem will be significantly reduced by the time that the 2023 Baseball Hall of Fame election rolls around. Four of the fully qualified players [Bonds, Clemens, Schilling, and Sosa] are in their tenth and final year on the Ballot. Yet another qualified player [Hudson] does not appear to be on track to get the minimum 5% requirement of the 2022 Ballots to get relisted on the 2023 Ballot. Lastly, David Ortiz (strangely enough the least qualified of the sixteen players certified by my system as Hall of Famers) is on track to be elected this year. With all these players removed, the 2023 Hall of Fame Ballot should only have 10 candidates who deserve election returning from 2022. These ten will be joined by only one player [Carlos Beltran] who is eligible for the first time in 2023 that also qualifies under my system.

Next:

In my next post [Part B], I will discuss these thirty candidates in a little more detail and also talk about the Baseball Hall of Fame tracking metrics that have been developed by Ryan Thibodaux. This system lets anyone know whether a candidate actually has a chance to be elected way before the vote has actually been announced. Basically, because of Thibodaux’ tracking system, the only real question right now is whether David Ortiz will be elected or not. No one else has a snowball’s chance in hell of being elected.

2021: The Year in Review, Part A

History is a myth agreed upon. Napoleon Bonaparte

January 1, 2022

For the Baseball fan, the year of 2021 was probably far more interesting than usual. After the Co-vid pandemic wiped out most of the 2020 season, Major League Baseball played the 2021 season under the threat that this contagion would wipe out another year too. Fortunately, the 2021 Baseball season was finished without any interruptions. The year was filled with interesting stories and unforgettable moments, everything from Shohei Ohtani turning into the modern day Babe Ruth to Trea Turner’s strangely graceful pop-up slide across home plate. The year in Major League Baseball ended with the Atlanta Braves winning the World Series in 6 games over the Houston Astros. After finishing a grueling season against all odds, the final coda to the 2021 season was even harsher. The Major League Baseball Owners locked the Major League Players out on December 1st of 2021, threatening the beginning of the 2022 season. It certainly felt like Deja Vu; or perhaps just a bad feeling of “the more things change, the more things stay the same.” But none of these things are the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the 2021 season. I believe that the year 2021 marked a major milestone in the Baseball Time Line. I maintain that 2021 was the first year of Baseball’s “Third Age.” The future of Baseball has arrived. Or perhaps I just read too many books about History.

The Time Line of Baseball History

Historians love to cut up time into Ages and Eras, Epochs and Generations. Then they divide these units like quadratic equations. The long Time Line of Baseball History is treated no differently by those who chronicle it. Even the casual Baseball fan has probably heard of the Dead Ball Era or the Lively Ball Era or the Golden Age of Baseball. Before the internet site Baseball Reference became the go-to-place for Baseball statistics, many fans got their stats from published encyclopedias. One of these old encyclopedias (Neft’s: The Sports Encyclopedia Baseball) even arranged its statistics by Eras. These arbitrary periods of time often make no sense. The “Dead Ball Era” is usually listed as lasting from 1901 to 1919. But this is simply not correct. The defining line of the Dead Ball Era should be the adoption of the cork-centered baseball. This “lively” baseball” was adopted late in the 1909 season and first fully used in 1910. The true Dead Ball Era was from 1871 until 1909. From 1910 to 1919, baseball players were damaging, defacing, deforming, vandalizing or dirtying up the new lively baseball until it acted like a non-cork-centered “Dead” ball. It is odd that no baseball historian has ever nicknamed this transitional time period the “Dirty Ball Era.”

The First Age of Baseball

In any event, during the entire history of Professional Baseball from 1871 to the present, there are only really two distinct “Ages” in the Baseball Time Line. Of course, these “Ages” can be endlessly sub-divided into many smaller Eras. But the true “First Age” of Baseball lasted from the initial professional season of 1871 until 1945 (before 1871 would be the equivalent of the prehistory or “Dark Ages” of professional baseball). This First Age could also be called the “Age of Segregation.” This Age’s chief characteristic was the establishment of two completely different systems of Professional Baseball. One system was called “Organized Baseball.” This structure was comprised of the White Major Leagues and its affiliated minor leagues. Alongside Organized Baseball grew a completely different and separate system which offered baseball players of African American heritage opportunities to pursue their careers. This other structure is now usually referred to as the “Negro Leagues.” In its broadest sense, the “Negro Leagues” included not only the teams and leagues of the actual Negro Leagues but also the entire structure, from the summer fields of Latin America to the wind swept plains of Canada, under its umbrella.

In this First Age, the sport of Baseball was truly the “National Pastime” of the United States of America. Virtually every village or town had its own baseball team. Every small city had multiple teams. Larger cities were awash in both professional and amateur teams and leagues. There were many professional traveling teams. If you grew up in the United States from 1871 until 1945, it is very unlikely that you did not participate in the game of baseball in some way. Baseball had no real competition from other sports for its talent; and, because Baseball was so widespread, this talent could come from anywhere. Both the best white player and black pitcher of this Age (Babe Ruth and Satchel Paige) came from reform schools. Although the White Major Leagues represented the pinnacle of Baseball in the United States, the Minor Leagues were mostly independent teams and leagues. A good professional ballplayer could play in this system until his late 40s or even early 50s and then manage or coach until he was ready to retire. During this First Age, Baseball grew outside the United States in places as far apart as Canada and Japan. But mostly it grew in Cuba and other Latin America countries, reaching all the way down to Venezuela in South America.

The Second Age of Baseball

In 1946, the “Second Age” of Baseball began when the White Major League’s Brooklyn Dodgers club signed Jackie Robinson of the Negro League’s Kansas City Monarchs to a Minor League contract. This Age could also be called the “Age of Integration.” As the walls of segregation came tumbling down, it was at the complete expense of the parallel Baseball system operating behind the “Color Line.” By the 1960s, the Negro Leagues had completely crumbled and disappeared. All of the Latin American teams and leagues that had been part of the Negro League system became affiliated and subservient to Organized Baseball. Simultaneously, the Major Leagues extinguished the final traces of Minor League independence. All Minor League teams became part of a Major League “farm system.” By moving teams around and adding new franchises, the Major Leagues covered the entire country. At the end of the 20th century, the Major Leagues even began signing the greatest players from the Japanese Major Leagues. By the dawn of the 21st century, the Major Leagues reigned supreme at the pinnacle of the Baseball pyramid. All of the remaining talent in the Baseball world flowed towards the lucrative paychecks from the Major Leagues.

However, during this “Second Age” of Baseball, the sport lost its status as the “National Pastime” of the United States of America. At the very least, Football surpassed Baseball as the most popular sport in the country (and, it could be argued, probably Basketball too). The blanket of baseball teams that covered the country down to the smallest hamlet evaporated. Baseball talent began to be funneled up from organized youth leagues or colleges. Players who fell off a career path to the Major Leagues were unable to continue their careers for very long. Other professional sports were able to drain away some of the best talent. Vincent “Bo” Jackson, possibly the most physically gifted player of the 1980s, played Baseball as a “hobby” during Football’s off-season. At the beginning of this Second Age, the very greatest players (Henry Aaron, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays) were all the sons of fathers whose love of baseball had never been consummated with a Major League career. Later, the best players (Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds) were the sons of former Major League players. As the Age wore on, players from Latin America Countries that loved Baseball poured into the Major Leagues in ever greater numbers. Baseball became just another competitive sport played by the talented few for the entertainment of the many.

The Third Age of Baseball?

I believe that the “Second Age of Baseball” ended in the pandemic wrecked season of 2020. Of course, the symmetry of the First Age of Baseball lasting exactly 75 years from 1871 to 1945 and then the Second Age lasting exactly 75 years from 1946 to 2020 seems too proportionately pat to be true. But what better year to call the end of the Second Age than 2020? The Baseball year of 2021 saw the final and absolute subjugation of the Minor League system by the Major Leagues. And, for the first time, the very best player in the Major Leagues (Shohei Ohtani) was not even raised in the United States. A new Age has dawned. The first question should probably be: what should we call this Age? One candidate would simply be the “International Age” of Baseball in honor of the great Ohtani. Yet another candidate would be the “Corporate Age” of Baseball in honor of the “Money Ball” tactics of modern front offices. Baseball, which spent most of its history governed like a old school southern plantation, is now managed like a modern business. The baseball season of 2021 ended in a lock out of the Major League Players. The Baseball Owners are prepared to fight and possibly wreck the game so that their new found business skills can continue to be leveraged to increase their profits at the expense of the players.

One notable feature of this new Baseball Age is the degree that the sport has become a game of birthright. The game is definitely no longer the National Pastime, played by all. You could also call this part of the Baseball Time Line the “Legacy Age.” Ken Griffey Junior could be the poster child for this name. Long ago, baseball players would come from just about anywhere. There is no evidence that the father of either Babe Ruth or Satchel Paige ever played the game. Now many of the best players (Vlad Junior, Tatis Junior, etc) have fathers who played in the Major Leagues. The future of Baseball may be ruled by the sons of former Major Leaguers. Of course, right now many of the best players are still the sons of frustrated former baseball fathers who didn’t make it (Mike Trout, whose father played in the Minor Leagues, and even the great Shohei Ohtani, whose father played in the Japanese Industrial Leagues, would be examples). In this “Third Age” of Baseball, the game will probably begin to more and more resemble the Hollywood Film Industry. Hopefully, the game of Baseball will never have to have a player change his last name (like Nick “Cage” Coppola) to short circuit charges of nepotism rather than talent.*

*Update [3/13/2022]: Oddly enough, something like this has already happened. Only the last names were not changed to protect the guilty. Marc Sullivan, the son of the Boston Red Sox co-owner Haywood Sullivan, played for the BoSox in 1982 and 1984-1987, getting into 137 Major League games. The sum total of the reasons why Sullivan was given a Major League job are contained by this sentence: He was the son of the Boston Red Sox co-owner Haywood Sullivan.

Conclusion

What does all this mean? The human mind loves to organize information. So, in a sense, these historical markers in the “Time Line” of Baseball are just man-made constructs that separate what is really just gradual changes with various exclamation marks. But there is also always the chance that organization will result in insight.

NEXT:

1. Another Hall of Fame Post: the BBWA Ballot for 2022
2. The Year in Review, Part B: The Giants and Old Age
3. The Year in Review, Part C: The Braves and the Legacy of the Negro Leagues

Lock Out: Creative Accounting

There’s no Business like Show Business; but there are several Businesses like Accounting. David Letterman

December 30, 2021

In May of 2020, with the Co-vid pandemic threatening to wipe out the entire season, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred (aka the Baseball Owners’ mouthpiece) estimated that Major League Owners could collectively lose 4 billion dollars for the year. In October of 2020, after the abbreviated season finished, Manfred claimed that Major League Baseball had operational losses of 2.8 to 3.0 billion dollars for the 2020 season and was loaded with 8.3 billion dollars in debt. In other words, the thirty [30] Major League clubs were averaging 100 million dollars of losses a year and deeply in debt. With that amount of yearly losses and outstanding debt, a normal business would be contemplating bankruptcy [restructuring if not liquidation]. In December of 2020, player agent Scott Boras responded to Rob Manfred’s claims. In a press conference that sounded like he was channeling boxing promoter Don King, Boras stated: “There’s no team in baseball that lost money last year.” Snidely, Boras pointed out that lost profits are not exactly the same thing as actual losses. Rob Manfred dismissed Boras’ claim, saying that the 3.0 billion dollars were actual losses, not just lost profits. With the Lock Out putting a damper on actual baseball news, I thought that I would look back at this bit of creative accounting. Who was telling the truth, Rob Manfred or Scott Boras?

Creative Accounting 101

Starting out the analysis by just shooting at the already dead fish in the barrel, let’s look at Manfred’s claim that Major League Baseball was an astounding 8.3 billion dollars in debt. That statement could very well be true. Of course, almost all of this 8.3 million dollars of debt is long term player contracts. But just simply looking at this debt without also looking at any offsetting income would be ridiculous. Currently, Major League Baseball has three long-term contracts for national TV broadcasting rights with 1) Disney [ESPN] FOR 3.85 Billion, 2) Fox for 5.10 billion, and 3) Warner [TBS] for 3.70 billion. With the caveat that these contracts were recently re-negotiated, that’s 12.45 billion dollars in guaranteed future income which can offset that supposed 8.3 billion dollars of future debt. It would certainly seem that Major League Baseball is not tottering on the edge of bankruptcy but is actually completely financially solvent and almost surely profitable. In other words, Manfred’s claim about Major League Baseball being 8.3 billion in debt, even if true, is just a bunch of baloney, signifying absolutely nothing. That would be strike one against the belief that Rob Manfred was truthful source.

Rob Manfred may be Pinocchio’s Cousin

What about Rob Manfred’s claim that Major League Baseball lost 3.0 billion dollars in 2020? If that statement was literally true, the 2021 baseball season should have been an exercise in industry wide belt tightening. However, in November of 2021, the Baseball Owners handed out a staggering 1.7 billion dollars in player contracts after the season ended. This wild spending spree demolished the previous monthly record. Of course, if the intervening 2021 season had produced record profits, the Baseball Owners would have had a good explanation for this behavior. But it was stated by Rob Manfred, their Commissioner, that profits for 2021 were down substantially. From all this, one can only assume that Manfred’s claim that Major League Baseball had actually lost 3.0 billion dollars in 2020 and his subsequent denial that it was just lost profits, is almost surely untrue. On the other hand, the assertion by Scott Boras that not a single baseball team lost money in 2020 and that the 3.0 billion dollars in losses claimed by Manfred are actually just lost profits is almost certainly a truthful statement. That would be strike two against any belief in Rob Manfred telling the truth.

But let’s do some actual math. In 2019, the Revenue of Major League Baseball was reported by Forbes Magazine as 10.70 billion [other sources report it as between 9.9 and 10.37 billion]. All this income reportedly came from: 1) Gate Receipts of about 4 billion; 2) Local TV revenue of reportedly 2.5 billion; 3) National TV revenue of about 1.8 billion; 4) Licensing of about 1.0 billion; 5) Sponsorships of about 800 million; 6) Concessions of around 500 million; and 7) other sources of 100 million. Of course, all of these numbers are estimates and are not being double checked by any reputable accounting firm [not that scandals such as Enron would give anyone much faith in so-called reputable accounting firms]. But the estimates are basically reasonable from all that is known and Major League Baseball has not disputed them. Forbes estimated that Major League Baseball made a profit of 2.5 million in 2019. Manfred and the Baseball Owners did dispute this. They responded that their actual profit in 2019 was exactly zero dollars. This deserves to be re-stated. The Owners claimed, with a straight face, that they made no money at all in 2019. It has to be presumed that, if asked, the Owners would also claim that their profits in 2021 were zero also. So the next question would be: was Forbes Magazine or the Baseball Owners telling the truth about whether Major League Baseball made any profit at all in 2019?

