Put Joe Wood in already. If Dizzy Dean can get in because he won 30 games, then Joe Wood can get in for winning 34, then going 3-1 in the World Series.

There are already at least three men in the HOF for having one incredible season: Hack Wilson, Dizzy Dean, and Jack Chesbro. Smoky Joe Wood's 1912 season was one for the books too.

Lefty!
 

Frank "Lefty" O'Doul is the greatest eligible position player not in the Hall of Fame. Over 970 games (30 shy of the 1,000 used for official records) from 1919 to 1934, Lefty averaged .349, winning two batting championships and setting the NL record for most hits in a season, which still stands. Not in any way a "homer" like Chuck Klein (whose numbers were greatly aided by playing in a small park in Philly), Lefty hit .352 at home and .347 on the road, proving he belongs among the elite hitters in history. After his days in the majors ended, he returned to the Pacific Coast League, where he was the longtime manager of the San Francisco Seals and later the San Diego and Seattle teams. Lefty was instrumental in organizing Japanese pro baseball, whose premiere team, the Giants, was named in his honor. Lefty is one of only 3 Americans in the Japanese baseball hall of fame. He is also one of the few players to have played for the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants while all 3 were in New York City. Lefty died on December 7, 1969. His epitaph reads "He was here at a good time and had a good time while he was here."

My favorite Lefty piece, a 1949 Sommer & Kaufmann card signed by Lefty:

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...SK%20PDoul.jpg

PSA pop on the card is "0", BTW.

In this postcard, produced by the Mainichi Sports newspaper, Joe DiMaggio and Lefty O'Doul are posed with Japan Baseball superstar and Hall of Famer, Kaoru Betto in a photo taken during the U.S. All Stars' Tour of Japan in 1951

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...%20PC%201.jpeg

Studio publicity photograph showing Lefty instructing Gary Cooper on how to swing a bat left-handed for the movie "Pride of the Yankees".

https://photos.imageevent.com/exhibi...31_564_lg.jpeg

He said Cooper played like an old lady and ultimately they ended up shooting the action sequences with Cooper batting righty and running to third base.

Dizzy Dean had more than one good season. He was the 1934 NL MVP. He finished 2nd in MVP voting in 1935. He finished 2nd in MVP voting in 1936.

He's in the HOF because he won 30 games.

He won as many as Koufax. His WAR was only 2 points below Koufax.

Dizzy Dean was an extremely popular and very accommodating to all the writers ,
Shouldn’t make a difference but it surely did .

A small vote for Elston Howard. As a boy, I saw him play several games at the old Yankee Stadium; he hit for power and was graceful at the toughest position in baseball. And he was the first black player to integrate the Yankees.

No, he is in the HOF because he was one of the best players in the NL from 1932-36 winning 120 games and receiving MVP votes each year. Then an AS in 1937 with 12 wins at the break, he was injured in the AS game and never was the same after. His five year peak was similar to that of Sandy Koufax. Dean was elected by the BBWAA with 79% of the vote.

Jack Chesbro peaked at 2.2%. Hack Wilson peaked at 38.3%. Joe Wood peaked at 18%. None of those are comparable to Dean.

None of this gets around what I said. He finished with 11 more wins than Johan Santana, but with less strikeouts, a lower ERA+ and a lower WAR total. Johan Santana won three ERA titles, a pitching Triple Crown and two Cy Young awards. He didn't make it beyond his first vote. He didn't win 30 games in a single season either.

I also don't see any real relation between Dean's brief peak and Koufax's other than they were brief. Koufax led the league in ERA all five seasons and won three Triple Crowns. Dean did not win any Triple Crowns. Twenty percent of all Dean's wins came in one season.

I know the vote is in December, but does anyone know when the ballot will be released?

Yes it does! That's a great one. This is one of my favorite card and it should be in the Baseball Card HOF too, along with Richie!

https://www.thebaseballcardhof.com/

shout out to ray from Philly

Interesting that he has cards as Richie, Rich, and Dick. Must be some sort of record.

Bill White. Great Player 8x All Star 7x Gold Glove WS champ 64. Then 18 years as Broadcaster for the NY Yankees. Outstanding Broadcaster!! And First MLB Black television announcer. Then President of the National Leauge President 1989 - 1994 First Black league president. Not in Hall of Fame for calling out Baseball owners for installing One of their own as Commissioner. Just sad....

Didn't he just not make it last year?

Peter

Bill White was on the Ballot last year but got only 10 of 16 votes Lou Pinella got 11and Leyland got 15 and got in. Last years committe was executives managers umpires etc. With impact after 1980. So even though it took until 1989 for MLB to appoint a Black leauge President ( Bill White was the only Black Leauge President ever) last years group did not find it significant enough. I am sure as they looked around the room at the owners meetings they felt no presure to recognize the achievement. Perhaps given that Black play by play announcers are still a rarity this current group might
recognize Bill Whites breakthrough as the First Black play by play announcer in baseball when he was hired in 1971. Or perhaps his 286 lifetime average 8 all star games and 7 Gold Gloves will do it. But given recent History probably not.

