Who Do You Think Merits Cooperstown fr. Today's Candid'ts?

[Bijan]

Meant to ask this before the deal went down at 2 p.m., but got tied up doing "real" work. For those who follow that 'other' summer sport, whom do you think was worthy of Baseball HOF induction from today's possibles? Edgar Martinez? Robbie Alomar? Fred McGriff? Mark McGwire? "Hawk" Dawson?

Andre Dawson, a five-tool player who won eight Gold Glove and four Silver Slugger Awards in a career spanning 21 seasons with the Montreal Expos, Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox and Florida Marlins, was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in balloting verified by Ernst & Young. He will be inducted into the Hall July 25 at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Dawson, whose fielding prowess earned him the nickname “The Hawk,” will be honored along with manager Whitey Herzog and umpire Doug Harvey, who were elected last month by the Veterans Committee

(on ESPN this a.m. I think it was Kurkijan who speculated that this year would be a tough haul for Dawson, as he only polled in the low 60%'s last year, and a jump to 75% in one year was unlikely)

[mcgato]

I liked the idea of a HOF pyramid that the ESPN Sports Guy came up with a few years back. I hope that this links properly.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sto ... ons/020108

So why couldn't we transform it into a five-level pyramid -- seriously, an actual pyramid, like a replica of the Luxor casino in Las Vegas -- where elected players are assigned to different levels?

[jazzcyclist]

Yesterday, John Kruk said that he's in favor of folks like Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds being inducted into the HOF, and that if the HOF voters had strickly enforced the "illegal substance" criteria on everyone who has ever played baseball, there would hardly be anyone in the HOF at all. Furthermore, he said that though he never took steroids, it was probably because they were not yet prevalent when he was playing and he didn't know much about them. He said that he's pretty sure he would have taken them if he had played during the steroid era.

[BisonHurdler]

. . . they were not yet prevalent when he was playing . . .

Haha.

[jazzcyclist]

. . . they were not yet prevalent when he was playing . . .

Haha.

What's so funny? His career spanned from 1986 to 1995. Of course steroids were available then, but in baseball, they were not yet "widely or commonly occurring, existing, accepted, or practiced" which is what prevalent means. His career ended three years before Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire had their epic chase of Roger Maris' home run record.

[Pego]

Yesterday, John Kruk said that he's in favor of folks like Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds being inducted into the HOF, and that if the HOF voters had strickly enforced the "illegal substance" criteria on everyone who has ever played baseball, there would hardly be anyone in the HOF at all. Furthermore, he said that though he never took steroids, it was probably because they were not yet prevalent when he was playing and he didn't know much about them. He said that he's pretty sure he would have taken them if he had played during the steroid era.

I don't see, where steroids would have helped Kruk's game. He was strong as an ox, his coordination was the thing needing improvement. He was one of the HR-or-SO, nothing in-between player. What was his lifetime BA? I'd bet not higher than low 200.

[Marlow]

I liked the idea of a HOF pyramid that the ESPN Sports Guy came up with a few years back. I hope that this links properly.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sto ... ons/020108

That was a fun read. Who are the 16 men in Level 5 of the T&F Pyramid?

Jesse Owens
Carl Lewis
Bolt!
Michael Johnson
Geb
Bekele
Moses
Warmerdam
Bubka
Oerter

that's 10

[jazzcyclist]

I don't see, where steroids would have helped Kruk's game. He was strong as an ox, his coordination was the thing needing improvement. He was one of the HR-or-SO, nothing in-between player. What was his lifetime BA? I'd bet not higher than low 200.

You're confusing Kruk with someone else. He was a singles hitter, not a power hitter, with a career batting average of .300 and who never hit more than 21 home runs in a season.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players ... p=krukjo01

[Pego]

I don't see, where steroids would have helped Kruk's game. He was strong as an ox, his coordination was the thing needing improvement. He was one of the HR-or-SO, nothing in-between player. What was his lifetime BA? I'd bet not higher than low 200.

You're confusing Kruk with someone else. He was a singles hitter, not a power hitter, with a career batting average of .300 and who never hit more than 21 home runs in a season.


http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players ... p=krukjo01

[Daisy]

Who are the 16 men in Level 5 of the T&F Pyramid?

Zelezny?

[dukehjsteve]

Put Parry O'Brien in that top group. And most certainly Valery Brumel.

