Rice Squeezes Into Hall

[Zombo]

January 13, 2009

Henderson and Rice Elected to Hall

By JACK CURRY

Rickey Henderson’s glorious career was defined by speed and success. Those themes of doing it fast and doing it well continued on Monday when Henderson was elected into the Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot.

 

While Henderson, one of baseball’s best leadoff hitters, rumbled into the Hall with 94.8 percent of the vote, Jim Rice squeezed through a closing door. In his 15th, and final, year of eligibility, he notched 76.4 percent of the vote; he was on 412 of the 539 ballots cast, meaning he got seven more votes than the required 405.

 

In order to be elected into the Hall, players need 75 percent of the vote from 10-year members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. After Rice, outfielder Andre Dawson, who played 21 seasons, mostly with the Expos and Cubs, finished with 67 percent of the vote, and pitcher Bert Blyleven received 62.7 percent.

 

Mark McGwire, whose career has been clouded by suspicions of steroid use, saw his percentage drop to 21.9 percent from 23.6 percent.

 

Henderson was one of the game’s best at being a pest. He would do anything to get on base and loved stealing bases and scoring runs. He is the career leader in stolen bases (1,406) and runs scored (2,295), and also had 2,190 walks, the second highest total, and 3,055 hits.

 

“I feel great about it,” Henderson said. “It’s been a long time coming. I played baseball because I loved the game. I wanted to continue playing. It came to a time that I had to stop. And now that it has been five years, they have chosen me to go into the Hall of Fame. I cannot be any more pleased or thrilled about it.”

 

In 25 seasons Henderson played with nine teams, including four stints with the Oakland Athletics. He helped the A’s win a World Series title in 1989 and was voted the most valuable player a year later. Tony La Russa, who managed Henderson, a left fielder, with the A’s, called him a dangerous player.

 

While Henderson will have input in what cap is on his plaque, officials from the Hall make that decision. He had his greatest impact with the A’s and acknowledged that the Oakland cap, “has the edge right now.”

 

When Dennis Eckersley, a Hall of Fame closer who was Henderson’s teammate on the A’s, was asked about Henderson’s candidacy, he said: “To me, he’s a slam dunk. I’m talking about 98 percent.”

 

Rice, the feared hitter from the Boston Red Sox, was never a slam dunk with voters. It took Rice 15 ballots to get elected. But now Rice will share a stage with Henderson in Cooperstown. Unlike the traveling Henderson, Rice played his entire 16-year career with the Red Sox. He had 382 homers, 1,451 runs batted in, hit .298 and won one M.V.P. award.

 

After Rice, a left fielder, received 72.2 percent of the vote last year, the odds were in his favor to be elected. Of the 20 players who had received at least 70 percent of the vote before their eligibility expired, all 20 were elected. Rice is now the 21st.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/sports/b...agewanted=print

 

[SoCalBrownsFan]

Mark McGwire, whose career has been clouded by suspicions of steroid use, saw his percentage drop to 21.9 percent from 23.6 percent.

 

 

Cheaters never win......

 

 

Rice deserved to go in.

 

[ballpeen]

I have mixed emotions on Blyleven...to me it is sort of like had Charlie Nagy played 22 years....Charlie was a good pitcher, but was he a hall of famer???

 

Longevity means something, but I don't know it means you were one of the all time best even if the numbers are compelling.

[Zombo]

I have mixed emotions on Blyleven...to me it is sort of like had Charlie Nagy played 22 years....Charlie was a good pitcher, but was he a hall of famer???

 

Longevity means something, but I don't know it means you were one of the all time best even if the numbers are compelling.

 

I don't know, man, Nagy was a nice pitcher, but he was really helped out by that monster lineup. His career ERA was 4.51 during an era where the league ERA was 4.56. Blyleven's was 3.31 in an era of 3.90. Blyleven had 8 seasons of 200+ strikeouts, Nagy never had more than 169. Blyleven is 5th all-time on the strikeout list ... 5th all-time!

 

Plus he pitched for two World Champions and had one of the nastiest curveballs ever.

 

 

[rich4eagle]

I agree on Blyleven......Zombo........he is HOFer material. He was a dominanting pitcher and a clutch pitcher for a long time. I also think Dawson should get serious consideration.

 

I would send McGwire whom I admired when he played to Antartica to the Penguin HOF..........screw him

[Beanpot]

I don't know, man, Nagy was a nice pitcher, but he was really helped out by that monster lineup. His career ERA was 4.51 during an era where the league ERA was 4.56. Blyleven's was 3.31 in an era of 3.90. Blyleven had 8 seasons of 200+ strikeouts, Nagy never had more than 169. Blyleven is 5th all-time on the strikeout list ... 5th all-time!

