Growing up, the Dodgers were my favorite team and Gil, old #14, my most beloved player. I did see a couple of games with my dad at Ebbetts Field and watched in awe during one as he launched an opposite field homer over the Schaffer Beer sign in right. One other memory: It was the '52 or '53 subway series against, who else, the Yankees and Gil was in a terrible slump, hitless, I think, over the first 4 games. The priest in Gil' local parish asked the congregation during Mass to pray to relieve Gil's pain and give him a couple of bingles. Can't recall if it worked or not, but I guess when all else fails why not call on a higher power. Ted Z. you might recall this tiny bit of Hodges history even if you were rooting against the wrong team.

Hey guy

You presented a very logical argument here for the Hodges vs Dahlen comparison with respect to their OPS+ and Fielding %.

However, it has become apparent that "Topps206" doesn't do logic. For whatever reasons....he has some emotional "hang-ups" regarding Hodges.


Dougscats

Great story....well said of Gil Hodges. Perhaps someday in the not so far off future, Gil will be in the HOF.


TED Z
.

Hi John
 

It was the 1952 Dodgers vs Yankees W.S. where Gil went 0 for 21. It was one of my favorite W.S. since my guy, Johnny Mize beat the Dodgers "single-handedly" in a 7-game Series.

Nevertheless, I remember feeling real sad for Gil's slump.

I always liked Gil and this started in 1950 when I opened up a Bowman Gum waxpack and saw his smiling face pictured on his card.

Furthermore, when Gil hit 4 - HR's in one game that year (Aug 31st), he certainly was my hero.


Hey guys....keep these positive Gil Hodges stories rolling.


TED Z
.

Hof
 

I might killed for this, but here goes.

To be honest, I think the Hall is already diluted. I'm fully aware of the small % of all players that are in, but when I hear names like Bert Blyleven, Goose Gossage, etc., I just roll my eyes. These were very good (I mean, really, really good) players, but among the best ever? To be honest, I could go up 2-3 levels of guys ahead of them and question that they belong. If it were up to me, the Hall would be like 100-150 guys.

It gets to a point where you say enough is enough. To me, you can't stay on a ballot for years and have voters lobbied into voting for them so much that they ultimately get in. When I hear some of these guys doing interviews and essentially politicking to get in, it makes me sick.

You'll never get 100% of the people to agree on everything 100% of the time, but I'd much rather have a really exclusive Hall built solely of guys that are the slam dunks. If voters have to think about it, I'm not sure you should really be in. If voters spanning several years or in this case, decades, have to think of it, I'm almost positive your exclusion won't be the end of the world.

On guys like Dahlen, I'm not going to fault the committee. Yes, I want them to give players from that era equal consideration. But these are hardly the first guys voters to leave them out. I have a really hard time shaking my first at these guys who are in the majority of voters coming down on that side.

To Dahlen specifically, I can see how people think he should be in. That's particularly true if you measure him against several of the players already in and consider his stats at the time he retired. The problem, though, is that the longer this goes on, the lower the standards become. If he's been on the fence this long and so many voters have passed him up, it comes to a point where I'm not sure you belong. If he got in, I'd be fine with it. But it's just one of those situations where I have a hard problem getting that worked up over it.

I would say Dahlen is more worthy because advanced metrics favor him at a touger position in a tougher era.

I think Blyleven is one of the best pitchers ever. Gossage is one of the best relievers ever. I think that someone can quietly put up a Hall of Fame career. Just because they weren't always in the spotlight or not seen/marketed as a major star does not negate their worthiness to me.

Reasonable people can disagree on how big the Hall should be. If you want to limit it to the top 150, then sure, leave out Dahlen and Gossage, but no way can I think of 150 guys better than Blyleven. Not saying he's in the first tier or anything like that, but I think he easily makes it into one of the first 150 slots, probably in the top half.

That's interesting - and part of the reason these lists are fun. There are a lot of good opinions on it.

