Is Charlie Bennett a HOFer?
 

Before you respond or vote, please take the following into consideration:

Since the HOF committee for 19th century players is now anything pre-1980, here is how Charlie Bennett stacks up. I used the following statistics to show his dominance behind the plate: WAR, dWAR (Defensive WAR), rField (Number of runs better or worse than average for all fielding), WAA (Number of wins a player added to a team above what a league average player would add), and finally a stat showing how his bat was better than some of the numbers might show, OPS+.

NOTE: I used the following criteria to assemble these leaderboards:

1871-1980 - Since this is the HOF Committee Bennett would be put into
Played 80% of games at Catcher
Minimum 1000 games played at Catcher
It's also good to note that Buck Ewing played only 47% of his games at Catcher and King Kelly 36%, while Bennett played 88%

In my opinion, Bennett was the best Catcher of the 19th Century, and even if that were in question, he was clearly the best defensive Catcher of the era and ranks among the best of all time at the position when compared to all eras.

His defensive stats are absolutely incredible and his offensive stats, while on the lower side, are a bit deceiving as his OPS+ is quite high.

In my opinion, Bennett should be the next Catcher elected to the BBHOF from the pre-1980 committee, with the only other player in the argument being Wally Schang.

The 19th Century does not get enough attention, especially Catchers, and electing Bennett would be a slam dunk in my opinion.

It's also good to note that Charlie Bennett, who ranks 34th all time in WAR per 650 PA, his 5.9 being between Larry Walker's 5.88 and Frank Robinson's 5.93. He averaged over 8 WAR per 650 PA over an 8 year peak.

Bennett's career fielding percentage at Catcher is .942 compared to the league average of .909, a whopping 33 points above average!!!

It also doesn't hurt that Bennett was a pioneer of the game, being one of the first catchers to get right behind the batter, and may have been the first to invent/use a chest protector.

In the most grueling era for players, especially catchers, Bennett stands out most among his peers.

I would love to hear why or why not you think Bennett should be in the HOF.

I'll leave you with this excerpt from the excellent book 59 in '84 by Edward Achorn (https://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Nine-84.../dp/0061825867):

Detroit’s Charlie Bennett, regarded by many of his contemporaries as the game’s top defensive catcher, entered the 1883 campaign with severely chapped hands—the result, he said, of working too long in frigid air in his off-season job. Unfortunately, when he started catching that spring, his hard hands cracked open, and the cracks, pounded daily by fastballs, refused to mend. Bennett, who had a mother and sisters to support back home in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and could not afford to go without a pay packet, “caught many a game” that season “with blood dripping from his fingers’ ends.” That August, when he could stand the pain no more, he finally sat out and gave his split palms time to heal.

Bennett usually kept on working, though, even in “the most intense agony,” recalled Lon Knight, a teammate for four seasons. In one game, a ball split open Bennett’s thumb from the base to the tip, clear to the bone. A doctor ordered him to sit out until he had healed, warning Bennett that he was liable to contract blood poisoning that might well force the amputation of the thumb, or even his arm. But the catcher stubbornly played on, game after game. “Between each inning he would have to sponge the gash in his thumb with cotton soaked in antiseptic which he carried with him in his pocket, in order to remove the corruption which was continually flowing from the wound,” Knight recalled. Eventually, it healed over, but his hands permanently bore the scars of his trade. The Sporting News surveyed the damage in 1887: “His fingers have been battered almost to pieces . . . until he has not a whole or straight finger in the lot. Every joint is swollen and misshapen.”

I voted borderline. He’s not a bad candidate, he might be the best catcher not in the Hall already. A reasonable expansion, but I hardly consider him in the group of folks where it is unjust he isn’t in already.

I don’t think using the stat equations written around the modern game and what is valued now are particularly telling of this very different context he played. They do good with modern players, I do not really buy in that the gigantic quantity of value assumptions and comparison to an imaginary modern replacement player concept that form the root of WAR is much relevant to baseball as it existed in the 19th century. WAR is great for ID’ing overlooked players in 2014, not for 1884 for whom it is not written.

I wouldn’t hold that he only caught 954 games against him very much, due to the time context. I would probably vote for him as a very bottom tier hall of famer if the ballot did not have the most deserving 19th century players.

I voted yes. And a card:

Always nice to learn a little more about a relatively obscure player.

