If the players who are the core of a great team are not worthy of Hall of Fame selection, then who is?
-- Bill James, Historical Baseball Abstract (first edition)
I think that's a hell of a question.
What, you think I want to talk about the Blue Jays? Look, it's May and they're seven games under .500 - when's the last time somebody was seven games under .500 in May and made it to the post-season?
Last year? Last June? The Twins were 25-33...? Allright, allright. But this is the AL East. That hasn't happened here since... 2005 when the Yankees were eight games under in May? OK - but that was just a strange year. You may remember that Oakland was 13 games under .500 on the first of June, and they ended up winning 88 games...
Two things about last night's game. I've been watching Josh Towers for years, good times and bad. Last night was as if some alien had taken over his body. I don't know how much of this, if any, came through on the broadcast. But his body language last night was completely, utterly different from what I've grown accustomed to seeing. When you see Towers in person, pitching at the ball park, he always looks like he's had an extra espresso or two - he usually looks wired on the mound. Not last night. Last night, he was slow, deliberate, almost sullen - he looked like a man with a deep, profound conviction that absolutely nothing in the universe had any meaning and that nothing mattered, not in the slightest. Not exactly like a man who doesn't care - more like a man beyond caring, a man possessed of that existential despair that Kierkegaard wrote about. It was very weird. And under these circumstances, when nothing makes any difference whatsoever, why not experiment a little - let's see what happens if we throw the slider here, let's see what happens if we throw the fastball there. What difference does it make anyway? The only animation at all came in those rare moments of interaction with his teammates. Extremely disturbing.
He has got to go.
If both he and Gibbons are still around in three weeks... I dunno. There could be bloodshed. Towers looks ready to shoot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.
On a happier note, I absolutely love having Sal Fasano around. It's like having Abe Vigoda on your team, except Sal's not quite as quick. Best moment of the game last night was when Towers got Ortiz to hit that little foul popup in front of the Jays dugout for what should have been the third out of the eighth inning. Except for the fact that with the shift in effect, there wasn't a fielder within 60 feet of the ball - except for poor Sal, chasing desperately after it on his 35 year old legs, lugging around all that gear, sprawling headlong after it... and coming up empty. How can you not cheer for Abe Vigoda anyway? It's just too bad that Phillips is one of the manager's favourites, meaning that Fasano will be dispatched back to AAA when Zaun returns.
OK, back to our originally scheduled program....
Bill James, in the quote given above, was commenting on the fact that Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance all have plaques in the Hall of Fame despite the fact that there is a case to be made that there are many better players at their positions who have been overlooked. Tinker, Evers, and Chance were the core of one of the greatest and most dominant teams in the history of the game - that trio, along with Mordecai Brown, represent them at Cooperstown.
I got to thinking about this yesterday, when the mention of John Smoltz' name prompted the usual discussion of his Hall of Fame prospects. When Mike Green, our resident Hall Watcher, last addressed this issue, the almost unanimous consensus was that Smoltz was very much a longshot to actually make the grade, especially in light of the crowd of outstanding starters from his era who will probably all become eligible around the same time. Whether Smoltz actually deserves induction was considerably more clouded even then - he's been building on what was already a pretty impressive resume and could clear 200 wins by the end of this month.
I wanted to come back to the question from James' perspective, because I find it's one I seem to automatically assent to. I assume that the Bobby Cox Braves were one of the greatest teams ever; it seems natural to me that the core of such a team should find its way to Cooperstown. In the case of those Braves, we'd be looking at Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz, and the Jones boys. All five could conceivably make it, and certainly no power on earth will bar Maddux and Glavine.
But is five Hall of Famers from a single team a lot? Even for a great team?
What about some other great teams?
Joe Torre's Yankees come quickly to mind. I think it's safe at this point to assume that Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are definitely Hall of Famers. Roger Clemens built his resume elsewhere, but barring some kind of McGwire-esque scandal (a fellow may be permitted to dream), he's going in as well. Mike Mussina missed the championship seasons, and like Smoltz, he's fighting his way through the pack of 90s starters. His chances still look pretty good, I hate to say. This may apply as well to Andy Pettitte, who as a bonus was on hand for all four WS victories. Mussina and Pettitte are still padding their credentials, of course. Jorge Posada and Bernie Williams can both present a pretty decent case as well.
The last team to win three straight titles before Torre's Yankees were the Oakland A's of 1972-74. That team has placed three men in the Hall - Reggie Jackson, Jim Hunter, and Rollie Fingers. While he was active, Vida Blue was certainly regarded as a Hall of Fame talent but rather like Ron Guidry, his career accomplishments fell short. Joe Rudi, Ken Holtzman, Sal Bando, and Bert Campaneris all have a spot in the Hall of the Very Good.
Perhaps the outfit most comparable to Cox's Braves would be Earl Weaver's Orioles, who likewise had a fifteen year run of more or less uniform excellence. Weaver's team only won the Big Enchilada once. It's curious that he didn't receive nearly as much grief for that shortcoming as Cox and the Braves have. When Weaver took over in 1968, the Orioles had Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson and Frank Robinson in the starting lineup and Jim Palmer on the Disabled List. F-Robby moved on a couple of years later, but Brooks was around for most of Weaver's tenure, and Palmer actually won a World Series game for Weaver's successor. Eddie Murray came aboard in 1977, around the time Brooks became a bench player. Reggie Jackson stopped by for a single season, and Weaver's last season (ignoring his ill-fated comeback a few years later, which I strongly recommend) was Cal Ripken's rookie year. Bobby Grich was certainly a HoF quality player, but he did none of the things that actually impress the voters. So the most at any moment was generally three: Jackson, Palmer, and Robinson or Murray, Ripken, and Palmer.
