Joe Jackson and Pete Rose Should Be HOFers Because...

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Tabe

The difference is that Aaron was still great in 1973 and very good in 1974. He already owned Tyr record when he stopped being good and was just average. Rose stopped being good in 1981, playing 3 full seasons as a not good or even terrible player before playing another half season as a basically average player before finally breaking the record. And you could probably make the case he only got in the lineup because he was the one writing out the card. There's hanging around for a long time (Aaron) and the there's hanging on. Pete definitely hung on, to the detriment of his teams (.602 OPS at 1B in 1983? Yikes. Maybe Philly actually wins the title if they had an actual major league 1B that year.)

I don't disagree that Aaron may have been a better player than Rose when comparing their last few years, but the truth is they had both lost quite a lot from their better days. And that is also not the relevant point and comparison I was referring to. Both Rose and Aaron had to play way beyond what a normal major league career is to be able to set their respective records. They both needed literally thousands of more at bats than the guys they were chasing, Cobb and Ruth. That is indisputable!!! And if you want to go even farther, the disparity is even worse. Remember, back when Ruth and Cobb played a season was 154 games, shorter than the 162 games it is now. And over the long career of Cobb, those missing games are likely the equivalent of another whole year's worth of at bats that he didn't get to add to his hit total. That could have easily been worth say another 200 hits to his all-time total. In which case, Rose may not have been able to hang on long enough to finally catch him. As for Ruth, I'd previously mentioned he didn't even bat full-time until he got to the Yankees in 1920. He was mostly pitching for the Red Sox from 1914 through 1919, even though he did start batting some more for the Sox in his last two season with them. In fact, it is funny how Ruth not even playing full-time still led the majors in home runs in both 1918 and 1919 for the Red Sox. Because of that, he didn't miss out on as many at bats as Cobb did because of the shorter schedule, but he still lost a lot of at bats from that also.

And I still point to the fact that Rose had so many years getting 200 or more hits, whereas Aaron seemed to have fewer years where he stood out as a home run hitter, and never hit 50 in a single season.

And to say Rose was chasing Cobb's record, yes of course. But you don't think Aaron wasn't also pushing to catch Ruth? You know MLB is always looking to pump up and advertise and bring interest to the sport. There was quite a lot of pressure on him to get that record. But to try and come out and now argue that because Aaron was a bit better player than Rose during their last few playing years does not change the fact that they both had to go and play a lot more to try and finally catch the people they were chasing. That was the valid and indisputable point I was making. Neither Aaron nor Rose over their careers completely dominated the area they hold their all-time records in. Certainly not like Ruth and Cobb did.

Originally Posted by Tabe

They tell similar stories about Ichiro. Seems odd that a player would intentionally choose to be less successful. In other words, the story is nonsense.

What story is nonsense, about Ichiro hitting home runs? I've also heard the stories that during batting practices Ichiro would change his swing to be like the home run guys and start belting shots all over the fences. And then after playing around and having fun he'd go right back to his normal swing and crank out singles and doubles, like he did over his entire career. A lot of his teammates had watched and seen him doing it, and felt that if he had wanted to, he could have hit a lot of home runs. But of course, he was mostly doing that during batting practices and not during actual games. Still, if you have major leaguers watching him and saying he could do it if he wanted to, I would tend to believe them more than you, unless by some chance you are a major leaguer and had actually seen Ichiro hitting in person and could honestly then tell everyone he couldn't do it if he wanted.

Now if you're saying the Cobb story is nonsense, what part of it? There is no dispute that Cobb hit 5 homers over back-to-back games, that is in the record books so that can't be it. Are you talking about the alleged story where he supposedly told some reporter beforehand he was going to hit home runs to show he could do it? If so, I'd already said there was no proof he actually said that to anyone, and it is possible someone had made it up after the fact, kind of like Ruth's called shot story. We'll never know the truth for either of them. But the fact remains that he did it, against major league pitching in back-to-back games. So regardless of what the actual story is and what was or wasn't actually said, for whatever reason, Cobb decided over those two days in 1925 to go for the fences, and boy was he successful!!!

Now here's the one thing you said that is really annoying. You said it seems odd that a player would intentionally choose to be less successful. Who are you talking about, Cobb or Ichiro, cause you didn't really say which story you find to be nonsense? Probably doesn't matter though because I'm not sure you'd find anyone to agree with you that either of them wasn't already as successful as they could be. So are you trying to say neither of them could really hit home runs if they wanted to, because if they could, they wouldn't have wasted their time hitting all the singles they did in their careers and would have been even better than they were? Is that it?!?!?! If the player with the all-time highest batting average in the history of baseball, who never hit more than 12 home runs in an entire season, suddenly decides to go for the fences in two games and knocks 5 homers out of the park, it sure ain't dumb luck on his part!!!!! And if it wasn't dumb luck on his part, then it had to be intentional, whether he told anybody he was going to do it or not. So are you effectively saying that Cobb chose to not be as successful as he could be?!?!?!? If that is the case, I wish he were alive today so you could stand in front of him and say that to his face. What I wouldn't give to be able to see his reaction to that! WOW!