Are the WAR and other stats you provided just for the years the players played catcher?

And do you happen to have a source for the WAR per 650 plate appearances stat you cite? That is an interesting statistic. I'd like to see the other guys leading the list.

I might include Gene Tenace in the conversation as the most worthy pre-1980 catcher. Yes, he retired in 1983, but most of his good years were in the 70s. Tenace's career OPS+ was 136.
Bill Freehan was pretty solid as well, as he was an 11x All Star with 5 Gold Gloves.

Thank you for the well thought out response.

The reason I like modern sabermetric statistics with 19th century players is that a lot of their on-field contributions seem quite low when compared to modern players and this is a product of the times (lower amounts of games played per season, etc).

Modern sabermetric statistics are formed using their contemporaries and not modern players so it really gives a good insight as to how they compare to their 19th century peers. Even if we didn't want to go that route, we can see that Bennett had a .942 fielding percentage at catcher to a .909 league average during his playing days, which may be his most impressive state.

The WAR and other stats I provided are for all seasons/games played by those in the graphics (part of my criteria was 80% of games played at the catching position, but this includes everything at every position as long as they made the cut of 80%).

I agree that Gene Tenace and Bill Freehan, as well as my suggestion of Wally Schang are also great catchers to include in that conversation, but overall my money is on Bennett, his defensive stats are on par with Ivan Rodriguez, even though he played in a gloveless and mostly equipment-less era. He was also an extremely popular player in his day who even had a stadium named after him; Bennett Park in Detroit.

As for the WAR per 650 PA's, that was a quote from an article I found that was a bit dated as it was posted 5 years ago. While it was likely correct at the time, the numbers have shifted a bit since, but Bennett is still 38th in WAR per 650 PA's. Here is the data as I've compiled it from Baseball Reference. NOTE: this list is ALL-TIME for all position players

Fun Fact: I capped the list at the first 400 players and sitting at the bottom of those 400 is HOFer Harold Baines (2.27 WAR per 650 PA's), Baines also has the exact same WAR as Bennett (38.8) but has 11092 PA's to Bennett's 4310...

Wow, that's amazing how high Bennett ranks on the WAR per PAA list. Any chance you could provide a link to that? I can't seem to find it on my own.

When I look at Carlton Fisks' WAR on baseball reference, it is 68.5, so I am not sure where the 39.5 in your table is from?

The WAR per 650 PA is a list I compiled from Baseball Reference exports. I have it in an Excel sheet that I would be happy to email to you, just send me a PM.

As for the 39.5 WAR in the first post for Fisk, that is because part of my criteria for those initial lists was the era from 1871-1980, which is the era that Bennett would be considered for the HOF. Fisk's total was only 39.5 through 1980. I figured the best way to compare Bennett was by using that range since that is who he would compete against for induction.

To the bold, I didn't say modern sabermetric's compare performance to players a century later instead of contemporaries; but it uses a set of value suppositions rooted in todays game, not the 19th century. There is not a different version of WAR that calculates value based on the way the game was played in a particular year or period, just a couple adjustment factors that exist mostly to punish 19th century pitchers so they don't come out on top. In order to find WAR an accurate account of a players performance, you must accept the value judgements it places on everything and think those reflective of the period in question. I do not think that it does. It's fictional replacement player it compares too is even less real in this period where there wasn't a highly regulated and developed feed system.

Ah ok, I misunderstood your reply. I agree in the sense that I don't look at WAR as a defining stat, but I do find it to be a useful tool. An average player in the 19th century is much different than today, but I do feel that Bennett was so far above his competition at catcher that WAR really doesn't matter.
In this case WAR is just one of many tools that I used to determine Bennett's value. Any way you slice it, modern sabermetrics, Top 10 stat finishes, defensive stats, etc, he is a HOFer in my book, and one of the top 3 defensive catchers of all-time.

I voted Borderline.

You did bring up Wally Schang who was perhaps the best catcher of the 1920’s. He was superior to Ray Schalk in nearly every way. Schang, Hartnett and (later) Cochrane were the best catchers of the era. Schang should be the next catcher inducted imo.

I completely understand. Over the course of this research, Schang has consistently came up and is deserving of enshrinement. Schang and Bennett are in similar boats as Schang is possibly the best catcher of the 20's, while Bennet is the best catcher of the 19th century.