Steve Cohen is probably a very good businessman

On Friday, October 30, 2020, Billionaire Steve Cohen completed his purchase of the New York Mets for 2.475 billion dollars. The previous record price for a Major League Baseball team had been the Los Angeles Dodgers, sold for 2.00 billion dollars in 2012. Right before Cohen bought the Mets, the Kansas City Royals sold for exactly one billion dollars during the 2019 season. The Royals are always listed as one of the least valuable Major League franchises (usually with the two Florida teams). The New York Yankees are usually appraised as the most valuable Major League franchise. The estimate of the purchase price of the Yankees ranges anywhere from 5.0 to 7.0 billion dollars. So the current range in values for a Major League franchise goes from 1.0 billion on the low end to 5.0 (maybe even 7.0) billion at the high end. The median value would then probably be about 2.0 to 3.0 billion. From these numbers, it should be easy to estimate how much each team makes per year simply by using a cap rate formula. Cap rate [or capitalization rate] uses the annual Net Operating Income [NOI] of any business to determine its property asset value [PAV]. In other words, if a business being sold makes this much money per year, cap rate answers the question of how much you should pay for it.

The reverse of this equation is that you can also use the purchase price of a business to figure out approximately how much income a business generates. For instance, if a business is purchased for 2.0 billion dollars and the cap rate is 5.0, the business probably generates about 100 million in revenue annually. When Steve Cohen purchased the New York Mets, a 5.0 cap rate would have been a good, but not outstanding, return. Using a 5.0 cap rate, the purchase price of 2.475 billion would seem to indicate that the Mets generated more than 100 million per year. However, if you believe Rob Manfred that Major League Baseball teams just broke even in 2019 and lost money in 2020, this purchase price makes absolutely no sense at all. Of course, there is always the possibility that Cohen, who made a fortune investing in hedge funds, is a bad businessman. Or that he wildly overpaid for the Mets because owning a Major League Baseball team is all about prestige, not profits. But the truth of the matter is almost surely that Cohen bought the Mets from the previous owners as an investment and he probably paid a good, but not outstanding, cap rate for it.

Assuming that the cap rate of about 5.0 is correct and Steve Cohen is actually a good businessman, the New York Mets almost surely generated somewhere around 125 million dollars of income in 2020. The Kansas City Royals would have made about 50 million a year and the New York Yankees (provided the estimated franchise values are correct) somewhere between 250-350 million dollars. Interestingly, if all these figures are correct, Steve Cohen is certainly a pretty good businessman. He purchased the Mets from the Wilpons (who, as victims of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, were not known for being all that financially astute) for basically the average purchase price of a Major League Baseball team. But the New York Mets, located in the largest media market in the country, are hardly a mid-market team. Only the mismanagement by the Wilpons had been keeping the team down. The Mets have more in common with the Yankees than the ordinary Major League club. So the question boils down to: do you believe Steve Cohen is a good businessman or that Manfred was lying about the profits of Major League baseball being zero? That would have to be strike three against Rob Manfred.

Lock Out Blues

Even more interestingly, if you try to estimate the net operating income of Major League Baseball with a currently normal cap rate of 5.0 and an average franchise price of 2 billion dollars (i.e. all 30 Major League teams together are worth a cumulative 60 billion dollars), the profits of the whole League come out to 3 billion dollars annually. In other words, the same exact amount that Rob Manfred claimed baseball lost in 2020. The most likely conclusion is that Scott Boras was correct: the Owners lost profits were 3 billion dollars in 2020. If the Owners did actually make 3.0 billion dollars of profits out of 10.7 billion dollars in revenue in 2019, Baseball has to be an incredibly lucrative business for the Owners. But, if that is true, then why in God’s name have the Owners locked out the Major League players and threatened the pig that lays golden eggs? The answer to that is simple. It is the most basic reason any billionaire becomes a billionaire: greed. As the player’s salaries have stagnated recently, the overall revenue of Major League Baseball has soared. Virtually every cent of that recent increase has gone into the Owner’s pockets.

Conclusion

There will almost certainly be more than just a bit of blood on the floor at the end of the current labor dispute. This post has argued (and concluded) that Rob Manfred was either dissembling, stretching the truth, or simply outright lying about the finances of Major League Baseball. Of course, just the simple fact that they will do almost anything rather than open their financial records to outside scrutiny, tells you all you really need to know about the finances of Major League Baseball. So this post could simply be considered superfluous. As for Manfred, it is literally his job to dissemble or lie for the Major League Baseball Owners. For the money he gets paid, I would probably dissemble or lie with a straight face too. One of constants of Major League history is that the Baseball Owners always lie about their finances. But, if you lie constantly in a negotiation, you can hardly be surprised when the other side reaches the point where they don’t believe a single word you say. My current prediction for this lockout would be: a quarter or the season [40 games] goes down in flames before the negotiations even get serious.

The Once and Future Lock Out

Reggie Dunlop: Let ’em know you’re there! Get that stick in their side, let ’em know you’re there! Put some lumber in their teeth, let ’em know you’re there! Ned Braden: Bleed all over ’em, let ’em know you’re there. Slapshot (a 1977 Hockey Movie)

December 16, 2021

Many authors have used the game of Baseball as a metaphor for the United States of America as a whole. Often the metaphor is stretched so thin that it breaks. Hopefully, this post will not be one of those times. One of the central problems in this country right now is supposedly wealth inequality. The rich get richer and richer, the once prosperous middle class watches their money and their spending power and then their very jobs slip away, and the poor live to be exploited by the rich. Or, to quote an acquaintance, the billionaires just get richer and richer without ever giving anything back, the middle class makes less and less and pays more and more for goods and services every year, and the poor work themselves to death in Amazon warehouses while wasting the rest of their lives on Facebook. The current economic situation in baseball certainly resembles this financial spiral, though it would be hard to argue that anyone in Baseball is working themselves to death.

In baseball, the rich (the owners and the star players) get richer and richer. The middle class (the fans and the regular players) watch their respective spending power and jobs slip away. And the poor (minor league players not on the Major League 40 man roster and those potential players subject to a player draft) are exploited like cattle. With the expiration of the 2016 contract between the Major League Owners and Players at the stroke of midnight on December 1st of 2021, these trends (or at least the trend in which the owners get richer and richer at the expense of everyone else) is once again up for negotiation. The Baseball Owners, who are quite happy with the status quo, immediately locked the Players out and brought the business of Major League Baseball to a complete halt. This pre-emptive “Lock Out” will continue until some agreement on these economic issues gets forged. Thus the question of the day is: “When will this Lock Out end?” To even attempt to answer this question, first we should look at the history.

Quick Baseball Labor History Recap

The greatest expanse of Major League Baseball History, from 1871 to 1965, is simply one long tale of the Baseball Club Owners enriching themselves off the labor of their underpaid and exploited Players. In the year 1922, the Baseball Owners even received an anti-trust exemption from the U.S. Supreme Court in a bizarre decision that suggests the Owners bought the Court off. The Players started to organize (not for the first time) in 1953; but the Players Union really began in 1966 when they hired Marvin Miller, a professional labor organizer. With Miller in charge until his retirement in 1983, the Baseball Players Union won victory after victory over the Owners. By 1983, Players simply had to play for two seasons under Owner control and could become free agents after six seasons. Their salaries for seasons three to five were set by arbitration which was based on the free agent salaries. This economic set-up was basically an engine that drove player salaries ever higher. The Major League clubs in small markets began to reportedly struggle.

From 1984 to 1995, the Owners fought an economic war against the Players Union to roll back salaries. In 1984, they fired their long term Commissioner and stooge, Bowie Kuhn, whose main claim to fame was losing every round to Miller. The Owners hired Peter Ueberroth to be their new Commissioner. In the 1985 CBA negotiations, the Players Union agreed to let the Owners push back arbitration to three, rather than two, years of service. After that victory (and with Ueberroth’s urging), the Owners continued their war by cheating from 1985 until 1987. The Owners illegally colluded with each other to set the players’ salaries. Federal Courts would punish the Owners to the tune of $280 million dollars for this tactic. After this defeat, Ueberroth was replaced by Bart Giamatti as the Commissioner in 1988. Before he had any real chance to lead the Owners, Giamatti died in 1989. He was replaced by his friend and Deputy Commissioner, Faye Vincent, who decided to act as if Commissioner was an independent party, not a hireling of the Owners.

Like most employers, the Owners were not happy about an employee acting like he ran the show. In 1992, Faye Vincent was replaced by the Owners with one of their own, Bud Selig (the owner of the very small market Milwaukee Brewers). Selig led the Baseball Owners into the apocalypse, a baseball strike by the Players that wiped out not only the rest of the 1994 season, but also the 1994 World Series and the beginning of the 1995 season.

The Genius of the Bud Selig

With the advantage of hindsight, it is now apparent that Bud Selig defeated the Players Union in the 1994/95 conflict. A kind reading of this history would credit Selig with establishing a labor peace that lasted until the current day. A more unkind interpretation would accuse him of negotiating to enrich himself above all else and accidentally hitting upon the correct formula to enrich all of the Owners. Selfish or not, Selig basically made it impossible for the owner of a Major League Baseball club to lose money. As part of the 1995 Settlement Agreement with the Players, Bud Selig also got his fellow Owners to agree to redistribute income from the Large Market Teams to the Small Market Teams [i.e himself and others like him]. This Redistribution Plan funneled the money through the office of the Baseball Commissioner. This redistribution, coupled with ever increasing national broadcast money that was shared by the owners equally, made any Baseball Owner bulletproof. By not fielding a competitive team and cutting expenses, any Owner could easily turn a profit by just raking in the redistribution and National TV money.

The fact that any Owner could make a bundle of money by not even trying to field a competitive team was immediately apparent. The Florida [now Miami] Marlins led the way in both directions by spending a ton of money on players to win the 1997 World Series and then immediately dismantling their team to take advantage of Bud Selig’s safety net. The Marlins reportedly made even more money in 1998 than they did in 1997.* Wayne Huizenga, the owner of the Marlins, was at the forefront of another revolution. Huizenga, the founder of companies (such as Blockbuster Video and Waste Management Inc.) was a businessman through and through. He treated his team simply as a vehicle to maximize profits in whichever way possible. The old school Baseball Owners, who usually ran their teams like southern plantations, would become baseball dinosaurs shambling toward extinction. Bud Selig, who would be the Baseball Commissioner from 1992 to 2014, was also deeply involved with changing the very type of baseball owners involved in the game.

* Ironically, the owners added 4 teams in 1993, using their entry fees to pay off the $280 million dollar collusion debt. The Marlins were one of the new teams].

From the 1995 Collective Bargaining Agreement [CBA] that ended the Strike until the most recent 2016 CBA that just expired on December 1, 2021, the Owners’ Negotiators with the Union followed a simple two-pronged strategy. First, they worked to limit how much money any of the Large Market teams could spend on players (with a “Luxury Tax”); and, second, reduce any money going to Non-Union talent. In other words, the Owners strategy was to limit the amount of money being spent at the top and the bottom. The Owners won every round. In each and every CBA negotiation, the owners either 1) made it more onerous for Large Market teams to spend unlimited funds, or 2) reduced any leverage that amateur players had to negotiate for their actual market worth. The 2011 and 2016 CBAs with the Union were the culmination of this long string of victories. At the same time, the so-called “Money Ball” revolution resulted in more and more Major League front offices applying normal business strategies to running the teams. The combination of the downward pressure on expenses at both ends and the change from basically amateur to professional business management accelerated the transfer of more and more of the profits generated by the teams from the Players to the Owners.

The Parties to the Negotiation

With the labor history summarized, we will now discuss the different parties that each have a stake in the negotiations. Understanding their motivations will then help us try to answer the question: “When will this Lock Out end?” There are actually six distinct parties in this labor negotiation. The first party would be the Small Market Team Owners [SMTO]. The second party would be the Large Market Team Owners [LMTO]. In the negotiations, these two parties are represented by the Commissioner’s Office [CO]. The third party would be the Star Major League Players [SMLP]. The fourth party would be the Normal (or Non-Star) Major League Players [NMLP]. The third and fourth parties have the Major League Player’s union [PU] as their representative. The fifth party would be the drafted and non-unionized minor league players. This party can be collectively called the Cannon Fodder. And, of course, the sixth and last party would be the Fans. Neither the fifth or the sixth party are represented in this negotiation at all. And, for all intents and purposes, the Commissioner’s Office really represents the Small Market Team Owners and the Player’s Union represents the Star Major League Players. In other words, the Lock Out will end when the fully represented parties (SMTO and SMLP) are able to placate the partially represented parties (LMTO and NMLP) at the complete expense of the unrepresented parties. We will discuss each party in reverse order.

Party #6: The Fans

The Fans are irrelevant to the negotiation itself. The CBA negotiation is about how the players and owners will split up the baseball pie (i.e. money). No one will be offering a piece of this pie to the Fans. Tickets or concession prices will not be reduced. Still there will be a vocal subset of fans insisting that they are being cheated somehow. The Players Union usual tactic is to ignore the Fans. But the Owners strategy often includes stated sympathy for the Fans. This is mostly just a bid to keep the Fans on their side and ready to come back when the issue is settled. But it is actually just a bunch of hot air. The Owners and their representatives have even been claiming that their concern for the Fans is responsible for the long period of labor peace from 1995 to 2021. In 1995, the Fans were initially slow to come back. Owners and their reps have stated that they do not want this to happen again. But the actual fact of the matter is that, aided by Ripkin’s consecutive game streak and the steroids-induced destruction of the single season home run record, the 1994-95 Strike had no real lasting effect. The real reason for the long period of labor peace from 1995 to 2021 is that the Owners have basically won every CBA since the Strike, not any actual concern for the Fans.

The real way that Fans get to participate in Baseball Labor Negotiations is simply as an audience for propaganda from both sides (but usually from the Owners). Interestingly, the Owners, a group of billionaires, like to characterize the Players, mostly millionaires, as being greedy. And there are always some Fans who cannot simply see that every dollar taken from the Players will just go right into the Owners’ pockets. The reasons the Owners use this tactic is actually unclear (other then just sheer spite). By angering the players, it does little to help the negotiations; and the Owners are also simply denigrating their own product. It does help that the Owners are a very much smaller group than the Players Union (30 owners versus 1200 players). This makes it much easier for the Owners to stay on message. But this particular message is just counter-productive. And the ironic aspect of this message is that many (if not most) of the Owners are very rich because they engaged in fraudulent, unethical, greedy business practices. Despite whatever in the Good Lord’s name is wrong with Trevor Bauer, usually the worst personal trait of any of the players is simply immaturity. On the other hand, the Baseball Owners, usually drenched in avarice, are (on the average) a far more reprehensible group of reprobates than the Players.