 

Plus he pitched for two World Champions and had one of the nastiest curveballs ever.

 

Completely agreed. I can see where Peen is coming from with the Nagy comp (I know a ton of guys who watched Blyleven's entire career and never once thought HOFer) but Blyleven was a lot better than Chuck, even discounting the length of their respective careers.

 

Zombo covered the important stuff concerning league ERA and all of those K's.

 

To go further, ERA+ is a quick and easy metric to gauge the relative worth of a player. It's the ratio of the league's ERA to that of the pitcher and it's ballpark adjusted. The base is 100 and if a pitcher is at say 105, that means he's 5% better than a league average pitcher. For his career, Nagy finished at 101. Blyleven ended his career at 118. That's a pretty damn big gap.

 

Longevity does come into to play here, though I think it only furthers Bert's cause and brings about even greater separation between him and Nagy. Now before looking at those years, it's important to point out that Blyleven had far greater incentive to continue pitching than Nagy did. Bert was receiving contracts in $1.2 million range in the twilight of his career and while that's terrific money and I have no idea about his portfolio at the time, I'm pretty sure that the money was more important to him than it was to Nagy, who had made over $38 million in salary alone in his twelve year career.

 

In their final years Chuck pitched a total of 61 innings after his age 34 season and the results weren't terrific. Blyleven, on the other hand, pitched more than 1200 innings after his age 34 season. Three of those six seasons were good to excellent while the other three were moderate/poor. All but one was lower than his career ERA+. That longevity added to his counting stats to be sure, but it also brought down his career ratios.

 

I suspect most HOF voters don't look deeply at the numbers when voting and that many feel like Peen does, that Bert wasn't all that better than a pretty good pitcher. It's a shame but strides are being made. The death of the newspaper industry is causing a shakeup in the BBWAA and internet journalists are making their way into that fraternity. It'll take awhile before their presence is felt but it's going to happen soon enough.

 

Beanpot

[Beanpot]

Just a quick side note. I know some of you guys are aware of the Corky Simpson saga, but for those that aren't:

 

Corky is 70 and lives in a retirement community in Arizona. He was voted the AP sportswriter of the year in 1988 and is remembered as the lone voter to place Alabama atop his ballot every week of the 1992 college football season (link below).

 

He's now also remembered as the first voter to publicly leave Rickey Henderson off of his HOF ballot. 20+ other voters did the same, but Corky was the first to make it known on the internet. He wrote a simple column for the Green Valley News and Sun that explained why he thought Blyleven, Dawson, John, Mattingly, Raines, Rice, Trammell and Matt Williams deserved induction. He admitted that the Matt Williams vote had to do with his joy in covering him (though he ignored Williams' admitted PED use while saying he wouldn't vote for McGwire due to his *suspected* PED use) and it was a pretty fine ballot. Contained several names of players (Blyleven, Raines, Dawson, Tramell) who are faves of many internet writers.

 

But oh that Henderson omission.

 

The omission was noticed by writers on ESPN and other places and soon that column, written for fellow retirees in Arizona, was linked all over the place. Corky's reaction was a bit hazy. At first, he said that leaving off Henderson was a mistake though a colleague of his said that he asked Corky about his ballot and Corky replied along the lines with he "just wasn't a Henderson guy" or some such thing.

 

Either way, the reaction in the comment section of the newspaper was far from hazy:

 

http://www.gvnews.com/articles/2008/12/10/...ts/sports03.txt

 

Gotta say, idiotic or not, Corky is a better man than most of the people on that thread.

 

Beanpot

http://legacy.decaturdaily.com/decaturdail...3/simpson.shtml

[Beanpot]

Here's an interview Corky gave to the Columbia Journalism Review about his vote and the reaction to it:

 

Hardball

A veteran sports columnist meets—and shrugs off—Internet outrage

By Megan Garber

 

Corky Simpson is seventy years old. As if to prove it, he refers to himself as “a stubborn old mule” and uses words like “whippersnappers.”

