Hall of Fame voting and WWII

[howard38]

Originally Posted by Jason19th

I will take the thread to a slightly different course. While I think the hall has done s pretty good job a dealing with the players who lost time mid career because of the war I don’t think that Hall or baseball history in general has done a good job of dealing with players who’s career was delayed by the war. I will use Al Rosen as an example. Rosen who is not well remembered today was the 1953 AL MVP and almost won the triple crown. He had five straight seasons of 100 RBI and had a career war of 35 in a really short career. He is not considered a baseball victim of WWII because his first full year in the majors was 1950. But his first year in the minors was in 1942 when he had a great year as an 18 year old. He then is in the military for 4 years and misses those years. But for the war it is very possible that he makes it to the bigs as a 21 year old rather then a 26 year old and there is s good chance he has 10 straight 1000 seasons and maybe another MVP. I could list many players along this type.

I agree, Al Rosen is one of my favorites. Gene Woodling is another that comes to mind. He was something of a prodigy having won three minor league batting titles by the time he was twenty. Still twenty when the Indians brought him up he hit well for a couple of weeks & it's reasonable to believe he would have been an every day player from then on. Instead he went into the service & didn't make the majors for good until he was twenty-six.

Dick Wakefield & Sam Chapman were young players who had breakout seasons when they went off to serve & neither was the same player when they returned. Larry French & Tommy Bridges missed winning 200 games & in Bridges' case a possible place in the HOF. Johnny Pesky's career still would have been short but he may have topped 2,000 hits & wouldn't have been a bad addition to the Hall. Red Ruffing actually made the Hall but he missed out on a chance to win 300 games.

Re: Cecil Travis: If the argument is "should" he have made the HOF, it is debatable. But I think it pretty likely that he "would" have been elected if his career was uninterrupted & he remained healthy. A BA well over .300 (his lifetime BA at the end of 1941 was .327) & 2,500+ hits w/much of his career at SS would be close to a lock, regardless of his WAR total, IMO.