Party #5: Non-Union Baseball Players

The Major League Baseball Players Union represents all the Players on each team’s 40 man roster. In other words, the Players Union does represent some Minor League players. Despite this, the Union has never advocated for the Minor Leaguers or any players being drafted into the Minor Leagues or any players signed as undrafted free agents. This seems strange since everyone in the Union originally comes from these groups. In reality, the Players Union only really represents the interests of those Players who have lasted over two years in the Major Leagues and reached arbitration. If anything, this is the greatest failing of the Players Union: a complete indifference to those aspiring to join it. The Owners have exploited this flaw. From the very beginning, the economic strategy of the Union has been to transfer wealth from the younger players to the veteran players. Eventually, this led to the Owners adopting the strategy of hiring younger novice players to replace the more fungible Union players on their rosters. Over the last 25 years, the Owners cabal has done everything that they can think of to artificially depress the payments to or compensation for any and all players who do not belong to the Union.

The exploitation of employees beginning their careers is a common strategy of both Employers and Unions. Law Firms demand that their associates work minimum 80 hour weeks. The American Medical Association allows interns to be worked to the point of exhaustion. Many fraternities in Colleges haze their pledges unmercifully. Baseball has been no different. Low pay and long bus rides for Minor League players are celebrated as bonding experiences. The really interesting question is: why? By ignoring the Minor Leaguers, the Union has allowed the Owners to use them against the Major League players. Why doesn’t the Players Union organize the Minor Leaguers? Or why do they not simply advocate for the players in the Minor Leagues? Stories abound of the Owners “Simon Legree” like tactics against them. The Union could easily win a publicity battle against the Owners simply by pointing out how terribly they treat the Minor League players and demanding change. Especially since it is probably fair to say that, until the Players Union finally begin to advocate for (or simply take an interest in) the well-being of the Players who are not in the union, the Owners will have a natural advantage over the Union itself.

Party #4: Normal Major League Players

The normal, or non-star, baseball players have been watching their earning power evaporate under the current CBA. The average Major League baseball salary has reportedly gone done 5% since 2017. But the median salary has reportedly fallen a much more impressive 30%. The rate of decrease must be even larger than that for the players who are on the bottom half of the pay scale. It is obvious that the salaries of normal Major Leaguers will continue to fall unless changes are made. What is causing this decimation of the salaries of the non-star baseball players? These Players are caught in between. Their salaries are controlled by the clubs until they have been in the Major Leagues for the first three years (for all intents and purposes). Then, rather than go to arbitration with these players, the clubs simply release them. The engine that used to drive salaries upwards has gone silent for these unfortunate middle and lower-middle class of baseball players. Significantly, the Owners have characterized even modest modifications to the arbitration system (such as arbitration at 2 years and free agency at 5 years) as “extreme” and not up for discussion, much less negotiation.

The relevant question here is: can this even be remedied? The owners and their front offices, influenced by the “Moneyball” generation executives, have become much more skilled at putting the dollar sign on the muscle for non-star players. Why should the Major League front offices bid or drive up the salaries of the more fungible Major League players when it is much cheaper to simply replace them with cost-controlled pre-arbitration players? There would obviously be some degradation of level of talent playing. But would it even be noticeable to the average Fan? The only way the Players Union can really protect the non-star Players is by raising the cost to the Owners of the Minor League and non-arbitration qualified Major Leaguers. There are several ways that the Union can do this: 1) raising the minimum salary of the players who are not yet eligible for arbitration; 2) lowering the minimum amount of player service time to be eligible for arbitration; or 3) penalizing the teams for releasing players once they have qualified for arbitration. All of this could be done. But it will have to be fought for by the players who are not affected by it: the Star Players.

Party #3: Star Major League Players

The Major League Stars, as shown by the spending frenzy by Major League teams right before the Lock Out, will always get paid. Whether the long term drag on all the other player’s salaries will eventually affect them in turn is an open question. As Jim Bouton pointed out long ago in his book Ball Four, the baseball player hierarchy is completely star oriented. Your production on the field directly reflects your influence among the Players for the most part. This is a two-edged sword. For instance, Player Union Representatives (if they are star players) are basically immune to any type of retribution for their Union activities. But they are also farther removed from the concerns of the rank and file. Star Players, whose careers may span 20 years or more and include multiple contracts for their services, have a different outlook than the normal player who will wash out of the Major Leagues in five years and may only get one shot at selling their services to the highest bidder. In many ways, the key question for how strong the Players Union stands is just how committed these Star Players are to less fortunate members. On the other hand, the Owners, who are basically making the star players very rich men, have a tightrope to walk. They must give just enough to seem to be reasonable without insulting or awakening the competitive instincts of the Star Players

Party #2: Large Market Team Owners

Years ago in 1992, the Large Market Team Owners ceded their power to the Small Market Owners by electing Bud Selig, the consummate Small Market Owner, as Acting and later Full Commissioner of Baseball. At the time, this decision certainly seemed to be contrary to the best interests of these Large Market teams. But the decision was rewarded by sky-rocketing team values, ever-increasing profits, often times publicly subsidized Stadiums, and actual victories over the Players Union. So at this point, there is little to no hope that the Large Market Teams will do anything but continue to follow the lead of present Commissioner Rob Manfred, the protegee of Bud Selig and a Small Market Team protector. And, to be fair, why shouldn’t they? When the Lock Out is over, the Big Markets will go back to minting money under whatever system is agreed to. There is no real reason for them to act right now.

Party #1: Small Market Team Owners

Of course, the Small Market Team Owners are the actual power behind the empty throne of the Baseball Commissioner.* Rob Manfred is their man and Bud Selig is their patron saint. Their objective in these negotiations, as it has been since 1995, is to retain and protect their right to make an enormous profit no matter how poorly they run their teams or how little they actually try to compete. To return to the initial question of: “How long will the Lock Out last?” It all depends on how intransient the Small Market Team Owners are. So far, the signs of their intransience are immense. Through Manfred, they have informed the Players Union that they will not negotiate on: 1) changing the revenue sharing between Small and Large Market Teams, 2) allowing any Players to reach free agency earlier; 3) shortening the period that it takes for players to qualify for arbitration; or 4) bringing a multitude of other issues to the table. If the messaging signals the intent, the Small Market Owners are prepared to fight a Second Baseball World War to protect their right to make a profit regardless of their own incompetence.

* An empty throne in the sense that the Commissioner supposedly was hired to rule in the best interests of Baseball, not just the Owners themselves.

Parameters of the Negotiation

For the first time in a long time, the Major League Owners are beginning the negotiations for a new CBA on the defensive. If they were given the chance to resign the previous CBA, they would probably leap quickly for the pen. So far, their counter-proposals have been somewhat ludicrous, such as: 1) tying arbitration awards to the Wins Above Replacement statistic, 2) Lowering the Luxury Cap to 180 million per year while putting in a soft salary floor of 100 million per year per team , 3) installing a basic lottery for draft picks. etc. If the Player Union’s reports that the Owners are not actually negotiating at all yet are true, the 2022 Lock Out will basically become a blinking contest. As blinking contests are inherently stupid, the outlook for this Lock Out is not good, not good at all.

Lock Out Prediction

The Major League Baseball Owners did not have to institute the Lock Out at midnight on December 1st, 2021. But it was clearly in their best interest to do so. The negotiations for the new Collective Bargaining Agreement [CBA] with the Players were inevitably going to be extremely difficult. The Owners had not only clearly won both the preceding 2011 and 2016 negotiations; but they had also, according to the Players themselves, violated the “spirit” of their past agreements. There is palpable anger amongst the Players. Negotiations with another party that feels tricked or lied to are exceeding difficult. And, in the 1994-95 Strike, the Owners did not lock out the Players. The Players then went on Strike at the time of maximum benefit to themselves, deep into the season and threatening the World Series. By striking when they had received most of their paychecks for the season but before the Owners most lucrative event, the Players exerted maximum leverage. By locking the Players out now, the Owners maximize the time to negotiate before the Players can threaten the World Series again. You cannot blame the Owners for having institutional memory.

We believe that the Lock Out will last, at the very least, deep into the 2022 Spring Training and that there is a more than 50/50 chance that some actual early season games will be canceled. The Owners have defeated the Players again and again since 1995. At some point, the Players will settle for what is being offered. Most likely, the settlement will include mostly superficial issues such as: 1) Adopting the universal DH, 2) Some type of lottery for draft pick order, 3) Elimination of the draft pick compensation for teams that lose free agents, and 4) Raising the Luxury Tax Threshold. But the core issue, the fact that Baseball teams can win by losing, will be untouched. The Owners will almost surely not give more than an inch on their exploitation of non-Union players too. And the Owner’s will probably insist on some things simply by claiming that they need to get something too (for instance: expanded play offs, even greater penalties for exceeding the Luxury Tax Threshold, and/or advertising patches on uniforms). The basic fact is that, while the Players are fighting for things that indirectly harm them, the more cohesive Owners are struggling with issues that directly benefit them.

Our prediction, the Players Union will end up with some concessions. But the Owners will win this round too, simply by giving up very little and still getting a lot back.

The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part 5.  Results from the Early Baseball & Golden Age Era Committees

One knows so little. When one knows more, it is too late. Agatha Christie

December 7, 2022

The two Baseball Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee’s Sub-Committees that were voting on possible 2022 inductees released their results on December 5, 2021. The new inductees were as expected [Minnie Minoso and John “Buck” O’Neil], somewhat unexpected [Gil Hodges, Jim Kaat, and Tony Oliva], and out of left field [Bud Fowler]. Buck O’Neil was elected as an Executive/Pioneer. All five of the other candidates were apparently simply elected as players.* Most importantly, two of the six men elected are still alive [Kaat and Oliva]. As both men played primarily for the Minnesota Twins, their induction day at 1:30 p.m. on July 24, 2022 will obviously be a very good day for the Twins franchise and its fans. In this post, I will examine all six of these elections as best I can.

*[Update 12/31/2021: Bud Fowler was apparently elected as a Executive (slash Pioneer) rather than as a Player also.]

Jim Kaat & Tony Oliva

In retrospect, there is one interesting aspect of this election that I certainly should have considered more thoroughly, but did not. Entrance to the Hall of Fame has two doors. The front door is completely controlled by the Baseball Writer’s Association of America [BBWA]. The back door is controlled by the Baseball Hall of Fame itself. By allowing the BBWA to control the front door, the Baseball Hall of Fame has always created a serious problem for itself. At various times, the BBWA has not elected any players at all. For instance, they did not elect anyone in 2013. They also did not elect anyone in 2021. The baseball writers’ guild then invariably congratulates themselves on preserving the purity of the Hall or maintaining the high standards of the Hall or simply pulls some explanation out of thin air that justifies their inaction. It is all the same to them. No matter what happens, the baseball writers get a story to pontificate about.

However, if the BBWA does not let anyone in the front door, the Baseball Hall of Fame can be left with their hat in their hand. For the most part, the players elected by the BBWA are still among the living. Conversely, the players being invited by the Hall of Fame to join the party through the back door are quite often dead. The last thing that the Baseball Hall of Fame wants is to not have a living inductee at their Hall of Fame ceremony. A party is usually more fun than a wake. Of the 20 players being considered by the the Early Baseball Era and Golden Days Era Committees, only three of the candidates were alive: Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva, and Maury Wills. In retrospect, the election and induction of one or two (or even all 3) of these living candidates was probably inevitable. Especially since there is a very good chance that the BBWA will keep the front door locked shut once again in 2022.

Some members of the baseball writers’ fraternity have what they feel to be perfectly good reasons to slam the door right in the face of almost every main candidate returning for another shot at being elected by them in 2022. These candidates include Curt Schilling, who wore a shirt advocating that journalists should be killed; Barry Bonds, who took enough steroids to turn himself into Babe Ruth; and Roger Clemens, who also almost surely took steroids and has some other disturbing scandals attached. These three players finished 1-2-3 on the 2021 ballot. And all three are actually completely overqualified for the Hall of Fame. In addition to them, the 2022 ballot is also littered with a whole bunch of other returning steroid or possible steroid abusers: Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield, and Sammy Sosa. Each of these players would also already be elected if they had just been clean. And the cherry on the top would have to be Omar Vizquel. He also returns for another opportunity to be elected, but his Hall of Fame chances have probably been destroyed by recent revelations of both domestic abuse and sexual harrassment accusations.

Joining all these damned candidates this year are: 1) David Ortiz, who may or may not have flunked a supposedly totally confidential steroid test way back at the beginning of his career but then never ever flunked another one, and 2) Alex Rodriguez, who apparently took so many steroids that he had dreams of being a centaur. By accomplishment, the best clean and untainted candidate in 2022 would probably be Scott Rolen. At the very least, five of these dirty candidates have better credentials than Rolen. But it could easily be argued that there are eight who had better careers. But all 5 to 8 of these candidates are unlikely to be elected. And the mere presence of all these over-qualified but tainted candidates on the ballot will crowd many other possible untainted candidates right off the ten player maximum ballot.

In 1994, the baseball analyst and historian Bill James wrote a book about the Hall of Fame entitled: “The Politics of Glory.” That is a fabulous title. Despite being a great title, it was changed when the book was later reissued. It was probably deemed not specific enough (Whose politics? What glory?) for the casual reader. However, the 2022 election of Jim Kaat and Tony Oliva to the Baseball Hall of Fame surely shows those politics of glory in action. One has to wonder if either would have been elected if the Hall did not desperately need to ensure that there was a living player at the podium. On the other hand, both Kaat and Oliva are currently over 80 years old. They would not have been eligible to be elected for another five years. Better to honor them now then after they have passed away. I sincerely congratulate Jim Katt and Tony Oliva.

One final thought: it will be very interesting if David Ortiz is also elected this year. Kaat and Oliva are Minnesota Twins idols through and through. Ortiz started his career with the Twins too. But Ortiz, who goes down in history as a Boston Red Sox player, has been quite outspoken about his, shall we say, low opinion of the Twins organization. If all three are on the podium at the same time, the baseball world can be sure that irony is not dead.

Gil Hodges & Minnie Minoso

I also congratulate both Minnie Minoso and Gil Hodges on their election. Of course, it would have been far better for the overqualified Minnie Minoso to have been honored during his lifetime. And Gil Hodges, also deceased, is finally allowed to join his teammates (Jackie, Pee Wee, and the Duke) in the shrine. In the discussion about their election, one very interesting fact was mentioned. Minoso and Hodges (and Kaat and Oliva) were all elected by the Golden Days Era Committee. This Committee consisted of 16 members and 12 votes were needed for election. The ballot consisted of 10 players. What I did not know was that each member could only vote for 4 players. This, of course, means that the maximum number of votes was 64 (if each voter cast all four ballots with no blanks); and it also means that an absolute maximum of five players could be elected (5×12=60 ballots). It was stated that Minoso got 14 votes while Hodges, Kaat and Oliva all got 12 each. This, of course is 50 votes. But then it was also reported that Dick Allen got 11 votes and that Maury Wills got the other three. This would account for all 64 votes with just 5 players accounting for 61 of those votes.