 

Simpson uses other words, too, though: a veteran sports journalist, he is known for the kind of colorful, evocative writing that the best sportswriters produce, writing that, in 1988, led him to be named the AP’s Sportswriter of the Year. Simpson’s name is so well known—especially around his current home of Arizona—that the headlines of the columns he wrote, until recently, for the Tucson Citizen were preceded by only his first name. (E.g., “Corky: Olson’s woes will play out in the spotlight”; “Corky: Tucson High marks 100 years of sports glory.”) Retired as of 2006, Simpson writes a weekly column for the News and Sun of Green Valley, a small retirement community in southern Arizona.

 

Corky Simpson is also a voting member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, which each year decides the new crop of inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame. In a recent column, Simpson published his list of the players he’s voting to the HOF. The list included such players as Bert Blyleven, Andre Dawson, and Don Mattingly. It did not, however, include Rickey Henderson, baseball’s all-time leader in stolen bases and runs scored—the guy whose “numerous accomplishments,” SI.com declared in December, “should make him an overwhelming choice for the Hall of Fame next month.” (“Somebody asked me did I think Rickey Henderson was a Hall of Famer,” baseball statistician Bill James said back in 2001. “I told them, ‘If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers.’”)

 

Well, enter the Outrage. Many baseball fans—who found their way to Simpson’s column via links on ESPN, Deadspin, The Big Lead, and other sports blogs—were (choose your adjective) shocked/appalled/indignant/just-plain-pissed at Simpson’s omission of Henderson from his list of eight picks. (BBWAA voters are allowed to choose up to ten.)

 

And, this being the Web and all, those fans made their anger known. Here’s Richie Rich of Home Run Derby (motto: “Not nearly as Yuppie as other baseball sites”):

 

I’m really struggling to understand how an Award-Winning writer like Corky Simpson leaves Rickey Henderson off his ballot. Did Simpson think Henderson was too cocky and didn’t show enough “reverence for the sport?” Did he not realize he was on the ballot? Does he think no one should be voted in unanimously?

 

 

Either way … it deserves an explanation. Our efforts to contact Mr. Simpson have been unsuccessful.

 

 

Or could it all just be a big publicity stunt. Nothing draws attention like leaving a sure-fire Hall of Famer off your ballot.

HRD’s assumption of nefarious commercial/PR motives for Simpson’s omission is, it turns out, generous. Because the consensus among most sports bloggers who addressed Simpson’s column was that the award-winning journalist must be stupid. Or lazy. Or forgetful. Or full-on senile. Here’s Deadspin’s Rick Chandler:

 

Time to end this farce, OK? How do you look at a Hall of Fame ballot and not vote for Willie Mays? If you’re doing that, your so-called career needs a laugh track. Of course, dementia could be an issue: Simpson is retired, and writes a weekly column for the Green Valley News and Sun, which serves a retirement community in Arizona. Their lead photo on the front page today is a kid with a chicken on his head (this is true).

 

The Web site of the paper in question, the News and Sun—which gets an average of 1,500 to 1,800 hits a day, its lifestyle editor, Regina Ford, told me (Simpson’s column alone, as of yesterday morning, had gotten 7,200)—bore the brunt of the baseball blogosphere’s vitriol. To wit, a small sampling of the comments left for Simpson:

 

Reeds Johnson wrote on Jan 2, 2009 1:29 PM:

 

” Are you stupid or just senile?

 

Rickey Henderson is the greatest leadoff hitter in the history of the game and one of the 20 most valuable players…EVER. ”

 

KillThCork wrote on Jan 6, 2009 2:20 AM:

 

” Where is Rickey?

 

This writer is a joke. Old people should not be allowed to vote for the HOF. ”

 

Jeff W wrote on Jan 6, 2009 8:16 AM:

 

” What in the h___ is wrong with someone for them not to think Rickey Henderson is a Hall of Famer? ”

 

John wrote on Jan 7, 2009 8:44 AM:

 

” You are a disgrace to Journalism as well as Baseball. This is an obvious attempt to draw attention by omitting Henderson. ”

 

paj wrote on Jan 7, 2009 9:01 AM:

 

” Who are you Corky Simpson? Do you know ANYTHING about baseball? Your exclusion of Rickey Henderson is indefensible and frankly embarassing for you. ”

 

wamski wrote on Jan 7, 2009 9:08 AM:

 

” Are you kidding me? This guy should NOT be voting for the Hall of Fame. He is a joke. ”

 

Dave wrote on Jan 7, 2009 9:09 AM:

 

” Morons like this should have their votes taken away. “

 

There’s much more in this vein. (One of the more eloquent, from a commenter who dubbed him/herself “SimpsonSucks”: “Cork is a dork.”)

 

So…what’s it like to see your vote—and a column whose traditional audience is generally limited to retirees—met with such Web-based outrage?

