Worst Hall of Famers vs. Best Hall of Fame Snubs (MLB)

How is it possible that Tony Perez hasn't been mentioned yet?

 

Because George Kelly is that bad.

 

Having never seen "High Pockets" play, I can't comment...

But Tony Perez being in the HOF is a freaking joke.

 

Basically, if you were an above average player who was lucky enough to be a teammate of (eventual Veterans Committee chairman) Frankie Frisch's with the New York Giants in the 1920s or the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930s, you're in the Hall of Fame.

That's where a lot of the more egregious selections came from. That, and the publicity bounce for old-timey ballplayers following the publication of "The Glory of their Times" in the mid-1960s.

 

Why is DH even on here? Is someone seriously going to argue Paul Molitor isn't a Hall of Famer?

He hit .306 with 500-plus steals and more than 3,300 hits. I would take his career over Edgar Martinez's in a heartbeat.

 

Don't have time to make a whole list, but Rabbit Maranville's .258 lifetime average doesn't exactly scream Hall of Famer.

 

To have a decent argument, you really have to separate eras.

Does anybody on here really think they know baseball well enough to argue the merits of someone who played before World War I?

 

Buckweaver

 

I could give it a try, and I hear that this Buckweaver fellow knows a lot about the history of the game.

 

Some of you have amazing knowledge of the history of the game.

But I'm guessing that only a handful can reference Rube Marquard, George Kelly and some of the others mentioned and have better than a passing knowledge of who they are.

 

Most of his career was actually after the dead ball era. Looking at his stats, it seems like he was a very good fielder, and a decent hitter. To me, judging from that, it seems like he'd be in the Hall of Very Good.

EDIT: Instead of "most" of his career, I should say, "More years of his career".

That, plus it took the writers 14 years to vote him in. Only 3 of the 13 years did he receive above 50 percent of the vote. Doesn't exactly seem like a slam dunk.

 

Maranville was a sympathy selection: he died in January 1954 and was inducted later that summer.

Rube Marquard and Harry Hooper were the "Glory Of Their Times" HOFers. Neither qualifies on the numbers. Actually Smoky Joe Wood, another of the main voices of TGOTT, would probably have been a better pick -- he had the first half of a HOF pitching career cut short by injury, then came back for five years as an above-average outfielder.


Bill James had a pretty good essay on Maranville in one of his Historical Abstracts (the first, IIRC), and concluded that while evidence indicated Maranville was a very good fielder, it did not indicate he was the greatest fielder ever at SS (a phrase often used to jusitfy his election), which he pretty much would have had to be to justify election with his subpar offensive production (even for the pre-live-ball era, the first third of his career).

The Frankie Frisch Giant/Cardinal HOFers are easy to pick out. They pretty much leap off the pages, as in, "May I see your ticket, sir?"