This is actually quite interesting. It seems like the Golden Days Era Committee focused on exactly five candidates (the max they could elect). The other five candidates (Ken Boyer, Roger Maris, Danny Murtaugh, Billy Pierce, and Maury Wills) were then for the most part discarded. The Committee certainly did not seem to rely much on modern baseball analysis. Ken Boyer, who has the most wins above replacement [WAR being the most commonly used stat currently to sum up career value] of any of the players, does not seem to have gotten a single vote. Like politicians rigging an election, the members of the Golden Days Era Committee must have horse traded until almost all of their favorite candidates got elected. The one exception was Dick Allen who fell just one vote short. Was the Committee afraid that it would look odd if they ran the table and elected the max of 5 players? In any event, the family and friends of Dick Allen can probaly begin preparing for his almost inevitable election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2026 (induction in 2027) when the Golden Days Era Committee gets its next chance to kick in the back door.

Buck O’Neil & Bud Fowler

Unlike the Golden Days Era Committee, the 16 members of the Early Baseball Era Committee could not get their act together and try to ensure that as many of their candidates as humanly possible got into the Hall of Fame. Reportedly, Buck O’Neil got 13 votes and Bud Fowler got 12. This means that two of the inductees got 25 votes and then 39 votes were spread among the other eight candidates. As we have already noted, the Early Baseball Era Committee has become the de facto Negro Leagues Committee (seven of the ten candidates being considered by the Committee played behind the Color Line). Of course, Major League Baseball has spent a lot of time recently celebrating the Negro Leagues. In December of 2020, the Major Leagues even recognized seven of the old Negro Leagues as also being ‘Major Leagues.’ But, when it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Negro League players are once again getting treated like an uninvited party crasher.

[Update 12/31/2021: It has been reported that John Donaldson got eight (8) votes for election. Whether this is actually true is unknown.]

Of course, it could be pointed out that, not only did Buck O’Neil and Bud Fowler get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame class of 1922, Minnie Minoso also got in. But Buck O’Neil was basically elected for the life he led after the Negro Leagues folded. Bud Fowler died just short of a decade before the first real Negro Major League formed in 1920. And Minnie Minoso was rightfully elected for his career in the traditional Major Leagues. No one was elected primarily for his career in the actual Negro Leagues. Dozens of Negro League players who would have easily had Hall of Fame careers if they had just been able to play out their careers absent discrimination were again left outside looking in. If you use the loosest definition of a Hall of Fame caliber player (we are looking at you Tommy McCarthy), that number is in the hundreds. Despite this, the Early Baseball Era Committee, i.e. the de facto Negro Leagues Committee, will not meet again for ten years. This is something between an outrage and a shame.

Wrapping it all up with a List (or two)

The two Veteran Committee fragments (the Early Baseball Era and the Golden Days Era Committees) got to consider 20 different men to be included into the Baseball Hall of Fame during its 2022 ceremony. Three of these potential Hall of Famers were considered for their contributions to Baseball rather than just their playing careers. One other (Danny Murtaugh) was considered only his career as a field manager. I would have placed these four [4] men in the following order to be elected:

1. John “Buck” O’Neil [Elected 2022]
2. Frank “Lefty” O’Doul
3. John “Bud” Fowler [Elected 2022]
4. Daniel (Danny) Murtaugh

I believed that O’Neil and O’Doul should have been elected. The fact that Bud Fowler was elected certainly does not bother me. Murtaugh was not elected and his family has my sympathies.

Of the 16 men who were being considered only for their playing careers, they would have been ranked in the following order for election:

1. Grant “Home Run” Johnson
2. Richard “Dick” Redding
3. John Donaldson
4. George “Tubby” Scales
5. William “Bill” Dahlen
6. Richard “Dick” Allen
7. Orestes “Minnie” Minoso [Elected 2022]
8. Kenton “Ken” Boyer
9. Walter “Billy” Pierce
10. James “Jim” Kaat [Elected 2022]
11. Pedro “Tony” Oliva [Elected 2022]
12. Gilbert “Gil” Hodges [Elected 2022]
13. Roger Maris
14. Victor “Vic” Harris
15. Maurice “Maury” Wells
16. Allie Reynolds

We are fairly sure that Grant Johnson is the clear Number 1 on this list. The only other option would be John Donaldson. But, even with 20-20 vision on his career, it is unlikely that Donaldson was greater than Johnson. Donaldson is the hardest player to place. He could be anywhere from #1 to #5. If all the data was properly understood, we believe that he would actually be #2. But #3 seems a reasonable compromise. George Scales and Bill Dahlen could be flipped at places #4 or #5. However, the closer you look at Scales, the better he looks and this gives him no credit as a manager. Allen is over Minoso and Boyer because he concentrated his value into fewer seasons. In other words, he would have been more valuable in a pennant race. Pierce remains over Kaat for the same reason and there is certainly an argument that Oliva could be placed over Kaat also. Roger Maris also moves up to #13 because of the pennant race effect and also because the number 13 seems fitting for his bad luck career. Although Allie Reynolds finishes last at #16, this position cannot be considered a disgrace on this list. Reynolds was a great pitcher.

I support the election of #1 through #9 to the Hall of Fame (congratulations to Minoso at #7 who was elected). But I do not support the elections of any players from #10 through #16. Of course, I don’t have a vote. The Baseball Hall of Fame decided that #10 through #12 were worthy. Who am I to argue?

NEXT:

A (hopefully brief) look at the current Lock Out.

The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part 4.  Golden Age Era Candidates #1 through 10

I am easily satisfied with the very best. Winston Churchill

December 5, 2022

After finishing an analysis of the 10 Early Baseball Era candidates for the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame election, I will move on quickly to the 10 candidates that are being considered by the Hall’s Golden Age Era Baseball Committee. Very quickly because it appears that they will announce the new inductees tonight. These ten candidates, listed below in order of their career bWAR [wins above replacement total from Baseball Reference], are:

1. Kenton (Ken) Boyer [1955-1969] 62.8
2. Richard (Dick) Allen [1963-1977] 58.7
3. Orestes (Minnie) Minoso [1949-1964] 53.8 [also 1946-48, 76, 80]
4. Walter (Billy) Pierce [1945-1964] 53.4
5. James (Jim) Kaat [1959-1983] 50.5
6. Gilbert (Gil) Hodges [1943-1963] 43.9
7. Pedro (Tony) Oliva [1962-1976] 43.0
8. Maurice (Maury) Wills [1959-1972] 39.6
9. Roger Maris [1956-1968] 38.3
10. Daniel (Danny) Murtaugh [1941-1951] 6.6 [Manager: 1957-1976]

All 10 of these candidates have already had multiple chances to be elected. But, for whatever reasons, they have not been considered up to the standards required in the past. But, as many other commentators have already noted, the Baseball Hall of Fame standards for election have always been anything but standard. So the first question that must be considered is: “What exactly are the standards of the Hall of Fame?” Answering this question will hopefully provide the answer to the next question: “What should the standards be?” And, to be clear, when I mention the Baseball Hall of Fame standard, it is the absolute lowest common denominator, not the median. In other words, how bad can a player/pitcher be and still be worthy. To answer this question, I am going to assume that the Hall of Fame has always had a baseline standard of only electing the very best. So how shall we measure this?

My Baseball Hall of Fame Selection Formula

I am also going to assume that the Baseball Hall of Fame wants to reward accomplishment, not actual fame. In other words, merely being famous without the statistics to back it up is not enough. In one way, the Hall of Fame is already self-defining. To date (through the 2021 induction), the Hall of Fame has elected 333 people (332 men and 1 woman) to its ranks. Those people who are already elected fall into four different categories: 1) Players (including Pitchers), 2) Executives, 3) Managers, and 4) Umpires. So a basic answer to the question about the Hall of Fame standards would be: “Right before the 2022 induction, the standard is the best 333 baseball executives, managers, players and umpires of all time. But that doesn’t actually help us analyze the Baseball Hall of Fame cases of the 10 Players listed above. To do that properly, we need to eliminate categories two through four (executives, managers, and umpires) to get to the actual number of players and pitchers elected. But this is further complicated by the fact that a few executives and managers (no umpires) are also qualified as players.

Of the 333 people elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, there have been 264 players, 36 executives (also called pioneers in the beginning of the Hall), 23 managers, and 10 umpires. But 264 players is not the correct baseline either. The Hall of Fame has elected 29 players from the Negro Leagues. As we are trying to establish the Hall of Fame baseline for the traditional Major League players, the Negro League players must be (with all due respect) removed from consideration. That leaves 235 players and/or pitchers. In other words, a player (or pitcher) from the traditional Major Leagues should be at least the equal of or better than the 235th ranked player (including pitchers) in the history of the traditional Majors to be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame. If you use the bWAR statistic from Baseball Reference as a source, the 235th best player in Major League history would be a four-way-tie at 55.8 WAR [Wins Above Replacement] between Hall of Famers Luis Aparicio and Joe Gordon with non-Hall of Famers Bob Johnson and Jim Wynn. But this is still not the correct baseline for this evaluation.

In the top 235 players (by Baseball Reference bWAR) are a lot of players that need to be excluded to actually discover the 235th best player eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame. The exclusions fall under the following five categories: 1) Players who have qualified under one of the other categories [including the Negro Leaguers]; 2) Players who are not eligible because they are still active; 3) Players who have retired and will be eligible five years after the end of their career; 4) Players who are ineligible or suspended or disqualified for whatever official or unofficial reason (such as the steroid abusers); and 5) Players who have not yet spent their entire 10 years on the Baseball Writers Association of America [BWAA] ballot. This ballot is the initial gateway into the Hall of Fame. All 235 players in the Baseball Hall of Fame have had to get through this initial gateway. Due to the steroids controversy, quite a few players on the current BBWA ballot will soon be considered to be disqualified for the Baseball Hall of Fameas as they slip into the BBWA version of Baseball purgatory. How long this disqualification will last is an open question.

Of the 235 best players by bWAR, 158 have already been elected to the Hall of Fame. Of course, 235 minus 158 equals 77. Three (3) of these unelected 77 players have been elected in other categories. Five (5) more of these players are ineligible for various reasons. Fourteen (14) players are currently on the BBWA ballot. Five (5) more players have recently retired. Ten (10) players are still active. One player (Rogan) actually would qualify from the Negro Leagues but he has not included in the initial 235. In other words, there are 37 players of the 235 best players by BWAR who are not actually eligible for election. So we need to continue to weed through the list to find the actual 235th eligible player. To make an already long story a little shorter, the eligible 235th player on Baseball reference’s bWAR career list is actually #276, also known as John “Bid” McPhee [#277 is Hall of Famer Waite Hoyt and #278 is Hall of Famer Jim O’Rourke]. The career bWAR statistic for McPhee is 52.5 bWAR [wins above replacement]. Thus, 52.5 bWAR [career wins above replacement] should be the actual lowest common denominator (or threshold or standard) for entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame by this method.

Of the current 235 players eligible and elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, 172 of them meet this minimum standard of 52.5 career bWAR. Of course, this also means that 63 of them do not. Some of them are not even close. Like a drunk at a bar searching desperately for a date, the Hall of Fame has occasionally brought someone home who should have been left outside. Three of these Hall of Fame players (George Kelly, Bruce Sutter, and Tommy McCarthy) are not even listed in the top 1000 players by career bWAR on Baseball Reference [Not uncoincidentally, these three players are also often mentioned as the worst players in the Hall of Fame]. However, since players can only enter into the Baseball Hall of Fame and never be thrown out, this knowledge does little good. An argument could be made that this method (requiring Hall of Famers to meet a 52.5 bWAR standard) is imperfect because it doesn’t match the actual results. But the counter-argument would be that the actual results, not this method, are and have always been deeply flawed. In any event, because you need to at least start with a system, I will use this bWAR lowest common denominator method to evaluate the current crop of candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Do any or all of the 10 current candidates for the Baseball Hall of Fame being considered for election by the Golden Age Era Committee meet the minimum requirement of 52.5 wins above replacement [bWAR] for their careers? In the alternative, do any of these players have a persuasive or compelling argument that some force beyond their control, such as war or racism or the stupidity of baseball owners or executives, kept them from getting to this standard?

#1 Kenton (Ken) Boyer [3B], 1955-1969, 62.8 WAR

With 62.8 career WAR, Ken Boyer is actually overqualified for the Hall of Fame. It is odd that Boyer has not already been elected. Baseball sportswriters have often pointed out that third base, Boyer’s main position, is under-represented in the Hall of Fame. Playing a great third base, Ken Boyer won the National League MVP for the 1964 World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. At that point in his career, he seemed like a shoo-in for eventual enshrinement. But that was his last good year. Back problems unraveled the rest of his career and did not allow Boyer to amass the batting statistics that would have ensured an uncontested election to the Hall. I advocate that Ken Boyer be elected.

#2 Richard (Dick) Allen [1B-3B], 1963-1977, 58.7 WAR

Dick Allen has to be the odd’s on favorite to be elected by the Golden Days Era Committee. Almost elected several years ago, Allen passed away recently. Beset by racism during his career, this one last snubbing of Dick Allen by the baseball establishment now seems like just another added injustice. Allen was quite similar to two recent players, Albert Belle and Gary Sheffield. But he was better than either of them. An absolute whale of a hitter, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Dick Allen had played ball in a supportive rather than destructive setting. As it was, Dick Allen seemed to have simply given up on the game at the age of 32. If he had had any type of career into his later 30s, Dick Allen would have been elected long ago. I also advocate that Dick Allen be elected.

#3 Orestes (Minnie) Minoso [LF] 1946-1948 [Negro Leagues], 1949-1964, 1976, 1980, 53.8 WAR

Minnie Minoso is yet another player whom the Hall of Fame simply refused to honor while he was still alive. Using 52.5 bWAR as the gateway/threshold for the Hall of Fame, Minoso ( with his career 53.8 WAR total) clears this minimum with little room to spare. But Minoso is missing the first couple of years of his career (in the tradional Major Leagues) to the racism of that time. He should have been in the Major Leagues by 1947 and become a regular by 1948 at the least. Instead, Minoso played his first full season in 1951. He is missing 10-12 WAR (at least) from the front end of his career. This missing value would put Minnie Minoso well over the 52.5 WAR threshold and at the top of this list. I strongly advocate that Minnie Minoso be elected.