 

Not so bad, actually. “It doesn’t bother me,” Simpson told me, “because, one, I’m too old, and my skin is too thick, and I’m a stubborn old mule from Missouri.”

 

And also because Simpson simply doesn’t spend much time on the Web, he says, so is pretty much immune to the heated rhetoric that often permeates its (virtually anonymous) conversations. “I think of the literature on the Internet in the same way that I think of the literature on the walls of public bathrooms,” Simpson says. “With the exception that the literature on the walls of public bathrooms is a little higher class.”

 

Simpson readily admits that the Henderson omission was an oversight (but: not a snub!). “I picked eight guys,” he says. “My mistake is that I could’ve picked two more, and I didn’t. And had I really used my brain, I would’ve picked two more guys, and I would’ve put Rickey Henderson on there for sure.”

 

Still, though, Simpson thinks, the anger directed at him is ridiculous. He’s just one guy, he says—his vote isn’t going to keep Henderson out of the HOF, so why make such a big deal about it? “No one in the history of baseball has ever gotten into the Hall of Fame on a unanimous vote,” he notes. “I mean, we’re talking about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb and Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson—nobody. And if anyone out there thinks that Rickey Henderson can carry one of those guys’ shoes, he’s crazy.”

 

And he laughs off charges that the Henderson omission was a publicity stunt. “You couldn’t possibly sit down and say, ‘How could this ballot be controversial?’” Simpson says. His Rickey-less slate was a simple slip-up, nothing more. And the attempts to read more into it—publicity, senility, whatever—only validate, as far as Simpson is concerned, his take on the Web: “The Internet is like a sewer. It’s very necessary, but you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time there.”

 

http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/hardball.php?page=1

 

Beanpot

 

[ballpeen]

I don't know, man, Nagy was a nice pitcher, but he was really helped out by that monster lineup. His career ERA was 4.51 during an era where the league ERA was 4.56. Blyleven's was 3.31 in an era of 3.90. Blyleven had 8 seasons of 200+ strikeouts, Nagy never had more than 169. Blyleven is 5th all-time on the strikeout list ... 5th all-time!

 

Plus he pitched for two World Champions and had one of the nastiest curveballs ever.

 

 

I agree on Charlie....and remember Bert well...I have been watching baseball a long time...and I think with the votes, most feel like I do.

 

To support Blyleven...I think he was every bit as good as Phil Niekro and Don Sutton...guys who made it because they managed at least 11 more wins.

 

I won't be upset if Bert makes it....actually, I am pulling for the guy, but I just don't consider him HOF pitcher.....but yes...Bert was the gold standard for a real curveball.

 

 

 

 

 

[Beanpot]

I agree on Charlie....and remember Bert well...I have been watching baseball a long time...and I think with the votes, most feel like I do.

 

To support Blyleven...I think he was every bit as good as Phil Niekro and Don Sutton...guys who made it because they managed at least 11 more wins.

 

I won't be upset if Bert makes it....actually, I am pulling for the guy, but I just don't consider him HOF pitcher.....but yes...Bert was the gold standard for a real curveball.

 

This was a confusing post, Peen. You're pulling for him to make the HOF but you don't consider him to be deserving? Not sure I follow.

 

Dead on with the Niekro and Sutton comps. He was every bit as good as those two.

 

As for most voters feeling like you do, that's not true. *Most* thought he deserved to be elected. Just not enough to reach the 75% threshold.

 

Beanpot

[Zombo]

This was a confusing post, Peen. You're pulling for him to make the HOF but you don't consider him to be deserving? Not sure I follow.

 

Dead on with the Niekro and Sutton comps. He was every bit as good as those two.

 

As for most voters feeling like you do, that's not true. *Most* thought he deserved to be elected. Just not enough to reach the 75% threshold.

 

Beanpot

 

 

The Sutton comp is a good one, a lot of their stats are very close. Sutton had more wins, but he played all those years with the Dodgers on a better team, with better defense and a pitchers park, while Blyleven was in Minnesota and Texas. It was Blyleven, though that ended up with the two rings, not Sutton. I'm sure Sutton would trade those 37 wins for those two rings.

 

Zombo

[Beanpot]

I'm sure Sutton would trade those 37 wins for those two rings.

Zombo[/b]

 

Bet you're right. Funny thing is, I get the feeling that Bert would trade the rings for the milestone, no questions asked. He comes across as being very bitter over the election process and his exclusion from the Hall. I totally understand and share the bitterness, but it can't be all that endearing to those with a ballot.

