Nap Rucker

[Davy_Kangaroo_Jones]

Should Nap Rucker be in the Hall of Fame?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ruckena01.shtml


"He used to pitch a ball with lots of smoke; and the stock of curves he carried was no joke. In the days of yesteryear he could burn the atmosphere as he made the slugging biffers swear and choke. But the sizzling speed has left his ancient wing and he throws a floating ball that doesn't sing. Yet he fools the swatters still with his hesitation pill, smiling grimly as the clouters fail to bing. All the stuff he has is just a dinky curve with a clever head and lots of sand and nerve, but the way batters fall for his foolish looking ball shows he's still a winning Hurling Hill Reserve. Nap lobs his fork-hand floaters o'er the plate and the batter sees 'em forty minutes late.”

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/19/Nap_Rucker_Baseball_Card.jpg/200px-Nap_Rucker_Baseball_Card.jpg

[CMIZ5290]

No...and i love him because he is from georgia! His winning percentage was somewhere around .500, he lost as many or more games as he won. Not even close on this one.

[Davy_Kangaroo_Jones]

Wins/losses isn't really fair though in judging someone anymore. His overall numbers if you don't look at wins/losses are outstanding.

[CMIZ5290]

I perhaps misspoke when i said not even close. He was a fantastic pitcher with some pretty mediocre teams at best. He had a great era, but i think the way pitchers dominated back then, a .500 winning percentage is not near good enough for the hall....just my opinion

[t206blogcom]

He had a great era, but i think the way pitchers dominated back then, a .500 winning percentage is not near good enough for the hall

+1

[Peter_Spaeth]

He should definitely be in.


Hall Of Fame Statistics

Player rank in (·)




Black Ink

Pitching - 8 (301), Average HOFer ≈ 40




Gray Ink

Pitching - 119 (161), Average HOFer ≈ 185




Hall of Fame Monitor

Pitching - 40 (347), Likely HOFer ≈ 100




Hall of Fame Standards

Pitching - 23 (239), Average HOFer ≈ 50

[Herpolsheimer]

No way, and I collect him....He makes for beautiful cards.....T3 is a killer....

A perfect .500 W/L and One Home Run is not Hall of Fame material....

Only his low era and strikeouts stand out in a long career in the era....

PS... Always looking for Rucker cards and photos... Feel free to coontact me....

[packs]

He only pitched 7 full seasons. I don't think he's a HOFer. Riggs Stephenson-esque.

[tiger8mush]

doh! was posting while packs stole my thunder :)

Its not his winning % that keeps him out in my book. Its the fact that he only pitched 7 full seasons (30+ games), and 3 partial seasons (16 or less).

But those were some amazing 7 seasons. In 1911 and 1912 he was #1 in Wins Above Replacement for ALL players in the league. And in 1912 he only went 18-21!!!

Every year that Nap Rucker played, his team (Brooklyn) was last or close to last in the NL in batting average and runs scored. He had no support!

Baseball-Reference ranks him #125 all time amongst pitchers. If he'd had another 3-4 full seasons I think he would've cracked the top 75 all time and been a HOFer. But tough to get in w/only 7 of 10 seasons being full.

[milkit1]

winning percentage should never be a factor. He played for one of the worst teams of the tobacco era. The fact that he won as many as he did is a credit to how good a pitcher he was.

[Davy_Kangaroo_Jones]

No way, and I collect him....He makes for beautiful cards.....T3 is a killer....

A perfect .500 W/L and One Home Run is not Hall of Fame material....

Only his low era and strikeouts stand out in a long career in the era....

PS... Always looking for Rucker cards and photos... Feel free to coontact me....

I have a PSA 6 Sporting Life M116 if you're interested. Let me know.

[matthew]

One of my favorite players, but he falls just short.

[Leon]

I think he needed some more seasons, as others have said. Certainly one of my favorite cards too...(shown a lot but still a neat card)

[SteveMitchell]

"Winning percentage should never be a factor. He played for one of the worst teams of the tobacco era. The fact that he won as many as he did is a credit to how good a pitcher he was."

+1. IMO a representative Hall of Fame would include at least 200 pitchers and Nap ranks easily in that group.

[daves_resale_shop]

Geez... I feel like this is a Felix Hernandez thread... .500 record with a good era in the deadball era is just not enough... there are several others who are more deserving statistically...

But I do give him kudos for being one of the only former major leaguers to show up at cobb's funeral...

[Runscott]

Very nice to see this thread. Nap Rucker is one of my favorite players of the T206 era, but I think with discussions like this, it's important to consider how the player was viewed by his contemporaries, and also how he was viewed shortly after his career ended. What I've found with Rucker (I also collect his 'stuff') is that the sportswriters during his playing career viewed him as a guy who wasn't all that great in the big games. But after his career, he was viewed as an excellent pitcher who got screwed by playing for such bad teams.

I would vote 'no', but I still love the guy.

[CMIZ5290]

By the way, i think this was agreat thread too and i am in need of his portrait....hope someone can help me out

[bigtrain]

I agree he didn't have enough full seasons but 38 shutouts is pretty impressive. Wonder how many games he lost 1-0.

[Bridwell]

Being the best pitcher on an awful team, he also had to duel against the opposing team's best pitcher. So the opponent was Matty, M. Brown, G. Alexander, S. Sallee, H. Camnitz, E. Ruelbach, etc. Tough to win 50% against those guys!

[wonkaticket]

Great card Leon.

[dougscats]

As a Brooklyn Dodgers afficionado, the Napster is a favorite of mine.

He was Cobb's roomate in the SALLY [?] League, by the way. My favorite anecdote is an apocryphal one, and clouded by 50 years of memory, but this is the story I recall:

One day on the mound, Rucker got blasted and was yanked early. Back at the boarding house, he soaked in a hot tub. When Cobb returned home, he pulled Rucker, fighting, out of the tub.
'What the hell's wrong with you?' or something to that effect, exclaimed the stunned Nap.
'You don't understand,' Cobb purportedly said, 'I just have to be first--'

You'll have to forgive any inaccuracies of recollection.

And sorry to say, in my opinion, Nap Rucker does not belong in the Hall.
If he were in, you'd have to open the gates to a few hundred more,
and there are already too many as it is.

Doug