#4 Walter (Billy) Pierce [P] 1945-1964, 53.4

Billy Pierce was a great pitcher and, by all reports, a very nice man. But the tides of Baseball History have washed over him and swept the remains of his career away. He does just make it over the 52.5 WAR threshold for entrance to the Hall of Fame. Although not strongly advocating that Pierce be elected, we certainly do not oppose it. Despite what Leo Durocher said, nice guys do not always have to finish last. I advocate that Billy Pierce be elected.

#5 James (Jim) Kaat [P] 1959-1983, 50.5

Like Billy Pierce, Jim Kaat was also a very good pitcher and a really nice man. His career makes an interesting matched set with the career of Pierce. While Pierce has quality to recommend his career, Kaat has one thing to sell to the Hall of Fame and that is bulk. His pitching career was as endless as his 283-237 won-loss record indicates. Personally, I have always believed that Kaat (and his unindicted co-conspirator Tommy John) belonged in the Hall. But by this present statistical analysis, he just barely misses the 52.5 WAR threshold. I regretfully do not advocate that Jim Kaat be elected.

#6 Gilbert (Gil) Hodges [1B] 1943-1963, 43.9

Gil Hodges was a very good first baseman and, by all reports, (does anyone see a theme here) a very nice man. In 1966, the baseball book “The Glory of Their Times” was published. As a direct consequence of that book, several players with very underwhelming qualifications were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. We believe that Hodges is the tip of the spear for the baseball book “The Boys of Summer” (published 1972). We need to stop this band wagon here before Preacher Roe, Carl Erskine, Carl Furillo, and Billy Cox all march together into the Hall. In all seriousness, Gil Hodges, member of the Boys of Summer and also manager of the famed 1969 Miracle Mets, is a good represention of the flip side of the accomplishment theory to the Hall of Fame. This flip side is Fame. If your threshold for the Hall is based on Fame, Hodges belongs all day long. But, using the 52.5 WAR threshold, Hodges does not belong at all. I do not advocate that Gil Hodges be elected.

#7 Pedro (Tony) Oliva [RF] 1962-1976, 43.0

Pedro (Tony) Oliva has the same story to sell to the Hall of Fame as so many other unfortunate players and pitchers. A Hall of Fame career derailed before it was ever completed. His career also has a somewhat odd shape. Oliva was at his greatest before and after the late 1960s dead ball era which co-incided with his peak years. He was still one hell of a hitter in the middle of his career, but he was better both earlier and then later before the knee injury wrecked his glide path to immortality. Most career paths are peaks. Oliva’s was like a plateau with a dip in the middle. Dick Allen has a similar trough through the dead ball years. One just has to wonder if modern medicine could have saved Tony Oliva’s knee. Like so many people, Oliva was probably just born at the wrong time. I regretfully do not advocate that Tony Oliva be elected.

#8 Maurice (Maury) Wills [SS] 1959-1972, 39.6

Maury Wills can be considered the antidote to Pierce, Kaat, and Hodges (and even Oliva). He was not a very nice man. But he was certainly an interesting one. Like Gil Hodges, Maury Wills has fame in abundance to punch his ticket to Cooperstown. As the initial breaker of Ty Cobb’s single season stolen base record, one of the great stars of the 1960s Dodgers, and the strange love thief of Doris Day’s heart, Maury has enough fame for two players. Unfortunately, his actual total accomplishments on the Baseball field does not really add up to a Hall of Fame career. I do not advocate that Maury Wills be elected.

#9 Roger Maris [RF] 1957-1968, 38.3

Roger Maris, the initial breaker of Babe Ruth’s single season home run record, has probably more fame to sell than Hodges and Wills put together. But he also has the same type of injury story as Tony Oliva, only perhaps sadder. An injury in 1963 derailed yet another great season. Then, in July of 1965, Maris fractured his hand sliding into second base. He proceeded to play the entire 1966 season with a still broken hand. There is evidence that that the Yankees did not bother to inform Maris of his injury because they wanted his presence in the line-up to sell tickets. With his hand ruined, Maris’ career slipped away from 1965 to 1968. One has to wonder how his career would have played out today. Maris, who famously did not like the bright lights of New York, would have been able to eventually pick where he played through free agency. The current medical treatments for player injuries makes the 1960s seem like the dark ages. His hand would have probably been salvaged. But instead, Maris is what he was. Like Tony Oliva, an obvious Hall of Fame career derailed by injury (and probably stress). I regretfully do not advocate that Roger Maris be elected.

#10 Danny Murtaugh [MGR] player 1941-1951, manager 1957-1976, 6.6

As I have not studied the Hall of Fame qualifications for Major League field managers at any length, my opinion about Danny Murtaugh’s Hall of Fame chances will hardly be meaningful. He did manage the Pittsburgh Pirates to five pennants. His Pirates won both World Series that they appeared in [1960 and 1971]. Murtaugh seems to be receiving a lot of credit for fielding the first completely non-white baseball line-up in traditional Major League history. He died early in 1976, ending his successful managerial career pre-maturely. But my impression of him, when he was alive, was that Murtaugh was a nice guy who managed like someone trying to drive an automobile from the back seat. Whether this impression is fair or unfair, I do not really know. In any case, I do not advocate his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But, to be quite clear, I don’t really give a hot damn about the election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in the categories of commissioners, owners, executives, managers, coaches or batboys. So I may be missing something here.

NEXT:

Examining the actual inductees of the Early Baseball Era and Golden Days Era Baseball Committees.

The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part 3. Early Baseball Era Candidates #6 through 10

The only guarantee for failure is to stop trying. John C. Maxwell

December 1, 2021

In this post, I continue my analysis of the 10 men eligible to be elected by the Hall of Fame’s Early Baseball Era Committe for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 by profiling the second five players [#6-10].

6) Victor “Vic” Harris [LF], b. 1905 [1922-1947], OPS+ 114 [SH]

Vic Harris is an interesting choice by the Committee that chose the potential candidates active before 1950 for the Early Baseball Committee. A very good outfielder in the Negro Leagues, Vic Harris forged a long career in the Negro Leagues as a player. If he had not been a victim of discrimination, Vic Harris would have probably been in the Major Leagues by 1926 and a regular shortly thereafter. Harris, a temperamental but extremely competitive man, would have almost certainly been a favorite of his Major League managers. Harris would have probably lasted as a regular until 1939 or 1940. At that point, his fading skills would have made him replaceable by younger and better players. Like many Major League players of that time, Vic Harris may have added on to his career by playing during the World War 2 years from 1942-1945 while the Major Leagues were decimated by the draft.

[Note on analyzing the Seamheads’ Negro League statistics: it is my belief that the quality of the Major Negro Leagues fluctuated between the quality of the highest classification of the Minor Leagues and the Major Leagues itself. The quality of the Negro Leagues was roughly equal to the highest Minor League classification when the Leagues began in the 1920s and then rose steadily. In the early 1930s, it is quite possible that the Negro Leagues were equal or close to equal to the caliber of the Major Leagues. In 1937, because of the founding of the Negro American League and sustained player raids by Latin American teams, the quality once again went down to highest Minor League classification standards. With this in mind, Negro League statistics need to sometimes be reduced by up to 90 percent, sometimes 95 percent, and sometimes not at all. To use the career of Vic Harris as an example: Harris becomes viable as a major league player 1923 when his Negro League OPS+ went past 100. His years playing in the 1930s are against better competition than in the 1920s and must be adjusted upwards. In the late 1930s, his OPS+ slips back below 100 and his career as a Major League regular would have come to an end. Player shortages during World War 2 could have possibly prolonged his career.]

But a careful analysis of career indicates that, if he had played in the Majors, it is very unlikely that Vic Harris would have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame simply as a player. Harris was a good hitter but not an outstanding one. He does not elevate his status by being a defensive wizard either. Vic Harris spent his career basically as a left fielder, the least important defensively of the three outfield positions. Not only are there many White outfielders of this era with better qualifications, Vic Harris does not measure up to some of his Black contemporaries such as Fats Jenkins, Clint Thomas, Neil Robinson or Herbert “Rap” Dixon as an potential Hall of Famer as an outfielder. All four of these Negro League outfielders are far more deserving of the Hall of Fame than Harris simply for their playing careers. But, like George Scales below, Vic Harris is a combination candidate. Harris had a long and successful career as a field manager.

Vic Harris managed the Homestead Grays from 1936 to 1942 and then again from 1945 to 1948. The Grays dominated the Negro National League [NNL] from 1937 to 1945, finishing first or winning the pennant every year while also winning the Negro World Series multiple times. The Grays then capped off this incredible run by winning both the 1948 pennant and the Negro World Series one final time during the last season of the NNL. It does seem like the field manager of such a formidable Baseball dynasty deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. And this, rather than his playing career (or perhaps in combination with his playing career), is the true basis for Harris’ candidacy for admittance to the Baseball Hall of Fame. So the actual question of Vic Harris’ Hall of Fame candidacy should perhaps be: “Is the combination of both his playing career and his managerial career enough to justify his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame?”

One could argue that the true “manager” and architect of the Homestead Grays dynasty that lasted from 1937 to 1945 teams was Cumberland “Cum” Posey, the team owner. Posey, of course, has already been inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame for this role. Posey had actually been the team’s field manager in 1935 but turned the title over to Harris. And this becomes the crux of the issue. Due to the free flowing nature of the Negro Leagues, field managers in these Leagues did not exactly have the same job responsibilities as their Major League counterparts. What exactly were Harris’ duties as a field manager? How much credit should he get for how great the team was at that time? Or did Harris simply do the menial stuff that Cum Posey did not want to waste his time doing? Interestingly, Harris took a war time job for the 1943 and 1944 seasons and the Grays did not miss a beat. One thing that cannot be disputed is that Cum Posey was definitely the man in charge. Was Vic Harris a great field manager or just Posey’s factotum? It is hard to tell.

After Cum Posey’s 1946 death, Vic Harris did lead the Homestead Grays to one last pennant in 1948. And under his leadership, the Grays won the last Negro World Series in the final season of the NNL. However, one could easily argue that the credit for this last victorious season actually goes to Seward Posey and Rufus Jackson, the two men who ran the Homestead Grays after Cum Posey passed away. In the last year of a dying league, they spent the money for one last shot at glory. But Harris was still there and that should certainly count for something. You cannot simply take away all of the credit. And it is a truism that a bad manager can do much more to wreck a situation than a good manager can do to improve it. But until a better understanding of exactly how much credit is apportioned to Vic Harris for his managerial talents, I cannot advocate his election to the Hall of Fame.

7) George “Tubby” Scales [2B-3B], b. 1900 [1921-1946], OPS+ 141 [SH]

The last of the seven Negro League players on this list. George Scales is yet another combination candidate like Vic Harris. George Scales played in the Negro Leagues for well over 20 years; and was also, later in his career, a very well regarded manager. But, unlike Harris, George Scales does not need the extra credit of being a good (or great) manager to make his Hall of Fame case complete. In the field, he played every position but catcher during his career. However, Scales’ appearances in the outfield and especially as a pitcher were minimal. He was was basically an infielder. He played mostly 2B and 3B but also some SS and 1B. His career path around the infield was somewhat odd. Beginning at 3B [1921-23], Scales then played 2B [1924] before shifting over to primarily SS [1926-28]. He returned to 2B [1929-32] before returning to 3B [1933-41]. From 1942 on, he played primarily 1B. Scales’ fielding statistics are actually better at 2B and SS rather than 3B. This would seem to indicate that his strength in the field was range rather than his arm. But it was with his bat that George Scales would truly make his mark.

If he had been allowed to play in the Major Leagues, George Scales would have had an extremely long career. He would have probably made his first appearance in the Majors in 1923. George Scales would have quickly become a regular and stayed a regular until 1940. He would have probably also had an extended World War 2 coda to his career with his last significant playing time in 1943 and perhaps even limited appearances in 1944 and 1945. His career plateau OPS+ in the Major Leagues would have probably been from 140 to 150. Depending on his home park, he would have averaged .350-.375 with 20-25 home runs during his absolute peak seasons. Because he would have played for 20 years in the Majors, there is a good chance that his career hits total would have approached or exceeded 3000. The sheer length of George Scales’ career would have provided him with the counting stats that would have made his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame inevitable.

It is interesting to compare Scales to his Major League contemporaries at 2B [Rogers Hornsby, Frankie Frisch, and Tony Lazzeri] and 3B [Pie Traynor, Fred Lindstrom, and Jimmy Dykes]. Scales does not really compare to Hornsby at all [the comp for Hornsby would be John Beckwith]. His career path was very similar to that of Frankie Frisch or Jimmy Dykes. But he was obviously a much greater player than Dykes. During their peak years, Tony Lazzeri and Freddie Lindstrom were comparable to Scales as hitters. But Scales’ career and peak were much longer than theirs. George Scales was a much greater hitter than Pie Traynor, though probably not his match as a third baseman. In value, the best comparison for George Scales is surely Frankie Frisch. Frisch was almost surely faster and a better fielder, but Scales was a greater and more powerful hitter. It seems clear that, after Rogers Hornsby, the contest for the best 2B of that time period would be between Frankie Frisch or George Scales.

Of course, this says nothing about his managerial career. George Scales was a well regarded field manager for mostly the New York Black Yankees and the Baltimore Elite Giants at various times from 1932 to 1947. He also managed in the Puerto Rican Winter League for 12 seasons, finishing first a reported 6 times. After the 1958 winter season, George Scales retired from baseball and became a stockbroker until he passed away in 1976. Interestingly, one other player that George Scales somewhat resembles is Jackie Robinson. Robinson also played all over the field and was a smart and mobile player. Later on in his playing career, Robinson also had trouble keeping the weight off although he fortunately never picked up a disparaging nickname like ‘Tubby’ as Scales did. If George Scales had been allowed to play in the Major Leagues without discrimination, he would have long since been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. For that very reason, I advocate his election to the Hall of Fame now.

8) Allie Reynolds [P], b. 1917 [1942-1954], ERA+ 109, WAR 25.7 [BR]

Allie Reynolds is somewhat of an oddity on this list. Unlike the first seven Negro League candidates, Reynolds played in the Major Leagues. His career straddles the 1950 cut-off for the Early Baseball Era Committee (Reynolds actually had his best seasons in the 1950s). Allie Reynolds, unlike the Negro Leagues candidates, has had an enormously long time to be considered by various electorates for induction into the Hall of Fame. Despite this, Reynolds has never been seriously considered. Probably his best qualification for the Hall of Fame is his impeccable won-lost record of 182 wins against only 107 losses. Normally, this would be the sign of a great pitcher. But, in this case, the record also reflects the quality of the two teams that Reynolds played for: the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees. Both of these teams were well run and very successful while employing Reynolds to pitch.