Not arguing either way on the merits, but I thought as a matter of process if you didn't make it by a committee vote you had to wait several years till that committee voted again.

Announcers aren't inducted and his 1B statistics are not even close to HOF. What were Bill White's achievements as a league president that are HOF worthy?

Assuming the process isn't changed (which seems to happen fairly often), there are 3 different Era Committees they rotate through so it should be another 3 years before White could be voted on again.

https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-fam...era-committees

Curt Flood.

I think it’s silly that they refuse to induct guys based on their overall influence on the game, and insist on putting them in a specific box. Bill White is certainly worthy for his many cumulative contributions to the game.

I’d also like to see guys like Don Zimmer get in. They put umps in and executives in, but not coaches?

Yes, we need sections for coaches and scouts.

As has often been brought up around here, a section for ambassadors/game changers would be nice so that Lefty O'Doul can get in. Curt Flood should be put in this category moreso than as a player, IMHO. If the HOF wanted to be really lazy, they could just expand upon their Pioneers category and lump all these guys in with Candy Cummings for all I care. They're all pioneers in their own way.

I don't entirely disagree on the philosophy (recognizing that this is not how it works right now), I just cannot really identify these achievements and contributions for White.

He's not even close as a player, using the old stats or the new. League President was a mostly powerless trophy job at that time and still is, which is why there aren't really any achievements to point to. An argument that he should be the first person inducted on the strength of his announcing would be a pretty big stretch. If being a pretty good players hanging around in the baseball world after their playing careers is enough then we need to induct another ~50 guys. Guys who are on the borderline sometimes get unofficial boosts from other things they did, but White is not even close on performance.


Curt Flood is a sensible choice to me on pioneer logic and impact on the game, as we can discern and define what his impact was.

the BB HOF needs this
 

A "Contributor" entry. That way people such as Curt Flood, Bill White, Lefty O'Doul and others who just miss in one way have the correct way to be enshrined. Most of the other Hall of Fames have such a category and this would help. Nothing wrong with this either as all three of these names mentioned and there are others as well would have an entry pass. I can even include those famous coaches as well with people like Walt Hrniak (sic), Tom House, Johnny Sain. Frankie Crosetti, etc.

Regards
Rich

I would love to see Flood and/or O'Doul get in:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...4e64e32f2f.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...11b0d1cf_w.jpg

I'm a Yankee fan and I loved Phil Rizzuto, and I think he belongs in the Hall of Fame...but not as a player only, but as an overall contributor to the game.

A part of me thinks he's unofficially in as a "contributor".

Don't think there's a chance in hell he'd be in the Hall of Fame if he didn't also have a 40 year career as a beloved Yankee announcer, to go along with his just below the borderline career as a player.

I don't think there's anybody on either of his "Similar To" lists on Baseball Reference who are remotely considered candidates for the HOF. He did lose 3 prime years to Military Service, but that hasn't helped a lot of other guys get in who otherwise wouldn't have either.

Again, I love Phil...and I think he belongs in there either way, and don't care if the letter of the law wasn't followed to get him in there.

Carl Furillo, who won the NL batting title one year and whose "rifle" arm terrified runners.

I thought we had contributors already. Isn't Buck O'Neil one?

42.2 WAR. Not.
Although you could add 20 WAR for Paradise by the Dashboard Light.

Buck is actually in as a Negro League player.

.250 hitter with no power, it's nominal then. He's in for being Buck O'Neil.

I would vote for Thurman Munson. Just as good as Buster Posey and his career was cut short like Puckett.

Buck was inducted as a Pioneer/Executive, not a player.

I'd vote for Thurm too, but he's not on the ballot.

MLB HOF has to be the dumbest private club in all of sports. F* the HOF.

730pm tonight.....

Anyone selected?

All terrific careers but no one jumps off the page for me.

Guess I wouldn't be surprised if Allen sneaks in given he's been 1 vote short twice.

It would be very bitter sweet if El Tiante somehow was elected given his recent passing.

Could not agree more!

Dave Parker and Dick Allen.

Dick Allen not a big surprise but I was not expecting Parker

Wow! Just watched too.....in his prime Parker was a top 2-3 player in the game.

Results of the Classic Baseball Era Ballot (12 votes needed for election): Dave Parker (14 votes, 87.5%); Dick Allen (13 votes, 81.3%); Tommy John (7 votes, 43.8%); Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, Vic Harris and Luis Tiant each received less than five votes.