If I take a list of some of the great pitchers, like the all-time wins list from B-R, I can probably cherry pick at least 30-35 pitchers ahead of Blyleven from here. I might take him ahead of a few guys that have more wins, but guys below him like Gibson, Marichal, Roberts, Palmer, Feller, Pedro, Koufax, and others probably leapfrog him for me. That's before you even get to any position guys.

I'd be hard-pressed to put him into the top 150 of all-time and even more so the upper half of that. But that's why these sorts of things are great to look at and I know people have a far better opinion of him than I do.

It doesn't matter to me how good a HOF player was when it comes to voting. If you're not a historian and you consult Wikipedia for advice on how to cast your vote, you shouldn't be voting in this type of election.

Except numbers are suggesting that Dahlen is better than many others already in. It's clear he's superior to Bobby Wallace and Joe Tinker. He's also comparable to Hughie Jennings and George Davis. Out of his top ten similarity scores on Baseball-Reference, more than half are in Cooperstown. Dahlen is also 10th all time for shortstops when it comes to JAWS.

That's a great point about doing it quietly. Those guys were certainly very good players. Part of it, for me, is finding guys that were at one point, a dominant performer leading their position. I just don't see that with Blyleven. He won 20 games only once, never won a Cy Young (and was only ever in the top five in voting three times), was only a two-time All-Star, etc. I do think there's value in some of the advanced metrics like WAR, WHIP, etc., where he excelled a little and he was one of the best strikeout pitchers of his generation, too. Very good pitcher that was certainly understated as you mentioned. I just think it gets hard when you're comparing him to others that maybe didn't pitch as long, but were more dominant over a shorter stretch.

Dahlen
 

Yeah, I certainly agree that there's a better case for him than some already in. But that's sort of the problem as I see it. I think errors have already been made in voting people in, so instead of making the standards a little harder, we're forced to compare him with people (that may not deserve to be in) and say that's why he should be in. Next, it'll be guys like Dave Steib and Bret Saberhagen (again, both very good). If the standards keep going down, where does it really end?

Stieb had the highest WAR of any pitcher in the 1980s. Not a Hall of Famer, but Jack Morris gets more love than he deserves.

Saberhagen falls just shy because he didn't win that magical third Cy Young. He was third in 1994 behind Maddux and Ken Hill.

Dahlen is not only better than a lot of his contemporaries in, but judging by Sabermetrics he very well could be a top ten shortstop of all time.

Great stuff....
 

Ted and John (Yoda) and Doug (dougcats) the others who shared 1st hand Hodges stories....THANK YOU! I find it amazing that each of you remembers very clear details of these games that were oh so long ago. These memories could very well be unique as each of us sees and remembers the same event a little differently but the spirit and the love of the game clearly shine through in each of your memories. I swear, I'm going to invent a time machine someday.....1st Stop: Ebbets Field, 2nd stop Coogan's Bluff! 3rd stop: Shibe park!!!!! Oh man that would be cool!

Funny how some (and we all know who) will try to lower the standards of a guy who played 1B as opposed to SS or another position. Gil Hodges was born and built to play 1B just as Wagner was born with the left side of the infield in his genes. To try and say a guy should be elected because he played SS is like comparing apples to oranges. I for one am quite sick of hearing about Dahlen's interpositional quadratic equational aptitude and superior athletic exploits. He is not a Hall of Famer and was certainly no lock.

Peace, Mike

Hodges is no slam dunk and position adjustment does matter. Dahlen did what was expected of him as a shortstop and more. Hodges had nice but not HOF worthy career.

Love this photo!
 

Maybe they should have people knocked out of the Hall every year, if its truly the best of all time that will right some wrongs. If 2 go in, 2 come out. Dahlen and Trammell go in, Maranville and Tinker come out. Eventually you have only the best.

We'll just have to agree to disagree. Jennings is in because he's a manager. Davis is clearly a better hitter Ops+ 121 to 110 and fielder .940 to .927. Wallace and Tinker are questionable selections, but much better defensively .938 each to .927, but worse hitters 110 to 105 to 96. Tinker is in because of a poem. If I was to pick between Wallace and Dahlen, I'd go with the better defensive ss.