The Dodgers and Cardinals both won two titles in the 1960s. The Dodgers had just two Hall of Famers - Koufax and Drysdale. It was all they needed though they also had an MVP (Wills) and a two-time batting champ (Tommy Davis.) All of the Cardinals teams of that era featured Brock and Gibson. They would add Orlando Cepeda (who I think is a slightly dubious choice for the HoF), and the young Steve Carlton - both were an essential part of the 1967-68 teams, bringing them up to four Hall of Famers.
The great team of the 1950s, obviously, was Casey's Yankees. It's hard to improve on ten pennants in twelve seasons. Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford are in the Hall, and they were the core of that team, year after year. Joe DiMaggio was still around at the beginning of that run, and Phil Rizzuto really was a hell of a player. Johnny Mize and Enos Slaughter, who built their Hall resumes elsewhere, dropped in as role players along the way. The team effectively topped at four HoF players (Mantle, DiMaggio, and Ford never played together, oddly enough - Ford was in military service in 1951, Mantle's rookie season and DiMaggio's last year.)
Joe McCarthy's Yankees may have been the greatest team ever - they're one of just two teams to ever win four championships in a row. That run began in 1936, which was Joe DiMaggio's rookie year. Bill Dickey, Lou Gehrig, and Tony Lazzeri were also on that team, which meant they put four Hall of Famers on the field every day. They had two more in the rotation - Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing. Six Hall of Famers on your roster is a lot. Lazzeri was gone by 1939, which was also the year Gehrig's health broke down. Of course, Lazzeri was replaced by Joe Gordon, who has an excellent Hall of Fame case of his own, in my opinion. And Charlie Keller had arrived by then - Keller was definitely a HoF quality player, although he didn't last long enough.
The Murderers Row Yankees of a decade earlier featured a younger Gehrig and Lazzeri. Two Hall of Famers roamed the outfield: centre fielder Earle Combs, and some fellow named Ruth. Two more Hall of Famers were in the rotation - Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt. This Group of Six were joined by Leo Durocher in 1928, but the Lip isn't in Cooperstown because of his playing career.
Connie Mack built two great teams in Philadelphia. The team that dethroned the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees and won back-to-back titles in 1929-30 starred the great Lefty Grove, one of the greatest pitchers to ever throw a baseball (nine ERA titles? Nine?). He wasn't alone - Mickey Cochrane and Jimmie Foxx are probably both among the five greatest players ever at their positions. Al Simmons wasn't as good as that, but he certainly earned his ticket to the Hall. So it's a team with four Hall of Famers (although if you want to get technical, Eddie Collins also played for those Philadelphia teams but he was mainly a coach, with just 9 at bats in two years.)
Mack's first great team won four pennants and three championships in the 1910-14 period. Eddie Collins and Frank Baker, of the famed $100,000 infield took the field every day - Eddie Plank and Chief Bender were in the rotation. Another team with four Hall of Famers. Which brings us back to the Ancient Cubs, with their four Hall of Famers - Tinker, Evers, Chance, and Brown.
I found at least one team with more.
The 1924 New York Giants featured George Kelly, Frank Frisch, and Travis Jackson in the infield. Ross Youngs and Hack Wilson were in the outfield. The 18 year old rookie Fred Lindstrom would play an infamous role in that year's World Series. They also had a young first baseman named Bill Terry, who hadn't yet established himself as a regular. Which brings us up to seven, and you're probably wondering just how in hell Kelly, Jackson, Youngs, and Lindstrom made it into the Hall anyway. As it happened, Frank Frisch chaired the Veterans Committee in the 1960s and early 1970s, and he took care of his old teammates.
By the way, the managers of most of these teams are also in the Hall of Fame - Chance, Mack, Huggins, McCarthy, Stengel, Alston, Weaver - and Cox and Torre are sure to follow as well. Johnny Keane, who managed the 1964 Cardinals, isn't in the Hall but Red Schoendienst, who replaced him, is (although this was really more in recognition of a very fine playing career.) Only the Oakland skippers - Dick Williams and Al Dark - aren't represented. Dark's HoF case is quite a bit like Schoendienst, as it happens - both won about 1000 games as a manager and one championship; both had very fine careers as National League infielders, and both had .289 career batting averages. But because of the war, Dark's playing career got off to a late start (he was 26 when he won Rookie of the Year) and his counting totals aren't as good as Schoendienst's.
Are there any other teams worth considering? Can we top the 1924 Giants' seven Hall of Famers? This
was, after all, a very casual and cursory Jaunt through the Ages, so I won't be at
all surprised if we do. Should we even count the Giants seven? Not just the Frisch Factor - I am mostly interested in effective Hall
of Famers, players who were reasonably important parts of the team, and
with the 1924 Giants, Lindstrom and Terry were not especially central
to that team. I'm much more impressed by the 1936 Yankees - but then
again, how can you not be impressed by the 1936 Yankees... I mean, everybody who played for that team is dead, and they still scare the crap out of me.
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