I'm not surprised Luis Tiant didn't get in given his recent death. The bitterness over Ron Santo getting in after his death and not during his lifetime led to some extremely critical commentary even though they finally got it right.

I am surprised Tiant got less than 5 votes, though.

I thought Ken Boyer would get a bit more love than that, too.

I guess I’m covered for both guys with my HOF “earliest” collection. Phew!

https://photos.imageevent.com/derekg...64%20Allen.jpg https://photos.imageevent.com/derekg...2%20Parker.jpg https://photos.imageevent.com/derekg...20Stickers.jpg

Dave Parker 40.1 WAR. Not exactly overwhelming. Barely north of Harold Baines.

Ken Boyer? 62.8. Who the hell is voting?

People that don't care about WAR, such as Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Tony Perez, Ozzie Smith, Lee Smith and Joe Torre.

Feeding the same list of favored names over and over and over again to a small committee of insiders for a closed door discussion and non-public vote pretty much ensures that the selections will not be objectively good or reasonable and that an almost random (or corrupt based on who has the most friends on the committee as appears to have happened for Baines) sub-selection will get chosen each time, with most of the recurring names eventually chosen since its the same names put forth again and again. After decades of this same basic formulation being instituted despite blatantly obvious corruption only adding to the problem, it is clear there is not soon going to be any kind of reasonable or rational method adopted to pick people for logical reasons. This is a silly farce each year.

Anyone on the ballot this year was fine for the HOF and I just wish if they put in Dick Allen when he was still with us.

But no objections to them getting their plaques in Cooperstown next summer

Yup. Found the full list.

The 16-member Hall of Fame Board-appointed electorate charged with the review of the Classic Baseball Era Ballot was comprised of Hall of Fame members Paul Molitor, Eddie Murray, Tony Pérez, Lee Smith, Ozzie Smith and Joe Torre; major league executives Sandy Alderson, Terry McGuirk, Dayton Moore, Arte Moreno and Brian Sabean; and veteran media members/historians Bob Elliott, Leslie Heaphy, Steve Hirdt, Dick Kaegel and Larry Lester. Hall of Fame Chairman of the Board Jane Forbes Clark served as the non-voting chairman of the Classic Baseball Era Committee.

We need to stop taking the HOF so seriously because they themselves don’t take it seriously. This year is really a joke.

It could be because I was born in '72 and Parker was larger than life during my childhood, but I would put Parker up against anyone as the best player in baseball 76-79. Perhaps Carew, Brett, Rice, Lynn, Foster (for a minute) and Morgan (on the backend), but Parker was awesome. I am actually surprised he only had 40.1 war because he had that incredible arm that made the great throw in the 79 all star game. To 7 year old me, I would guess that he had 40.1 defensive war.

I was a Reds fan growing up and 84-86 Parker was appointment TV/Radio. I still think he should have won the MVP over McGee in '85. The drug years of 80-83 killed his career numbers. I often think about what his career numbers would have been without the locker room cocaine influence of 80-83. I would guess 3000+ hits, 400+ HR's and another MVP. Kinda like the Ted Williams math of the early 40's but because of drug use instead of the nobility of going to war. :D .

A decade or so ago, I was at Pirate fest with the boys. My boys were around 15 and 12 at the time. My oldest brought baseballs in case he ran into anyone. He immediately walked up to Parker and asked him to sign his baseball. He smiled and signed. I then pushed my shy 12 year old to him. Parker said - I am actually walking over to sign (there was a line about 2-300 deep at that point - probably an hour wait or so). but he signed for my middle one anyway.

I watched a special on him a couple of years ago where he is struggling with Parkinson's. He is not in great shape - so I am glad that he is getting in. Years ago they ran a fake trial for Pete Rose and if he should be in the HOF. I cannot remember what channel it was on and I have never seen it on anything since. But they asked Parker as a witness if Rose should be in the HOF. Parker's response was "I think I should be in the HOF."

It is crazy to think that Baines WAR was similar because there was never a time when I thought that Harold Baines was anywhere close to the best player in baseball - or even top 5. But, I was certain of that with Dave Parker!

It’s good to fun to argue who should or shouldn’t be and rankings, but the actual choices are barely even worth indignation. Drug test failing steroid user Ortiz is in, but the rest get an inconsistent punishment. Schilling is out for partisan politics incompatible with the electorate media and largely demonstrably false related stories. Parker, Morris, Baines, Frisch and his cronies making it a complete joke, the litany of ridiculous choices from these small insider committees with private ballots go back over half a century. They obviously have no desire to clean it up and adopt any reasonable method of election. The museum is cool but the plaques are less and less worth seeing as it has turned into a Hall of Voting Practices That Are Designed To Ensure A Dishonest Outcome