 

BTW, send me an email before you start up the fantasy baseball league. We had a ton of terrific players last year and they deserve to be a part of it before you open it up to the public.

 

Beanpot

[Zombo]

BTW, send me an email before you start up the fantasy baseball league. We had a ton of terrific players last year and they deserve to be a part of it before you open it up to the public.

 

Beanpot

 

You will be the first to know...

 

Zombo

[ballpeen]

This was a confusing post, Peen. You're pulling for him to make the HOF but you don't consider him to be deserving? Not sure I follow.

 

Dead on with the Niekro and Sutton comps. He was every bit as good as those two.

 

As for most voters feeling like you do, that's not true. *Most* thought he deserved to be elected. Just not enough to reach the 75% threshold.

 

Beanpot

 

 

LOL....It was confusing when I typed it.

 

Maybe I can clear it up, or possibly confuse you more.

 

No...Bert to me is sort of where his vote totals fall...pretty darn good pitcher is right on the line..but just a little short....again...IMO.

 

 

BUT...as I noted with Sutton...he managed a few more wins....mostly because he was on better teams and got to the magic number for pitches...300 wins. Had Sutton been stuck on 289 or whatever Berts total is....he probably wouldn't be in the hall.

 

So I guess what I am saying is here you have 2 pitches who are pretty much the same guy with different names....1 gets in, the other doesn't...

 

I don't think voting in Bert would lower any standard that hasn't already been lowered.....so put the guy in.....funny....his hall votes in a way mirror his career,.....he is good enough to be near the top, but he falls just a little short....how many more times does he have on the ballot before he gets buried on the old timer ballot?? You get on that thing, it is a miracle if your grandchildren finally see you enshrined.

 

[ballpeen]

Some of you are stat guys.

 

I wonder who has the most all time votes over the 15 years you can remain on the HOF ballot to not get in??

 

Blyleven has to be nearing the top of that list.

 

I may poke around a bit and see what I can find.

[ballpeen]

I ran across this...I will let it stand to answer my question unless you guys have something better...I found it on a SI link

 

 

1. Gil Hodges

He must hit leadoff here because no one has ever been more agonizingly close, so often to the Hall of Fame without getting in than Hodges. Consider:

 

• No player ever received more votes from the writers without getting in.

 

• He is the only person ever to get more than 60 percent of the Hall vote without eventually getting in.

 

• At various times during his 15 years on the ballot he finished ahead of 21 different future Hall of Famers -- including easily beating out former teammate Pee Wee Reese all eight times they were on the same ballot.

 

• The revamped Veterans Committee essentially named him Best Player Not in the Hall, giving Hodges the most support in each of its two elections; he missed getting in by 11 votes and then by eight votes.

 

How good was Hodges? Think of him as a better version of Hall of Famer Tony Perez -- better plate discipline, better power and a better glove. He outslugged Perez (.487, .463), reached base more often (.359, .341), made more All-Star teams (eight, seven), won more Gold Gloves (three, zero) and had just as many 100-RBI seasons (seven). At the time of his retirement Hodges was the all-time NL leader in home runs among right-handed hitters. He was the premier defensive first baseman of his era and -- as part of his overall contribution to the game, which must be considered -- he was a highly respected manager who crafted one of the most unlikely world championships in history (the 1969 Mets) and he was the idol of many baseball fans for his integrity and character.

[Beanpot]

How good was Hodges? Think of him as a better version of Hall of Famer Tony Perez -- better plate discipline, better power and a better glove. He outslugged Perez (.487, .463), reached base more often (.359, .341), made more All-Star teams (eight, seven), won more Gold Gloves (three, zero) and had just as many 100-RBI seasons (seven). At the time of his retirement Hodges was the all-time NL leader in home runs among right-handed hitters. He was the premier defensive first baseman of his era and -- as part of his overall contribution to the game, which must be considered -- he was a highly respected manager who crafted one of the most unlikely world championships in history (the 1969 Mets) and he was the idol of many baseball fans for his integrity and character.

 

Great stuff, Peen. To me, Perez was a head-scratcher when he was inducted. I'm more of a big hall type (think inductions help promote the sport) but Perez? Man, I was a tyke when he was in the prime of his career but I never thought of him in that way.

 

Your thoughts on Blyleven are shared by the majority of voters, it seems. He has a couple of years left before he's ditched to the veterans committee and I'm thinking he'll make it year after next. Hoping so, at least.

 

Beanpot