The main reason why I give the nod to Bennett is that the playing conditions were much worse in the 19th century, and catchers were borderline insane with no gloves or equipment (for the most part). The sheer toughness of the position and it's lack of 19th century representatives (Ewing only played 47% of the time at Catcher, the most of 19th century HOF inductees, while Bennett played 88%) makes me give the edge to Bennett.

Not only was he a great defensive catcher but he was a loved player. He had the Tigers' stadium, Bennett Field, named after him. I voted yes that he should be in the HOF.

You forgot a 4th option…Who the F is Charlie Bennett?

It's amazing how many people who claim to collect baseball don't seem to know any players from before the 1900's or 1920's.

Ok, I'll admit it, I laughed when I read that post.

Another way to look at "who the F is Charlie Bennett" is that out of all the players that could have been selected for the N28 set, he was one of the 10 baseball players. If I didn't collect 19thC stuff, I'd probably be asking the same question about who the F he is.

Edited to add - my thought is he is either borderline or not a HOF caliber player, but these days, who to say who is a HOFer because look at how diluted the talent is in the HOF. Too many "buddies" were inducted by the old veterans committees from the past.

I voted, "yes". If you were in N28, you were famous.

Here's a list of N28/N29 (1887/1888) baseball players:

N28
Anson (HOF)
Bennett
Caruthers
Clarkson (HOF)
Comiskey (HOF)
Glasscock
Keefe (HOF)
Kelly (HOF)
Mulvey
Ward (HOF)

N29
Ewing (HOF)
Fogarty
Getzin (Getzien)
Miller
Morrel (Morril)
Ryan

Bennet did make the 1887 N284 cut along with about 140 other players. Missed the almost 100 player list for K-Bats in 1887.
He did make the Scrapps issue because he was on Detroit (Scrapps were Detroit and St. Louis players 1887 NL vs AA championship).

Bennett missed the cut for several other card issues up to 1893.

While looking something else up, I found a list of the best players by position for each decade that was prepared by Francis Richter for his History and Records of Base Ball., 1914, considered a classic history. He selected Bennett and Ewing as the best catchers for 1880-90. Just interesting.

I've read a lot of 19th Century papers. He was considered the best catcher of the 19th Century. Not sure how many catchers from the 19th Century are in the Hall of Fame, not many. Buck Ewing is in and he only caught 636 games out of his 1345 games ( 47%), not really a full time catcher. Bennett caught 954 games out of the 1084 he played in ( 88% ). He was a catcher. In Detroit , he was a hero, with a stadium named after him and he also threw out the first pitch each opening day until he died.

Re: N28
 

RE: N28...Caruthers and Glasscock should be in the HOF. You could argue that Mulvey is not a Hofer by today's numbers, but he was popular in his day, a team leader who was one of the best 3rd basemen at the time.

I completely agree. If you look at newspapers from Bennett's playing days and long after, he dominates the headlines and sports articles. You can find hundreds if not thousands of mentions of his name, whether he was receiving a gold or silver medal for his services or some other praise or token of appreciation. He was well-known, a baseball celebrity in his day, and considered one of the best players in all of baseball, and certainly the best catcher.

Something that is very important that you have to consider with Bennett is that in 19th century baseball, defense was by far the most important aspect of the game. Players who excelled on defense were the most celebrated and admired (Bennett, Glasscock, etc) due to the gloveless and error-thick play of the era.

Here is one of the many, many examples of praise for Bennett...

Detroit Free Press
Wednesday, October 19, 1887

Since the Detroit Base Ball Club was organized and entered for the pennant race of 1881, up to and including this very day, it has numbered among its members a player without a peer upon the diamonds of the world -"Stonewall" Bennett; plucky, enduring, never-say-die Bennett; modest, unassuming, gentlemanly Charlie Bennett. Whether the Detroit Club was up to the fore, battling with the league leaders for supremacy, or bringing up a forlorn and tattered rear, Charlie Bennett has never failed to do earnest, efficient work for the team, nor lost one iota of his burning desire to see the championship pennant flying from a Michigan flagstaff at Recreation Park. He has stood up behind the plate day after day, week after week, and month after month, and stopped the hot shot of dozens of pitchers, good, bad, and worthless, with hands as thick as a boxing-gloves, with bleeding crevasses and canyons crossing his palms, and two or three fingers the color and size of red bananas.

