Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruinsfan94
I know we have a lot of 1800's guys here so can someone explain why Mcarthy is in the Hall? Clearly WAR can't be used as the end all be all, since the game is about as different as you can get then how it was played then.
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McCarthy and Hugh Duffy were known as the "Heavenly Twins" when they starred for the championship Boston teams of the early 1890s, and were commonly linked together as good players who were also innovators in the way the game was played. McCarthy was widely thought to have invented the hit-and-run play, though modern research has shown that he did not actually do so. (He did probably help popularize it, and other tricks such as deliberately trapping balls in the outfield to force out a runner.)
McCarthy and Duffy were voted into the HOF in 1945-46 by the Veterans' Committee during a two-year period when the Hall inducted 21 new members, following a six-year break during World War II when it only inducted two. These 21 men inducted in 1945-46 were mostly from the 19th century and the dead-ball era, and they included several other players besides McCarthy whose qualifications might be questioned by modern observers, but who were seen at the time as pioneers or important figures in their day. These include Roger Bresnahan (a pretty good player who is basically in the HOF for inventing shin guards); Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank Chance (all pretty good players on championship teams, stars in their day, but in the HOF for a poem); and Jack Chesbro (who had one monster year and several other very good ones, but who only pitched nine full seasons, and is in the HOF mainly for having the post-1900 record for single-season wins). Hugh Duffy arguably belongs in this group as well; he's a more legitimate HOFer than McCarthy, though not a slam-dunk by the numbers (.326 lifetime BA in a hitter's era, 43.0 lifetime WAR in 14 full seasons), and a big reason for his induction was probably his record for highest single-season batting average.