Other than his winning percentage, Allie Reynolds does not have any of the other earmarks of a Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher. Strangely, Reynolds does not even have the argument that many of his contemporaries do (that their careers were impacted negatively by the Second World War). The war actually allowed Reynolds to reach the Major Leagues and begin his career earlier than his talent dictated. Reynolds, outside of his one great season in 1952, was usually a barely-above-average innings-eater with command issues. Of course, there is great value to a team from a pitcher who can give it bulk innings of above average production. But it does not end up fashioning a Baseball Hall of Fame career. Allie Reynolds’ 25.7 wins above replacement from Baseball Reference does not even place him among the 1000 greatest players of all time. For this reason, I cannot advocate his election to the Hall of Fame.

9) William “Bill” Dahlen [SS], b. 1870 [1891-1911, OPS+ 110, WAR 75.2 [BR]

William “Bad Bill” Dahlen has basically two good arguments supporting his possible election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The first argument is simply Dahlen’s contemporary George Davis. In 1998, Davis, who had played from 1890 to 1909 was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Davis, who had been basically forgotten by the tides of baseball history, owed his late induction to modern baseball analysis. This analysis had concluded that George Davis was the greatest player in the history of the Major Leagues who was not already in the Hall. In fact, this analysis showed that he was significantly better qualified than the average Major League Hall of Famer. Thus began a campaign to get him elected. And Davis got in. His election then kickstarted the case for Bill Dahlen to also get elected. Davis and Dahlen are directly comparable. Both played great shortstop and were very good hitters for a very long time. Both had been equally forgotten. Although it is pretty clear that Davis was better than Dahlen, his advantage is slight. Dahlen, like Davis, is also pretty clearly significantly over-qualified statistically. In other words, the first argument to put Dahlen into the Hall is simply: “If Davis is in, why not Dahlen too?”

The second good argument for Bill Dahlen being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame is closely related to the first argument. Once George Davis was elected, Bill Dahlen became, by modern baseball analysis, the best player still on the board, waiting to get into the Hall. But there is a caveat. Dahlen is the best ‘player’ unelected but there is actually a pitcher even more qualified. By Baseball Reference’s WAR stat [wins above replacement], Jim McCormick, who pitched from 1878 to 1887 [won-loss record of 265-214], is tied for the 73rd greatest career in Major League history [WAR of 76.2]. All 72 players above him (and Bobby Wallace who he is tied with) are already in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bill Dahlen is second on this list of unelected players, all alone as the 79th best player of all time with 75.2 WAR [George Davis, for reference, is #53 with 84.5 WAR]. Considering that the Baseball Hall of Fame currently has 333 members with 235 elected from the Major Leagues, Jim McCormick and Bill Dahlen would both seem to be over-qualified. Of course, this is a completely dry statistical analysis. But it is the core of Dahlen’s second good argument for election and induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

One of the oddest things about the possible election of Bill Dahlen to the Hall of Fame is that he is not actually famous. For all intents and purposes, Dahlen has been pretty much forgotten by all but the baseball statistics aficionados. Interestingly, one of the arguments often used to try to promote the election of some players is that they are famous (Roger Maris and Maury Wills are two examples currently on the 2022 Ballot). Especially if their statistics fall a little short. Should not this argument be applicable in reverse? Dahlen’s statistics do not fall short. He is fully qualified. But Bill Dahlen is basically forgotten and not famous at all. This seems an injustice. An injustice that could be partially righted by simply inducting Dahlen into the Baseball Hall of Fame. For this somewhat convoluted reason, I advocate his election to the Hall of Fame.

10) Frank “Lefty” O’Doul [LF-P], b. 1897 [1919-1934], 143 OPS+, WAR 27.1 [BR]

The last man on this list has quite a bit in common with the first man on this list [#1 Buck O’Neil]. Other than just the initial ‘O’ in their last name, both men were a type of Baseball Renaissance Man. Frank “Lefty” O’Doul is a candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame as a player, manager, executive, and promoter. As a player, Lefty O’Doul was a fantastic hitter but not much of a fielder. As a hitter, he was very clearly Hall of Fame caliber but his career path took some detours that blocked his road to immortality. As a manager and executive, he won over 2000 games primarily for the San Francisco club of the Pacific Coast League; but, at that time, the city of San Francisco was not yet a Major League town. As a promoter, O’Doul was involved in the formation of the Japanese Baseball Leagues and then their rejuvenation after the Second World War. He was inducted into the Japanese Hall of Fame for his efforts. It can certainly be argued that Lefty O’Doul is not qualified for the Baseball Hall of Fame under any one of these categories. But O’Doul’s combination of qualifications for the Baseball Hall of Fame is actually pretty compelling.

To say that Lefty O’Doul had a somewhat odd career would be understating it. In 1917, O’Doul began his career as a pitcher for the San Francisco Seals (his hometown team). From 1917 to 1923, his primary position would be pitcher. For the season of 1919, he was drafted by the New York Yankees. Oddly, the Yankees kept O’Doul on their pitching staff for the next two years [1919 and 1920] principally as a batting practice pitcher. In 1921, the Yanks returned the now 24 year old O’Doul to San Francisco. Lefty proceeded to go 25-9 as a pitcher while also batting .338 and slugging .529 [in just 136 at bats] for the Seals. Strangely, this did not kickstart his career. In 1922, Lefty O’Doul went back to the New York Yankees to pitch some more batting practice. In 1923, the sore-armed O’Doul finished his pitching career with the Boston Red Sox. At a career crossroads, O’Doul converted to the outfield and returned to the Pacific Coast League with the Salt Lake City team for 1924. At the age of 27, O’Doul clouted .392 for the Utah team. From 1924 to 1927, O’Doul would pound Pacific Coast League pitching. In retrospect, it seems obvious that he should have converted from pitcher to slugger quite a bit earlier.

In 1927, Lefty O’Doul won the inaugaral Most Valuable Player [MVP] award of the Pacific Coast League. He slugged 33 home runs while batting .378 for the 1927 season. In 1928, now 31 years old, O’Doul rejoined the Major League as a hitter. Despite injuries, he hit .319 his first year. Then in 1928, he slugged 32 home runs and won the National League batting championship with a .398 average. He won a second batting championship in 1932 with a .368 average. A slow start in 1933 cost O’Doul his position as a starter but he could still hit. Playing part-time in 1934, Lefty averaged .316 and slugged a robust .525 for the year. In 1935, Lefty O’Doul returned to the Pacific Coast League [PCL] as a manager and part-time player. O’Doul would manage in the PCL until 1957. In his aborted seven year career [1928-1934] as a Major league slugger, Lefty O’Doul pretty much demonstrated that, if he had just started a little earlier, he would already be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Considering the bizarre glut of non-qualified 1920s and 1930s players thrown into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee during the 1960s and 1970s, his election as part of this crew would have been inevitable.

Does the fact that Lefty O’Doul was a Baseball Hall of Fame caliber hitter who just did not play long enough in the Major Leagues due to factors out of his control matter? Does the fact that, with just a little better luck, Lefty O’Doul would already be in the Hall of Fame carry any weight? Does the fact that he could be given some extra credit for promoting, or at least encouraging, the cross cultural connections between the White and Japanese Major Leagues count? Does his long and very successful career as a minor league manager, mostly in a future Major League city, add to his Hall of Fame case? It seems to me that this total package of accomplishments is worthy of election. For that reason, I do advocate the election of Lefty O’Doul to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

However, my advocacy for the election of Frank “Lefty” O’Doul to the Baseball Hall of Fame comes with the caveat that it should probably come (just like the election of John “Buck” O’Neil) under some other category than player, pioneer, executive, manager or umpire.

NEXT:

A quick round-up of the players on the Golden Age Era ballot before the election announcement tomorrow.

The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part 2 Early Baseball Era Candidates 1-5

The Greater the Obstacle, the more Glory in Overcoming it. Moliere

November 25, 2021

For 2022, there are 10 men eligible to be elected by the Hall of Fame’s Early Baseball Era Committe. These Committee members will cast their ballots on December 5, 2021; and the results will be announced that night. These new members, if any, will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 24th of 2022 in Cooperstown, New York.

The candidacies of the 7 Negro League related players will be examined first with the 3 White Major League players eligible evaluated last. The 10 players are scrutinized in this sequence to acknowledge that the Negro Leaguers have had far fewer opportunites for induction than their White peers. The players themselves will be listed in the following order:

• The Favorite: John “Buck” O’Neil
• The Most Qualified: Grant “Home Run” Johnson and Dick Redding
• The Wild Cards: John Donaldson and John “Bud” Fowler
• The Managers: Victor “Vic” Harris and George Scales
• The Oddity: Allie Reynolds
• The Leftovers: William “Bill” Dahlen and Frank “Lefty” O’Doul

In this post, I will examine the credentials of the first 5 of these 10 select men; and pass judgment on whether I would: 1) advocate for their election [a YES vote]; 2) not advocate for their election but am not against it either [a MAYBE vote]; or 3) oppose their election [a NO vote]. In my next post, I will examine candidates 6 through 10.

After each candidate’s name will be the following information: 2) His primary fielding position; 2) Year born; 3) First and last full year of their Black or White Major League career; and 4) His career OPS+ and/or ERA+ stat. Also, if they played in the White Major Leagues, their WAR [Wins Above Replacement stat] will be listed last. All statistics are from the website baseballreference.com [BR] for the White Major Leagues and/or the website seamheads.com [SH] from their Negro League database* for those players who toiled behind the Color Line.

*Seamheads’ Negro Leagues Statistical database current to 11/19/2021.

1) John “Buck” O’Neil [1B], b. 1911 [Career 1937-1948], 104 OPS+ [SH]

Buck O’Neil has to the absolute favorite of the 10 Candidates who are being considered by the Early Baseball Era Committee for induction in 2022. The last time that the Hall of Fame inducted anyone from the Negro Leagues was 2006. In that induction, seventeen members of the Negro Leagues went into the Hall of Fame all at once. Reportedly, Buck O’Neil missed election with the class of 2006 by a single vote. To his credit, O’Neil did not shed a tear of pity for himself. On July 29, 2006, he gave the induction speech for all the Negro Leaguers who did make it that year. Buck O’Neil passed away shortly after on October 6, 2006. All of this has led to a distinct feeling that a miscarriage of justice was done when his election was denied. A betting man would have to put his money down on Buck O’Neil to be elected in 2022.

That being said: Buck O’Neil does not deserve induction for his playing career. His career as a first baseman in the Negro Major Leagues has some superficial similarities to the career of Mickey Vernon in the White Majors. Even so, it is pretty obvious that O’Neil was not as good as Vernon. No one is clamoring to put Mickey Vernon into the Hall of Fame. But then there is the rest of O’Neil’s resume. Buck managed the Kansas City Monarchs to multiple pennants from 1948 to 1955. Starting in 1956, he was a Major League scout for the Chicago Cubs and then the Kansas City Royals. In 1962, Buck O’Neil was the very first African American coach in the Major Leagues. For years, Buck was one of the strongest and best voices keeping the memory of the Negro Leagues alive. In 1981, he joined the Veterans Committee of the Hall of Fame. In 1990, Buck O’Neil was one of the founders of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. The pinnacle of O’Neil’s long life was probably the previously mentioned 2006 election of 17 members of the Negro Leagues to the Hall of Fame. A life well lived, to say the least.

One of the many odd things about the Baseball Hall of Fame is that there is no category for a Baseball Renaissance Man. Baseball Hall of Fame members are chosen from the distinct categories of players, executives, managers, and umpires. They do not have a category for coaches or scouts or the composer of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” And there is no category for anyone who qualifies under multiple categories, perhaps merits election for the totality of their contribution to the game of Baseball, but absolutely does not deserve election under any single category. The career of Buck O’Neil would certainly fit this description. While we do not advocate the election of Buck O’Neil to the Hall of Fame under any of the present categories, we do advocate that the Baseball Hall of Fame create such a combination or meritorious category. It would allow the Hall of Fame to do justice to Buck O’Neil and maybe some other candidates. Of course, great injustice is often done by simply waiting for justice to occur. With that in mind, we do advocate that John “Buck” O’Neil be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

2) Grant “Home Run” Johnson [SS], b. 1872 [Career 1894-1914], 158 OPS+ [SH]

If you were trying to determine the greatest player or pitcher that has been passed over and forgotten by the Hall of Fame, you would probably not go wrong by starting your search with the African-American players and pitchers who played primarily before the Negro Leagues even started in 1920. Such a search would quickly lead you to Grant “Home Run” Johnson. The greatest Negro hitter of his time, Johnson’s entire career on major Negro teams had been over for years when Andrew Foster (a former teammate) founded the Negro Leagues. A shortstop in his prime, he was not without defensive value. The direct contemporary of both Honus Wagner and Napoleon Lajoie, Grant Johnson is the missing member of this elite triad.

The Seamheads Negro Leagues database, put together by Gary Ashwill and a raft of other Negro League researchers, credits Grant Johnson with an OPS+ of 158 over his long career. Careful analysis of these Negro Leagues statistics shows that the quality of the Negro Leagues [1920-1948] in the database was usually between the highest classification of the Minor Leagues (currently classified as Triple-A) and the Major Leagues itself. Of course, this varied over time. At some points, the quality was as low and perhaps a touch lower than Triple-A. But, at other times, the quality was actually close to equal or maybe even [sacrilege] a touch higher than the Major Leagues. Evaluating these statistics must be done very very carefully; but the compiled database of box scores in the Seamheads Negro League database has been a godsend to Negro League researchers.

The quantity of the statistics in the database also fluctuates. In the 1920s, the statistical record is much better, sometimes complete or all but complete. In the early 1930s, the record gets much worse because of the Great Depression. But then it improves as the years roll on. In the early 1940s, the record once again begins to get quite good and the Negro Leagues themselves actually begin to compile the statistics. Full statistics were actually published for both the 1944 and 1945 seasons for both the NAL and NNL. But then the compiled statistical record once again falls apart as the Negro Leagues disintegrate and the Press, both black and white, stops covering them. Interestingly, published statistics for the Negro Leagues are much better well into the 1950s. At this point, the remaining Negro League teams were hanging on by selling players to Organized Baseball. Probabaly because the published stats were helpful to promote these player sales, the statistics become more plentiful.

Of course, Grant “Home Run” Johnson finished his career with the major Negro teams of his time many years before the foundation of the Negro Leagues themselves. The Seamheads database also contains statistics going far back before 1920. But these statistics dwindle over time. By the 1890s, the statistics are merely a trickle. And these stats are even more unreliable than the statistics from the actual Negro Leagues. The obvious question is: how can you compare Johnson’s reported 158 career OPS+ in this receding record to the career Major League OPS+ of his contemporaries Napoleon Lajoie and Honus Wagner? The career OPS+ of Lajoie was 150 and Wagner was slightly higher at 151. Would not discounting the quality of the games making up Johnson’s Seamheads’ record for not being Major League caliber bring Johnson’s OPS+ down well below the career OPS+ of both Lajoie and Wagner?

