Hack Wilson -vs- Ted Kluszewski HOF?

[ls7plus]

[QUOTE= Also the 1930 numbers that Hack put up are crazy! He also had two more HR that he lost out on due to rain stopping games short, that season (if I remember that correctly).


Ah, yes those numbers were crazy, but rember the entire national league average for 1930 was .301 or .303, meaning that Hack hit roughly 18% higher than the league average in that season. The ball the NL was using in 1930 was acknowledged to be hotter than hot, and replaced with something less elastic the very next season. If you take a modern season, with a league average of somewhere around .260, that .356 average is down to about
.307.

I don't really believe Ted is HOF material because he simply was physically unable to continue his dominant string long enough. It would seem from his records that he eventually learned to sit on his pitch in certain counts, which took him from more of a line drive hitter to a fearsome longball guy (yes, I know the right field fence was brought in from 366' to 342', but you will also notice a great increase in his homeruns hit on the road with his first big season also. But for four, and perhaps five years, he was not only about as dominant a firstbaseman as anyone in either league was at the time, but also about as dominant as anyone had been at that position in either league for quite awhile! I haven't checked this, but you might have to go back to a younger Greenberg more than a decade earlier, or perhaps Mize to really match up against Kluszewski. THE SANDY KOUFAX only won 20 or more games 3 times and had only 4-5 dominant years also. And before we here the chant about yeah, but Koufax was one of the best pitchers of all time, we must remember that the mound was significantly higher in Koufax's time, thus placing his pitches on a steeper trajectory as they approached the hitter, and the top of the strike zone at that time was up, way up around the shoulders, which gave Koufax a sizeable advantage with his 95+ mph fastball. Bottom line is that when Ted was physically up to standing tall, he stood tall with the best of them!

Considering Koufax, perhaps Don Mattingly should be in the hall of fame--he had a similarly short, incredibly dominant period, and career stats not much different than Kirby Puckett.

Just a few thought, fellows.

Happy Collecting!