I don't trust the war or jaws numbers for Dahlen. He gets a lot of value for committing a lot more errors than his contemporaries. I don't think we can go by assists and outs for a player with so little data. It's not like we can watch film of his games and see if he had better range than the above players. He got very little support from early hof voters, many who saw him play. They didn’t feel he was a hofer. It's not like he was even getting 5 or 10% of the votes. I would trust them over a 21st century researcher trying to put a value on his career.

Oh yeah, both of those pitchers are very good. I specifically mentioned them because I know they've gotten some HOF consideration from people who think they should be in. My point in naming them was that those are a couple of guys who I think could get some consideration the more the standards are lowered.

I should add, too, that I don't necessarily believe that putting Dahlen himself in lowers the standards. I think the standards have already been lowered. My main issue with Dahlen is that for someone that's had so many chances to get in, I think it gets a little ridiculous to keep looking at them. Many different voters have had a look at Dahlen (and others) over the course of history and if he's not in by now, I almost think the Hall gets cheapened by guys getting chance after chance.

For me, it's not so much that he doesn't deserve to be in. I've read some really convincing arguments on him and it wouldn't bother me if he got in. It's that he's had so many chances and has never made it.

I would say that if he's getting chance after chance and has been for a combined 18 times these last two pre-integration meetings, he did something right. I blame the voters. Those who played against him and covered him didn't see it, but they didn't have that at their disposal that we do.

I would hope if nothing else that Gil should be recognized as one of the finest right-handed first basemen in the history of the game.

I have no problem with that. I think he had an excellent career. He may have even been a Hall of Fame human being. He merely doesn't measure up to my criteria for Cooperstown.

+1. He falls just short, and is quite comparable to Norm Cash, who compiled similar stats playing most of his career in the heart of the second toughest pitcher's era ever; Graig Nettles; Dale Murphy, Rocky Colavito, Joe Carter, Don Baylor and others in the mid 300 HR class.

I would put shortstop Vern Stephens in--adequate fielder, tremendous hitter for a shortstop--going purely by recollection, 247 career HR's, almost 1200 RBI's, and a batting average of about .285. Plus three RBI titles and led the league in HR's once. 39 HR and 159 RBI in 1949 for the Red Sox, hitting cleanup behind Ted Williams. OPS of .815, which is excellent for a shortstop, and includes 4 very down years at the end of his career. A seven-time all-star, and six times finished in the top ten in the MVP voting.

Regards,

Larry

I think Cash has a better argument than Hodges does.

Mike,

Thanks for sharing that photo. What a great picture of Gil. I tried locating it on Ebay to no avail. Any ideas where I could purchase one? Any assistance would be appreciated. On the subject of Gil being in the HOF, I too believe he belongs there(Gil is my favorite player ever making my position regarding this issue somewhat biased). I never got to see Gil play since I was not born until 1962 but how I wish I had a time machine and could go back to the 50's era and live the lows and highs of being a Brooklyn Dodgers fan.

My father was a huge Gil Hodges fan and passed his love of Gil as a player and more importantly as a great person onto me.

Thanks for any help regarding the photo.

Duane Clark

Duane....
 

I sent you a PM on the photo. Go to Amazon and buy a book called "Praying for Gil Hodges". I think you will LOVE it. I recommend that book to ANY baseball fan. It bleeds 1950s baseball and is non-fiction. LOVED it.....and I'm a Red Sox fan! :)

Peace, Mike

Darnit
 

Well darn...... ;)


Attachment 214385

Do you own all of those? I'm jealous, if so. I'd love to own a Brooklyn to complement my Boston but now's not the time to hammer out the big bucks.

Yeah, I do own them. Always liked his card so I try and pick them up if the price is right.....

That is so cool. He should've been elected on Monday. Three years goes by fast.

Next to Joe Jackson he is the best player not in the Hall of Fame. Batted more than .300 in 11 of his 12 seasons. Turkey Mike Donlin.