But there is an obvious answer to this question. The Seamheads’ database statistics for Grant Johnson are much more plentiful in his 30s than they are in his 20s. Johnson turned 30 in 1902. Of the 1790 plate appearances [PA] listed for Johnson, only 64 of them came in the year 1902 or earlier. From 1903 to the year 1909, Johnson registered 1,017 PAs. From 1910 to 1914, he had 709 more PA. The median age for Grant Johnson per PA is 36 years old. In other words, if you normalized Johnson’s OPS+ for his age and career path, it would rise significantly. There is no way around the conclusion that Grant Johnson was one absolute whale of a hitter. John Henry Lloyd [141 OPS+] and Pete Hill [171 OPS+] would probably be considered the greatest Black hitters of the next generation. Grant Johnson played with both in the fading years of his career and the flowering of their talent. The evidence available suggests that Grant Johnson was just as great a hitter (or an even greater hitter) then either Lloyd or Hill.

If he had been allowed to play his whole career in the White Major Leagues, Grant “Home Run” Johnson would have surely amassed over 3000 hits. If he had played in a park that did not unreasonably suppress his home runs (like Honus Wagner did), Johnson would have probably held the career HR record until Babe Ruth came along to annihilate it. Grant Johnson would have been a legend. Of course, this would also make Johnson one of the 100 greatest Baseball players of all-time. And it is more probable that he was in the top 50. It is our contention that Grant “Home Run” Johnson is the answer to the question: Who is the greatest Baseball player passed over by both the BBWAA and the various Veteran’s Committees of the Hall of Fame? Because of this, we strongly advocate that the great Grant “Home Run” Johnson be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

3) Richard “Dick” Redding [P], b. 1890 [Career 1911-1936], ERA+ 129 [SH] aka “Cannonball”

Richard “Dick” Redding is the flip side of the Grant “Home Run” Johnson coin. Dick Redding is probably the greatest African-American pitcher who has been passed over by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Like Grant Johnson, Redding’s best years came before the formation of the Negro Leagues. In his prime, Redding and his rival Smokey Joe Williams [147 SH ERA+] were considered the peers of their white counterparts, Walter Johnson [147 BR ERA+] and Grover “Pete” Alexander [135 BR ERA+]. By his Seamheads career statistics [129 SH OPS+], Redding would seem to be a slightly lesser pitcher than his direct peers. The Major League pitcher who probably best compares to Dick Redding was Rube Waddell [135 BR ERA+] of the previous generation. Like the great Waddell, Redding threw extremely hard but without pinpoint control; was celebrated for his durability; and often pitched both games of double-headers. And also like Waddell, Redding was the main character in a number of odd, humorous, or simply strange stories. Of course, Dick Redding was nowhere near as odd an individual as Rube Waddell. Very few people were.

In the Seamhead’s database, Dick Redding is assigned a Negro Leagues won-loss record of 109-80 [.577%] with an ERA+ of 129. But these stats include a 2-5 record in the winter Florida Hotel All-Star League. Dick Redding’s stats in just summer time Negro League play are 107-75 [.588]. These statistics, while not unimpressive, are also not over-whelming. But his statistics [like Grant Johnson’s stats above] are suffering from a statistical doppler’s effect. There are less statistics from his prime (the 1910s) than there should be and more stats from the years of his decline (the 1920s and 1930s). By decade, Dick Redding’s summer statistics are: the 1910s 62-27 [.697%] in 794.0 innings; the 1920s 44-46 [.489%] in 757.1 innings; and the 1930s 1-2 [.333%] in just 22.1 innings. The 109-80 compiled record understates Redding’s dominance. In his prime from 1914 to 1919, Dick Redding went 46-12 [.793] against the top Negro teams during the summer season. During this same time frame, Joe Williams went 45-15 [.750] against the best Black clubs. In other words, Dick Redding was possibly much greater at his peak than the Seamheads database 129 ERA+ indicates.

In the 1910s, Dick Redding, in the Major Leagues, would have probably been throwing up to 400 innings per year, maybe even more. But, by the 1920s, his incredible cannonball was clearly losing its thunder. Redding was still a good pitcher, and (absent discrimination) he would have continued to pitch in the Majors late into the 1920s and even into the 1930s . But his innings pitched per year would have plummeted. Of course, the 1920s lively ball offense, all by itself, reduced how many innings a top hurler could throw. It is probable that Redding himself would have been forced to limit his innings just to retain his viability as a Major League pitcher [i.e more quality innings by reducing quantity]. A comparison between Dick Redding and his contemporary Pete Alexander is interesting. Alexander was pitching 350 or so innings during the 1910s but was down to 250 innings or so in the 1920s. Of course, Alexander was still a dominant pitcher in the 1920s who compensated for the loss of his best fastball with uncanny control. But Redding simply continued to throw as hard as he could. In this way, Dick Redding was similar to Nolan Ryan, the greatest strikeout pitcher of all-time. All indications are that the bulk of Dick Redding’s career would have been in the 1910s.

In our opinion, Dick Redding belongs in a discussion with Walter Johnson, Joe Williams, and Grover Alexander as the best pitchers of the 1910s. Careerwise, Redding is probably inferior to these three pitchers. But his best seasons may have been another story. There is a very good chance that Redding, in one year or perhaps in multiple years, would have pitched an absolutely insane amount of innings like Jack Chesbro in 1904 [454 IP] or Ed Walsh in 1908 [464 IP]. Without discrimination, Dick Redding would have certainly won over 300 games just like his contemporaries. Of course, he would have probably lost well over 200 games also. Although he was almost surely not quite as good a pitcher as the trio of Alexander, Johnson, and Williams, Redding was probably a not too far distant fourth. This would still make Dick Redding one of the 100 greatest baseball players who have ever lived and a much more worthy candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame than dozens of other pitchers who have already been inducted. For this reason, we also strongly advocate that the great Dick Redding be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

4) John Donaldson [P-OF], b. 1891 [1916-1932], ERA+ 114 [SH], OPS+ 100 [SH]

John Donaldson, even far more than Dick Redding, shows the limitations of the current statistical database of Negro League players. The great majority of John Donaldson’s career was spent entirely outside of the Negro Leagues. This is documented extensively on the wonderful John Donaldson Network website [johndonaldson.bravehost.com]. This website has tons of information documenting the entirety of his career from 1908-1940. The stated mission of the website is to get John Donaldson elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. So the obvious questions are: 1) What does the statistical evidence, including the lack thereof, say about Donaldson; and 2) Does this evidence support John Donaldson’s candidacy for the Baseball Hall of Fame?

The Early Career of John Donaldson

Early in his career [1908-1915], John Donaldson played on the prairies of the Midwest, barnstorming against white semi-pro teams. He played primarily for J.L. Wilkinson’s novelty All Nations team (the team used it’s make-up of many different ethnicities, even women, to attract curious customers). Wilkinson, of course, would later be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for being the long time owner of the Kansas City Monarch’s Negro Leagues franchise. By 1912, John Donaldson had reportedly developed into the best Negro pitcher in the country. Observers from 1912 to 1915 claimed that John Donaldson was a sure 30-game-winner in the Major Leagues. Blindingly fast with an incredible curve ball, Donaldson tore through the white semi-pro teams in the Midwest like a hurricane through a field of wheat. There is certainly evidence during this time that John Donaldson was an incredible pitcher. Just how incredible is uncertain.

After the 1915 summer season ended, the Seamheads database begins to document John Donaldson’s career against the best of the nation’s African-American players and teams. An analysis of what is available on Seamheads is fascinating. In the winter of 1915-1916, he played in the (so-called) Florida Hotel League. Basically, teams representing two hotels in Palm Beach, Florida, spent the winter playing a series against each other. At this time, these two teams were staffed with the absolute elite of Negro baseball. Playing for the Royal Poinciana Hotel, Donaldson went 0-4. He pitched 30 innings, giving up 31 hits, while walking 13 and striking out 24 with a 3.82 ERA. Three of these defeats were against Joe Williams, the greatest African-American pitcher of that generation. Late in 1916, John Donaldson pitched games against both the Chicago American Giants and the Indianapolis ABCs, the two best Negro Teams in the Midwest. Against these teams, Donaldson went 2-0, pitching 15 innings, giving up 12 hits, walking 6 and striking out 19. The question would be: “What do these staistics, a mere glimpse of Donaldson in his actual prime, or just after his prime, tell us?”

In the statistics from his prime (or near prime), John Donaldson went 2-4 in 45.2 innings, giving up 43 hits and 19 walks, while striking out 43 with a 3.74 ERA. At first glance, these stats do not seem to be very impressive. Just two wins against four losses? But, as stated, Donaldson was playing these games against only the very best Negro players and teams of this time. This was also Donaldson’s first exposure to entire line-ups made of Major League caliber hitters, and he probably needed to make some adjustments. But 43 strikeouts in just 45.2 innings against the very cream of that era’s best Negro hitters is incredibly impressive despite the small sample size. It is pretty obvious that Donaldson was a hard day’s night for even the best African-American hitters at that point. The evidence, properly evaluated, seems to indicate that John’s reputation was well deserved. On the other hand, it is just 45 and two/thirds innings, barely enough to make a reliable judgment. However, there is even more evidence that John Donaldson was a great pitcher

The Middle Career of John Donaldson

From 1917 to 1919 in the Seamheads database, John Donaldson went 15-15 over 259.1 innings while giving up 221 hits and also 74 walks. He struck out 140 batters and registered an ERA of 2.15. Once again, the won/loss record is not all that impressive. But again this is deceiving. Donaldson’s ERA+ from 1917 to 1919 was approximately 151. An ERA+ of 151 in 30 decisions should have resulted in a record of 21-9 or 20-10. His winning percentage says more about the caliber of his competition than it does about John Donaldson. But even this analysis understates just how good a pitcher Donaldson was at that point. Because of his fame, Donaldson was usually used as a feature pitcher from 1917 to 1919. In other words, he pitched in very well-publicized games versus the best pitchers from the best teams. In 1918, while pitching for the Brooklyn Royal Giants, John Donaldson once again matched up multiple times against Smokey Joe Williams. What this means is that he was actually a much greater pitcher than his 1917-1919 stats indicate. John Donaldson’s legend certainly is not being debunked by this additional evidence.

But the statistics from 1917 to 1919 also document the decline of Donaldson’s fastball. In 1917, Donaldson struck out 45 in 60.0 innings [6.75 strikeouts per nine innings]. In 1918, he struck out 57 in 114.1 innings [4.49]. Then, in 1919, Donaldson struck out just 38 in 85.0 innings [4.02]. Despite this decline, John Donaldson was still a formidable front line starting pitcher from 1917 to 1919. Then, in 1920, John Donaldson was no longer primarily a pitcher. Playing for the Kansas City Monarchs in their first year of existance, Donaldson’s primary position was center field. Donaldson played in 75 of the Monrach’s compiled 78 games. He started 63 in centerfield. As a pitcher, Donaldson compiled a 6-6 record in 95.1 innings with an ERA OF 3.78 [ERA+ of just 91]. His strikeout percentage did increase to 5.11 per 9 innings [54 SO]. But this increase in his strikeout rate is almost surely related to pitching less often. Pro-rated to a full season (at that time) of 154 games, John Donaldson’s innings pitched would have fallen from 319.1 in 1919 [85.0 IP in 41 games] to just 188.1 in 1920 [95.1 IP in 78 games]. In 1919, John Donaldson was an ace pitcher. In 1920, he was a fourth starter.

In 1921, John Donaldson’s arm apparently reached the end of the line. John Donaldson played in all 101 games compiled that season for the Kansas City Monarchs by the Seamheads database. He played in centerfield for 100 of those 101 games. He pitched in only 8 games, starting three. Donaldson’s 1921 pitching record was a poor 0-3 in 41.2 innings [pro-rated to 154 games, this works out to just 62.2 innings]. He finished the 1921 season with an ERA of 4.97 [ERA+ of just 74]. Early in the 1922 season, Donaldson continued as the Kansas City Monarchs’ centerfielder. He did not pitch any games at all in the Negro National League. His career as a pitcher seemed over. That same year, J.L. Wilkinson reformed his All Nations team as a farm team for his K.C. Monarchs. But there are also indications that J.L. Wilkinson reformed the All Nations hoping to capitalize on John Donaldson’s fame [shades of Satchel Paige in 1939]. From mid-1922 and through 1923, Donaldson was playing on this All Nations club, drawing good crowds while barnstorming all across the Midwest. By 1924, his actual Negro League career was effectively over.

The Later Career of John Donaldson

While playing on the All Nations team in 1922 and 1923, John Donaldson’s arm evidently recovered. By late 1922, Donaldson was once again a featured pitcher for the All Nations club. In both 1923 [9 games] and 1924 [2 games], Donaldson did make a few appearances for the Monarchs. But his primary team was the All Nations. After leaving the All Nations in 1924 until his career ended in 1940, John Donaldson would pitch primarily on either white semi-pro teams or for teams put together by himself throughout the Midwestern States. John Donaldson effectively spent the rest of the 1920s and the 1930s selling his arm to the highest bidder amongst the mid-western white semi-pros. If no bidder was available, he would then put togther his own team and barnstorm against the same teams. Every once and awhile, John Donaldson would still play a little with J.L. Wilkinson’s Monarchs.

John Donaldson’s decision to play out his career in this fashion was surely financial. He made more money, possibly much more, than he would have playing in the Negro Leagues. But, for this reason, there are virtually no stats covering this period of Donaldson’s career in the Seamheads Negro Leagues database. Of course, the question of how good John Donaldson was while pitching during the later 1920s and early 1930s is very important for a proper evaluation of his Baseball Hall of Fame case. In our opinion, after carefully considering the available evidence, it seems that John Donaldson was once again a Major League caliber pitcher during the 1920s and even into the 1930s. He was also probably once agan a potential Major League 20 game winner in the mid to late 1920s. But the evidence is slim. John Donaldson may have also just been a bulk innings-eating starter in the Majors Leagues until age ended his career as it does for all players. Or perhaps Donaldson would have finished out his career in the Minor Leagues. Probably the only true conclusion is that more evidence is needed.

John Donaldson in the Batting Box

Of course, this is just the pitching side of the ledger for John Donaldson. He was also, by reputation, a very good hitter and fine fielder. The Seamheads database lists his OPS+ as exactly 100 [an average Negro League hitter] over 1287 plate appearances. Almost all of these plate appearances are from the years 1920 to 1922 when Donaldson was 28 to 30 years old [928 PA]. From 1920 until early 1923, John Donaldson played centerfield for the Kansas City Monarchs. In 1920, his Seamheads OPS+ was 116 in 338 plate appearances. In 1921, it was 88 in 458 PA. In 1922, his OPS+ was 125 in 132 PA. In 1923, John Donaldson had a 112 OPS+ in just 45 plate appearances. Interestingly, the 1921 season sticks out. In that year, John Donaldson’s pitching career reached its nadir. His sore arm or shoulder certainly limited his pitching. But it also very likely affected his hitting, especially his power. In fact, the biggest difference between his 1920 and 1921 batting was very good power in 1920 and almost a complete lack of power for the 1921 season.