Then you might be equally shocked to learn that some people come to this site to learn things.

I just read the SABR bio on baseball reference.

Definitely changed the way the game was played.

Interesting guy with quite a career.

Borderline but I voted Yes, as his contributions as a pioneer put him over the top

Great point! I should have linked the SABR bio on the initial post.

SABR Bio - Charlie Bennett - https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/charlie-bennett/

I firmly believe that Kid Nichols early success and what paved the way to him becoming the greatest pitcher of the 19th Century was the battery with Bennett during the 1890-1893 seasons.

In Kid's own words:

“When it comes to catchers my preference is, and always has been, Charlie Bennett. Charlie was always consistent and knew what his brain was given to him for. He was also an accurate, quick thrower".

I also found this great article regarding Bennett as well and have taken a couple of paragraphs from it to post here:

https://www.blessyouboys.com/2018/3/...tt-our-catcher

Statistically, it’s a very difficult proposition to judge players from the 1880’s because the rules were in constant flux. But after poring over newspaper accounts of the old Wolverines and taking into account what others said and wrote about Charlie, there is little doubt, that had the baseball Hall of Fame been opened in 1910, Charlie Bennett would have been a founding member.

Charlie was known as an outstanding defensive catcher with a very strong, accurate arm, and an above average hitter with extra-base power. He was also known for his handling of the pitching staff. "I used to feel so sorry for a young pitcher who was being hit hard in a game." said Bennett. I often believe it hurt me fully as much as it did him." Newspaper accounts of the time rated Bennett, along with Hall-of-Famer Buck Ewing as the preeminent catchers of the era, and many rated Charlie the best overall. According to a 1913 Free Press article, "Even to this day where the question arises as to who is, or was the greatest catcher the game ever had, seven out of ten will answer Charlie Bennett."

EDIT: Double Charlie Bennett mailday!

Jeremy,

Great thread and poll. I voted he should be in by the way.

And I especially found that one comment you posted about how if the HOF had opened in 1910 that he would have likely been a founding member, very interesting, and extremely relevant. It goes to show the modern-day bias element that can, and most definitely still does, exist in many things, and across different eras. The 19th century players have likely been subjected to modern-day bias since they originally announced and first opened the HOF. When you look at the original 1936 HOF class, Wagner is the only player to have even played at least a single MLB game in the 1800s (1897 start to his 21 year career to be exact) yet MLB is considered going back as far as 1869, right? So, no one who primarily played in that first 31 years or so of MLB deserved induction, or is this more because the people voting back then didn't know as much about the older players so they just voted mostly for the newer, more modern (to them) players that they did know? And if so, that is the classic definition of a then, modern-day bias. Remember, back then there was no radio or TV for everyone to have seen these 19th players playing, there was no internet or SABR site where you could just look up player records and stats online, or have easy access to newspaper and other information archives across the country. It wasn't until the fourth HOF induction class was elected, after Landis specifically put together an Old-Timer's Committee in 1939 to look at 19th century players, that they finally recognized and elected a HOF player that actually played the bulk of their career in the 1800s, with the election of both Anson and Ewing that year. I wonder if MLB and the HOF maybe started getting some questions and flak from people about how come they only kept electing the newer players and seemed to completely ignore the 19th century players up till then?

And for those that seem to just love their statistics and can't get enough quoting them over and over, if my math and counting are correct, there have been 25 individuals to date that spent more than half their MLB careers playing in the 1800s that are currently inducted into the baseball HOF as players, not pioneers, executives, managers, or so on, as actual players. And the HOF itself has, last I looked, a total of 268 players inducted into the HOF. So in the entire current 153 years MLB has been in existence, with the 31 years from 1869 to 1899 representing approximately 20.26% of that time, how come only about 9.3% of the current HOFs are from the 1800s?

Today's disparity (2022): 20.26% - 9.3% = 10.96%

Another statistical way to look at this and show the era bias against 19th century players is to just look at the gross number of players in the HOF versus how many years baseball has been around.

268 HOF players / 153 years of baseball existence = 1.75 HOFers per year

Now look at just the 19th century players:

25 19th Century HOF players / 31 years of 19th century play = 0.80 HOFers per year

And maybe even better yet, remove the 19th century players from the formular entirely, and just look at the HOFers from 1900 and on.