[Bijan]

"... He was strong as an ox, his coordination was the thing needing improvement..."

McGwire was big & strong too, and he worked out w/ weights and used creatine or whatever it was. I'm not sure how already being powerful or gifted hand/eye when one comes to the majors, means one is not going to try to get stronger or improve bat speed? In some instances, a player w/ the size and genetics to add a lot of muscle, and a good eye, might be more inclined to build on what he had.

[DrJay]

Joe Posnanski makes a good case for Bert Blyleven:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/w ... index.html

[Conor Dary]

I use to be a fan of the HofF but it seems to be run by a bunch of prima donnas. After watching the agony of Ron Santo, a great guy in his 60's with two feet amputated, trying to win a popularity contest, has been completely off-putting.

And the guys already in the Hall are the worse. 'I am very special, now, so keep the riftraft out!'


And the whole McGuire thing is hypocritical. Steroids weren't banned for most of his career, and yet he Mr. Evil. Ugh...

[dukehjsteve]

re the above, anytime any degree of subjectivity gets involved there is the potential for small, medium, or huge doses of miscarriages of justice.

I do not remember the exact year or the particulars, but one year Ted Williams narrowly, repeat narrowly, missed winning the AL MVP... all because ONE VOTER did not even place him in the top 10. If he had voted for him perhaps as high as 3rd or 4th he would have won... and he had more 1st place votes than the winner, maybe it was DiMaggio, not sure. Ridiculous. If anyone knows the particulars on this I'd be interested.

[dj]

re the above, anytime any degree of subjectivity gets involved there is the potential for small, medium, or huge doses of miscarriages of justice.

I do not remember the exact year or the particulars, but one year Ted Williams narrowly, repeat narrowly, missed winning the AL MVP... all because ONE VOTER did not even place him in the top 10. If he had voted for him perhaps as high as 3rd or 4th he would have won... and he had more 1st place votes than the winner, maybe it was DiMaggio, not sure. Ridiculous. If anyone knows the particulars on this I'd be interested.

The year was 1947, DiMaggio got 202 points, Williams had 201. One of the 24 voters did not list Williams on his ballot, and a 10th-place (on a 10-slot ballot, scored 14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1) would have given Williams a tie.

The only problem with the story is that three voters left DiMaggio of their ballots.

As for first-place votes, DiMaggio had eight, Williams only three--from the three Boston writers. Yankee relief pitcher had seven firsts to also beat Williams on that score.

[Bijan]

"..Joe Polanski makes a good case for Bert Blyleven.."

I had a vote here, but didn't pick Blyleven:

http://www.i-newswire.com/internet-base ... tion/16763

[dukehjsteve]

re the above, anytime any degree of subjectivity gets involved there is the potential for small, medium, or huge doses of miscarriages of justice.

I do not remember the exact year or the particulars, but one year Ted Williams narrowly, repeat narrowly, missed winning the AL MVP... all because ONE VOTER did not even place him in the top 10. If he had voted for him perhaps as high as 3rd or 4th he would have won... and he had more 1st place votes than the winner, maybe it was DiMaggio, not sure. Ridiculous. If anyone knows the particulars on this I'd be interested.

The year was 1947, DiMaggio got 202 points, Williams had 201. One of the 24 voters did not list Williams on his ballot, and a 10th-place (on a 10-slot ballot, scored 14-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1) would have given Williams a tie.

The only problem with the story is that three voters left DiMaggio of their ballots.

As for first-place votes, DiMaggio had eight, Williams only three--from the three Boston writers. Yankee relief pitcher had seven firsts to also beat Williams on that score.

Thanks for accurate detail dj. Good stuff.

Sadly your accurate details make the story even worse ... nonsensical voting with regards to both of them. Makes the whole thing meaningless. Just a biased Popularity Contest.

Was the Yankee relief pitcher Joe Page ?

[jazzcyclist]

I liked the idea of a HOF pyramid that the ESPN Sports Guy came up with a few years back. I hope that this links properly.
http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sto ... ons/020108

That was a fun read. Who are the 16 men in Level 5 of the T&F Pyramid?

Jesse Owens
Carl Lewis
Bolt!
Michael Johnson
Geb
Bekele
Moses
Warmerdam
Bubka
Oerter

that's 10

Bolt would not yet be at level five for the same reason that Sandy Koufax didn't make it to level five.

