There are many players who were better than Jackson who are not in the hall. And the percentage of hall of famers who were worse than Jackson is pretty low. That Magee was better than Jackson is not a good argument that Magee deserves enshrinement, because Jackson was a mistake.
A better argument would be to look at the number of players who were better than Magee who are not in, and the percentage of players who were worse than Magee who are in. That will give you an idea about how he stands up to the standards that the hall has set for itself. (Standards that, to reiterate, Jackson does poorly against.)
Here are some players who are similar to Magee in offensive production, career length, and position (1B or corner outfield, ie, not a defense-first position): Will Clark, Jack Clark, Carlos Delgado, Reggie Smith. (Also Bill Terry, but Magee didn't post any .400 batting averages.) These guys were all really good ball players, but also pretty much the guys who you'd think of as pulling up "just short" of hall-standards. Smith was probably the best of them, but he's also the one that spent some time in center field.
As for why some guys get support whereas others don't, I recommend Bill James' book "The Politics of Glory". (The paperback version was retitled "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame".) Hall of fame voting has been an irrational mess pretty much since the beginning, and the result is a class of hall of famers that doesn't really make much sense.
|