243 HOF players / 122 years of baseball existence = 1.99 HOFers per year

Anyone else beginning to see a maybe unfair bias that has been directed at 19th century ballplayers forever it seems? MLB has gone back and tried to correct the bias and so on directed at the Negro Legue players. But still no love for the 19th century guys apparently, huh? Or is that maybe because MLB and the HOF figure that 99+% of today's baseball fans wouldn't know who a 19th century baseball player was, or anything about them and their career, unless maybe their lives depended on it? Instead of this ongoing, veteran's committee type BS where they'll maybe elect another 19th century HOFer every so many years, these guys from the 1800's were done playing well over 100 years ago and none of their numbers or history is ever changing. They should cut the BS, decide what the parameters of a 19th century HOFer are/were, based SOLELY on the context of the era and how the game was played and looked at back then, not with anything at all to do with how the game is even remotely played today, and just put the rest of the deserving players in the HOF.........NOW!

A perfect time to have done this would have been when they finally recognized and put in all the deserving Negro League players as well.

I'm the one who wrote that article for Bless You Boys. My research came primarily from the Detroit Free Press archives. Bennett and his wife were also credited for inventing the chest protector.

From the many quotes I read of others regarding Bennett, he most certainly would have been elected to the Hall if had opened in about 1910. The story of the 1887 Wolverines winning the championship was partially credited to Bennett shutting down the St. Louis running game over the first 4 games of the series. His hands were an absolute mess, though, so he couldn't play the rest of the series.

Can you name another player who had a major league ballpark named after him besides Charlie Bennett? I don't think there is one.

Thank you for the response Bob! I completely agree, 19th Century players are almost completely ignored and my concern is that with the latest committee swap, the 19th Century is now covered in the stretch from 1871-1980. That is completely asinine. The game couldn't possibly be more different in that over 100 year span. If they wanted to gain some credibility with historians and fans of the era it would go a long way if they inducted the following ASAP (in no particular order):

Doc Adams
Bill Dahlen
Jack Glasscock
Jim McCormick
Charlie Bennett

My list is even longer, but these folks are the most glaring omissions in my opinion.

Great article and thank you for writing it! There are a lot of great points in it including what you mentioned here.

I did hesitate to mention that Bennett and his wife invented the chest protector since I read on SABR that it may have been Deacon White. Either way, Bennett was either the inventor or a very early beta tester at the very least.

Here is the article I found from the Detroit Free Press from Sunday, August 2nd, 1914 regarding Bennett and his wife's invention of the chest protector.

EDIT: I have a feeling the "No" votes didn't read a thing in this thread, but I would love to hear an opposition opinion if they have.

There is not enough pressure on the HOF to give 19th century pioneers and players their due. Those of us that see the obvious slight to 19th century pioneers and players, myself included, are in an overwhelming minority. The little consideration that was once given to this era has been transferred to pre Negro League and Negro League players. This mirrors a general societal trend. I'm not saying it is wrong to give Negro League players their due, I'm just saying this attention has come at the expense of 19th century players. This is not the only factor, but is one that has pushed 19th century pioneers and players farther out of the focus of the HOF. Also, the committees that consider those related to 19th century baseball are generally composed of people that know little or nothing about 19th century baseball and its players. It was a different game and the benchmarks used to measure post 19th century players is generally not relevant to the conversation. I could go on and on, but in summary, there are not enough people to put enough pressure on the HOF to seriously correct the 19th century slight. Every recent move made by the HOF makes this fact painfully clear.

Jeremy, I admire your passion for Charlie Bennett. I have been beating the drum for Ross Barnes for thirty+ years through every iteration of the HOF election process and I believe it has never been more difficult than it is today to get an ear where it counts. It will take a 19th century HOF committee similar to the one done for Negro Leaguers in 2006 to impact the slight.

Thanks Gary!

I agree. Unfortunately the 19th century is even more overlooked now with the 1871-1980 range for the current committee that covers 19th century baseball.

I also agree with Ross Barnes. I find it quite odd that he was never voted in. He pretty much led the league in every category in his 9 seasons.

Thanks Gary,

You're basically saying everything I was saying as well. Couldn't agree more.

I've got no problem with a Bennett Cooperstown induction. Perhaps a petition drive?