Because of this, John Donaldson’s Seamheads compiled batting statistics may unfairly represent his hitting skill. His 458 plate appearances during the 1921 season make up an unnaturely large chunk of his career batting statistics. In other words, his OPS+ for that year may be unnaturally depressing his career OPS+ quite a bit. Outside of his 1921 injury year, Donaldson appears to have been a fine centerfielder who hit 20 percent or so better in his prime than the average Negro League player at that time. This is a very fine player. Even if he had never pitched, John Donaldson would have almost surely had a long career in the Negro Leagues as a position player. Going all the way down the rabbit hole, Donaldson would have almost surely been an even better hitter if he had just concentrated on batting rather than pitching. If John Donaldson had not been the victim of discrimination (and the beneficiary of a lightning bolt of a left arm that made him more valuable as a pitcher), I believe that he could have played regularly as a centerfielder in the White Major Leagues.

John Donaldson Conclusion

By reputation and legend, John Donaldson was one of the greatest African-American pitchers of All-Time. A close examination of the evidence that is available does not contradict this assumption. In my view, Donaldson was exactly what has been presented. I believe that, from at least 1912 to 1916, John Donaldson was capable of winning well over 20 games (and possibly 30) a year in the Major Leagues (unless he wound up trapped on some horrible team such as the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics). Donaldson was still a fine Major League starting pitcher from 1917 to 1919 with his career having a crisis in 1920 and 1921. But Donaldson’s pitching arm came back in 1922. After 1923, I believe that Donaldson was once again a Major League caliber pitcher, perhaps even capable of winning 15 to 20 games a year in the Major Leagues. On top of this, John Donaldson was also capable of being a starting position player in the Major Leagues as a good hitting centerfielder. This is certainly a Hall of Fame player.

Going into this analysis of John Donaldson’s career, I did not believe that a close inspection of his career would quite match the legend. However, even taking it all still with a grain of salt, I believe it is apparent that the legend is more true that false. Even with a very steep discount, it would appear that John Donaldson would have had a career probably at least as good as Richard “Rube” Marquard, his direct contemporary [1908-1925]. Marquard is already in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Of course, there are many who would argue that Marquard does not deserve to be in the Hall. But this would be the floor for Donaldson. He was almost surely a much greater pitcher than Marquard. On the other hand, the most optimistic projections of his career would make John Donaldson the second greatest African-American pitcher of his era, behind only Joe Williams, and probably better than Cannonball Dick Redding. I firmly believe that John Donaldson is much closer to the second evaluation than the first. Because of this, we advocate that John Donaldson be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

5) John “Bud” Fowler [2B-P], b. 1858 [No Major/Negro League Service at all]

John “Bud” Fowler is an eclectic choice as a candidate for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bud Fowler was, for all intents and purposes, the first African-American professional baseball player. Beginning his career in 1876, Bud made a brief appearance in the 1878 International Association. This made Fowler the first African American to play in the minor leagues. From that point on, Fowler’s career path looks like it was planned by a completely crazy travel agent. Bud would stay in one place for just a year or two before moving on. Bud Fowler continued to play in the white minor leagues until 1895. No African-American player from the 19th Century can even remotely compete with the number of White teams who hired Fowler to play for them. Like some Baseball version of Johnny Appleseed, John “Bud” Fowler spread the news to every corner of the country that African Americans could excel at the National Pastime too.

As a player, Bud Fowler started as a pitcher in 1876. There is some evidence that Fowler was a good enough pitcher that he would have at least deserved a tryout in the National League (the only Major League at that time) in the 1870s. He pitched until his arm gave out in 1884. However, this did not end his career because he was also a Major League caliber second baseman. His playing career continued on until a rib injury in 1904 finally stopped it at the ripe old age of 46. Although Fowler surely would have played in the Major Leagues absent discrimination as a second baseman, there are no indications that Fowler would have forged a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher or player. Or as a manager. Or as an executive. Unlike Buck O’Neil, his fellow possible 2022 inductee, Bud Fowler does not combine all or even any of the current Baseball Hall of Fame categories to make a compelling case. Fowler is, one would say, pretty much in a category all his own.

In 1895, the same year as his last appearance in the white minor leagues, Bud Fowler was also one of the founders of the Page Fence Giants. This team was the first truly great Negro barnstorming team in the Midwest. From then until his death in 1911, Fowler organized and promoted his own African-American barnstorming teams. Virtually every year brought a new team, a new scheme, a new city or town. These teams and schemes got Negro baseball percolating in many different locations. Bud Fowler was an incredible character. If Fowler had been allowed to remain in White Baseball, he would have probably left an incredible minor league legend as a manager, promoter and possibly owner. Baseball historians of today would still be telling stories about him. Does all this add up to merit an induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame? As already stated, he does not fit under any current category. But the Baseball Hall of Fame used to have a category for “Pioneers” [now lumped together with the Executive cagetory]. Using a broad interpretation of pioneer, Fowler would seem to fit quite well under this forgotten category. Your mileage may vary, but we do not advocate or oppose John “Bud” Fowler’s enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

[Update 12/31/2021: Bud Fowler was elected and will be inducted with the 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Class. Various sources have listed his election as being under the either the “Player” or “Pioneer” category. The Hall of Fame website itself lists Fowler under the “Executive” category.]

NEXT:

We will evaluate the remaining 5 candidates (6 through 10) potentially being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in the year 2022 by the Early Baseball Era Committee.

The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part One

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. Napoleon Bonaparte

November 19, 2021

For the Baseball Hall of Fame Election of 2022, the potential candidates for election are being chosen from three separate groups. The first group of candidates would be those players being voted on by the Baseball Writer’s Association of America [BBWAA]. The membership of this first group consists of all players recently retired (for at least 5 years) and also qualified (minimum of 10 years in the Major Leagues). These players then have ten years to be chosen by the BBWAA before being kicked off the ballot. Any player named on 75% of the BBWA ballots during this ten year period gets inducted into the Hall. Of course, in the imaginations of most Baseball fans, these candidates are what the Baseball Hall of Fame is all about. Recently retired stars vying for their chance at immortality. You could say that this first group of nominees are the equivalent of First Class on an airplane.

The second group of potential candidates for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 consists of various players, executives, managers, and umpires who were active primarily from 1950 to 1969. They are being considered by the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Golden Days Era Committee. Why this time frame is assigned the qualifier “Golden Days” is just unexplained. In any event, this Committee consists of 16 members appointed by the Hall of Fame itself and any candidate receiving 12 votes (75%) from the Golden Days Era Committee will be inducted. The Golden Days Era Committee will get to vote on 10 pre-selected candidates. These ten pre-selected candidates were chosen by yet another Committee which was also appointed by the Baseball Hall of Fame. This second group of candidates could be considered the equivalent of Coach Class on an airplane.

The third group of potential candidates for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022 consists of the players, executives, managers, and umpires who were active primarily before 1950. In other words, this group consists of all the White players who played on the Caucasian side of the Color Line; and all the Black and Latin players who were discriminated against and had to play out their careers in the Negro Leagues and other Blackball related teams and leagues. This group is being considered by the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Early Baseball Era Committee. This Committee is structured exactly the same as the Golden Days Era Committee and will vote on the 10 candidates who have also been pre-selected by yet another Hall of Fame appointed Committee. This third group of candidates up for consideration could perhaps be equated with the Steerage Class of Passengers on the Titanic. A select few will be rescued from the Ocean… but most are going down with the ship.

The Reanimated Corpses of the Veterans Committee

The Early Baseball Era Committee (candidates before 1950) and the Golden Days Era Committe (1950 to 1969) are two of the four Committees that are allowed to elect new members to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The other two Committees, the Modern Day’s Era Committee (1970 to 1987) and the Today’s Game Era Committee (1988 to the present) are not voting this year. All four of these Committees were created in 2016 when the Hall of Fame once again restructured its voting procedures. But, basically, all four Committees are the dismembered corpse of the original and much maligned Veterans Committee. The Baseball Hall of Fame allows the Today’s Game Era and Modern Day’s Era Committees to elect new members four times each decade. The Golden Days Era Committee holds its election twice every ten years. The Early Baseball Era Committee, the misbegotten stepchild of these Committees, is allowed to hold its election just once every decade.

The Baseball Hall of Fame has limited the Early Baseball Era Committee to one election every decade to slow the inductions of players, executives, managers, and umpires active before 1950 to a slow trickle. An argument can certainly be made that restricting any and all inductions for anyone participating in the White Major Leagues before 1950 makes a lot of sense. This is a field that has been plowed over again and again. Every eligible player of the White Majors from this period, who is not already in the Hall of Fame, has already had many many chances to be elected. Of course, the Baseball Hall of Fame could have simply ruled that anyone active before 1950 is now no longer eligible to be elected. This was apparently too easy or perhaps just made too much sense. However, in the history of the Baseball Hall of Fame, it has never completely closed the door to anyone.

Ironically, Major League Baseball, which basically controls the Baseball Hall of Fame, decided in December 2020 to recognize seven major Negro Leagues as (apparently co-equal) Major Leagues. One year later in December 2021, the Early Baseball Era Committee got to hold its first election since its conception. Any inductee who is elected this year by the Committe will then be allowed to enter the Hall in 2022. After that induction, the Early Baseball Era Committee will not get to hold its next election until December of 2031. In other words, despite finally being considered Major Leaguers, the chance that many more Negro Leaguers will be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame is slim and none. And slim is on life support with no oxygen. Unlike their white contemporaries from before 1950, the Negro League Players from before the fall of the Color Line are not a field that has been completely plowed by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Now the Negro Leaguers have reached the promised land only to find the door to the Baseball Hall of Fame is a locked vault door which only opens once a decade.

Conclusion

Apparently, the members of the Early Baseball Era Committee (or whoever selects the 10 candidates for this Committee) seem to realize this paradox. Of the ten candidates selected for possible election in 2022, seven played their careers on the wrong side of the Color Line. Only three players are from the contemporary White Leagues. For all pratical purposes, the Early Baseball Era Committee has become the Negro Leagues Era Committee. We will see how this works out and then wait 10 years if a course correction is needed

NEXT:

In The 2022 Baseball Hall of Fame Election, Part Two, this blog will examine the credentials of the 10 candidates who are being considered for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Early Baseball Era Committee.

NOTE:

I have changed the name of my blog from the exceedingly unoriginal “My Baseball Blog” to “Endless Fields of Green” because my eldest daughter’s only comment upon seeing the blog was: “It’s green.” I am not sure yet whether I actually like this rebranding. But I do like the acronym for “Endless Fields of Green.” From now on, in honor of Rickey Henderson, I will probably switch from the first person to the third person and speak on my blog as EFOG.

[Update 12/31/2021: After trying out the third person, I have decided to return to first person singular. All respect to Rickey H….. because speaking in the third person is harder than it looks.]

Grant “Home Run” Johnson

“The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering.” Bruce Lee [reportedly]

November 17, 2021

Some of the Baseball subjects that usually tumble around inside my brain, in no particular order, would be: 1) Baseball in the Nineteenth Century; 2) The History of the Home Run; 3) The Negro Leagues, or more precisely, Baseball before Integration; 4) Who are the Greatest Baseball Players of All-Time; and 5) The Baseball Hall of Fame. My mind is a strange place.

Considering the cascade of my thoughts, it is pretty easy to see why I am fascinated by the life of Grant (Home Run) Johnson. He was born September 23rd of 1872, deep in the 19th Century. Because he was African-American, Johnson was not allowed to play where he without a doubt belonged, in the Major Leagues. Despite this, in 1894, Grant Johnson began an extremely long professional baseball career. That year, he joined the original Cuban Giants. In 1895, Grant Johnson played for yet another legendary Black team, the Page Fence Giants. Johnson continued his career with stints on virtually every other great Negro team operating before the First World War: the Columbia Giants of Chicago, the Chicago Unions, the Cuban X Giants, the Philadelphia Giants, the Brooklyn Royal Giants, the Chicago Leland Giants, and then the New York Lincoln Giants. After finishing his playing career on the cream of the Negro teams with the Lincoln Giants in 1914, Grant Johnson continued on playing professional baseball with lesser teams until 1930. He finally retired at the geriatric baseball age of 58 years young. If sheer durability is any indication of greatness, Johnson would have to have been one of the greatest Baseball Players of All-Time.

In the year 1908, when Sol White (who was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007) published his seminal “History of Colored Baseball” book, he picked the greatest African-American pitcher of that time, Andrew (Rube) Foster, to write an essay on pitching for his book. Of course, Rube Foster is also in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Then Sol White also picked the greatest African-American hitter of that time to write an essay on hitting. This hitter, of course, was the the one and only Grant (Home Run) Johnson. How good a hitter was Johnson? He played on teams with both John Henry Lloyd and Pete Hill, each of whom has also been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. There is plenty of evidence that Johnson was every bit as good a hitter as either Lloyd or Hill. In fact, especially considering their respective ages when they played together, it would appear that Grant Johnson was quite possibly a even greater hitter at his peak than either Lloyd or Hill. Grant Johnson was also more than just a great hitter without any defensive value. In his prime, Johnson played shortstop for his teams, converting to second base late in his 30s, before finally ending his career as a first baseman in his 40s and 50s. Johnson, who was a church going man with exemplary personal habits, passed away in 1963 at the advanced age of 90 years.

At his peak, Grant Johnson was compared very favorably to yet another Hall of Famer, Napoleon Lajoie. It was stated that any team owner could not go wrong picking either the African American Johnson or the Caucasian and quite French Lajoie. Whether Grant Johnson was as great or an even greater player than Napoleon Lajoie is a question that currently cannot be answered with complete certainty. But I firmly believe that Johnson was every bit as great as Lajoie. For one thing, Grant Johnson did not share Napoleon Lajoie’s one great weakness: the inability to accept his fair share of bases on balls. Home Run Johnson may have even been comparable as a hitter to his other direct contemporary, the great Honus Wagner. If this was true, it would be indisputable that Grant (Home Run) Johnson was one of the 100 greatest baseball players of all-time. This Baseball Blog is dedicated to the memory of the great Grant Johnson and will undertake to expand the readily available knowledge about this mostly forgotten and overlooked Ballplayer.

NEXT:

The future content of my baseball blog will contain posts exploring: Baseball Demographics, Current Events in Baseball, Who should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Baseball in the 19th Century, the Negro Leagues, the History of the Home Run, the 100 (or perhaps 200 or 300) Greatest Players of All-time, and any other topics that catch my attention at the moment. Hopefully, I will even be able to relate some of these topics to exactly how the game of Baseball is currently being played.