[dj]

Was the Yankee relief pitcher Joe Page ?

Yes. The fact that he was a relief pitcher got enough writers lathered up so that when Jim Konstanty won the NL MVP in 1950 the writers started lobbying for a new award, which became the Cy Young.

[cullman]

...Furthermore, he said that though he never took steroids, it was probably because they were not yet prevalent when he was playing and he didn't know much about them. He said that he's pretty sure he would have taken them if he had played during the steroid era.

KRUK IS FULL OF SHIT! Steroids were prevelent during his career.

cman

[jazzcyclist]

...Furthermore, he said that though he never took steroids, it was probably because they were not yet prevalent when he was playing and he didn't know much about them. He said that he's pretty sure he would have taken them if he had played during the steroid era.

KRUK IS FULL OF SHIT! Steroids were prevelent during his career.

cman

I guess prevalent is one of those subjective words that we can debate about, but based on everything I've witnessed over the last 20 years following baseball, I tend to agree with Kruk. And remember, unlike you and I, he was actually in those major league locker rooms in the late 80's and early 90's.

[dj]

...Furthermore, he said that though he never took steroids, it was probably because they were not yet prevalent when he was playing and he didn't know much about them. He said that he's pretty sure he would have taken them if he had played during the steroid era.

KRUK IS FULL OF SHIT! Steroids were prevelent during his career.

cman

I guess prevalent is one of those subjective words that we can debate about, but based on everything I've witnessed over the last 20 years following baseball, I tend to agree with Kruk. And remember, unlike you and I, he was actually in those major league locker rooms in the late 80's and early 90's.

There has been reasonable documentation of Dykstra using steroids in 1993, Dykstra's last contract year with the Phillies before he was eligible to become a free agent. Dykstra was runner-up in the NL MVP voting to Barry Bonds, as the Phillies won the NL pennant.

Kruk was on that team and had one of his best years. Whether Kruk really didn't know Dykstra was reputed to be using steroids is possible, but it's a laughable suggestion.

[jazzcyclist]

According to the overzealous crossing guards who call themselves baseball writers, the answer to the OP is nobody, as of yesterday.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/hof13/story/_/id ... ll-fame-be

What I also find amusing is that some of the hall of famers from baseball's amphetamines era are gloating at the snub of players from the steroids era. Talk about sanctimonious hypocrites.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/0 ... ref=sports

[guru]

Local scribe, also a HOF voter, weighs in.

"...the process isnt what’s messed up here. The players are messed up. And they should be treated as such."

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/daugherty/2 ... ine-110-2/

[gh]

I've never liked Curt Schilling: now maybe I'll change my mind.

<<“Curt Schilling made a good point, everyone was guilty. Either you used PEDs, or you did nothing to stop their use,” Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt said in an email to The Associated Press after this year’s vote was announced. “This generation got rich. Seems there was a price to pay.”>>

[jazzcyclist]

I've never liked Curt Schilling: now maybe I'll change my mind.

<<“Curt Schilling made a good point, everyone was guilty. Either you used PEDs, or you did nothing to stop their use,” Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt said in an email to The Associated Press after this year’s vote was announced. “This generation got rich. Seems there was a price to pay.”>>

Marvin Miller had a lot more to do with this generation getting rich than steroids. Perhaps jealously is fueling the resentment of the older players but they wouldn't have been making tens of millions of dollars even if that had done steroids without free agency.

[mcgato]

I find it kind of amusing that many of the same sportswriters who are taking a high moral road regarding the HOF and steroids are the ones who willfully ignored the issue while it was going on.

I remember having a baseball game on in the background around 1992 that involved Mark McGwire. He had had a woeful 1991 season, but early in 1992 he was hitting tons of homers again. The announcer said that his return to power was due to gaining 40 pounds of muscle in the off season. My response was "steroids." It was obvious to me at that time that steroid use was becoming rampant in baseball, but few if any in the news media even hinted that it was an issue. Then once it did become an issue, many reporters actively tried to deny that it was an issue. "Steroids won't help you hit a fastball." Now the reporters are all huffy about the same steroid users, actively keeping the cheaters out of the HOF.

For the record, I don't think that the steroid users should be put in the HOF.

[gh]

I find it somewhat amusing that Bonds is being denied "because he had an unfair advantage against the pitchers" (forgetting that the pre-roids Bonds was a whippet whose HOF credentials were well established), and Clemens is being denied "because he had an unfair advanrage against the hitters."

Does that mean that if Bonds came to Clemens it would have been the immovable object vs. the irresistible force?

Let's get real: dope was big in the Bigs when Canseco and Caminiti said it was, despite their being pilloried by peers and sportswriters alike for making shit up. There's a good 20 years where nobody is above suspicion whether at the plate or on the hill. Call it a level playing field (albeit at a different level) and move on.

[jazzcyclist]

Also keep in mind that prior to 2003, MLB had no PED-enforcement policy. Then you have this excerpt from page 28 of the Mitchell Report:

In 1973, a Congressional subcommittee announced that its staff had completed an “in depth study into the use of illegal and dangerous drugs in sports” including professional baseball. The subcommittee concluded that “the degree of improper drug use – primarily amphetamines and anabolic steroids – can only be described as alarming.”

And this:

"There was another player now in the Hall of Fame who literally stood with me and mixed something and I said "What's that?" and he said "it's a Jose Canseco milkshake". And that year that Hall of Famer hit more home runs than ever hit any other year.
So it wasn't just Canseco, and so one of the reasons that I thought that it was an important subject was that it was spreading. It was already spreading by 1988."

http://www.wezen-ball.com/2010-articles ... hakeq.html

[Conor Dary]

Meanwhile we have lots of nonsense about who is clean...

They also passed the eye test. Thomas entered the majors with a physique that screamed tight end and went out looking the same way. Bonds and Sosa came in looking like licorice and went out looking like bratwurst.

Maddux? Do you have to ask? I mean, just look. That’s what the eye test is all about. Maddux always looked like the guy trying to sell you a home-and-auto discount policy.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ro ... 126.column

[Marlow]

Funny thing is that if NO one (ha ha) had roided up, Bonds, Sosa, McGwire and Nolan would be in Cooperstown now. But once it starts, everyone has to do it to keep on the same even playing field. Of course, the roiders (and Pete Rose) can't get in or the precedent alone opens the door to any guy who doesn't act in the 'best interests of the sport' (not that the Babe and the Mick weren't hell-raisers of the 'worst' kind). It's a very slippery slope and there's more than enough hypocrisy to go around, but if you're going to have a Ho(f*g)F, standards become everything.

[gh]

Meanwhile we have lots of nonsense about who is clean...

They also passed the eye test. Thomas entered the majors with a physique that screamed tight end and went out looking the same way. Bonds and Sosa came in looking like licorice and went out looking like bratwurst.

Maddux? Do you have to ask? I mean, just look. That’s what the eye test is all about. Maddux always looked like the guy trying to sell you a home-and-auto discount policy.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ro ... 126.column

This is to laugh! An extension of the classic "I'm a distance runner, look at me, I obviously don't do steroids."

I thought myth No. 1—that roids bulked you up by default—had long ago been busted.

All depends what your training/dietary regimen is. And one of the main benefits isn't muscle-building, it's recovery from exercise at a quicker rate, allowing you to work harder.

And maybe keep you away from some kinds of injuries.

My baseball/PED radar first went off 20 years ago when some pitching staffs seemed to develop unnaturally long life spans as a whole and could pitch at a high level for a long time (both annually and from year to year), indicating to me that they had a good program in place. That's my version of the "eye test."

[Conor Dary]

This is to laugh! An extension of the classic "I'm a distance runner, look at me, I obviously don't do steroids."

I thought myth No. 1—that roids bulked you up by default—had long ago been busted.

Not if you are a baseball writer. Especially one in the Chicago Tribune.

Thomas, meanwhile, has been adamant — and is almost universally believed — that he was not part of the steroid culture.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013 ... or-clemens

It is amazing how ignorant these guys are. They were in denial before when it was obvious something was up, and now...well the above is pretty typical.

On the other hand I really admire the football writers, which is what the Tribune is really all about, who pretty much ignore the whole subject. But then they have something to write about.

[Marlow]

I thought myth No. 1—that roids bulked you up by default—had long ago been busted.

They don't 'bulk you up', but they certainly enhance your ability to do so, and most male (and some female) egos can't stop themselves from trying to 'look buff' too! The BET (Bulk Eye Test) does indeed work remarkably well. The only monkey wrench is that creatine (abuse?) does that too and is legal.