Inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame Class of 1936

[Rhotchkiss]

The inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame election results were announced in the media on Feb. 2, 1936, and featured Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner as the Class of 1936.

Let's see some cards of the first 5

[ldrunner27]

Here's mine

[scotgreb]

Little doubt that the hall got this first vote correct . . .

My five:

Cobb T206 Piedmont PSA 3.jpg Johnson, Walter T206 Piedmont 150 PSA 25 22128170.jpg Mathewson T206 Piedmont Dark Cap PSA 3.jpg Ruth 1933 Goudey144 PSA 4-5.jpgWagner, Honus 1910 E90-2 PSA 1 24803873.jpg

[3-2-count]

I have a few to share! These guys were shoe in's......

[CardPadre]

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by CardPadre

Some serious eye candy there, William!

Truly my kind of card, sir!

[CardPadre]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Some serious eye candy there, William!

Truly my kind of card, sir!

Ha ha, thanks!

[Leon]

a few scarce ones

[alywa]

IMG_5723 2.jpg

[Hankphenom]

Originally Posted by Rhotchkiss

The inaugural Baseball Hall of Fame election results were announced in the media on Feb. 2, 1936, and featured Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner as the Class of 1936.
Let's see some cards of the first 5

Some serious eye candy there, Rich!

[todeen]

I recently sold the Wagner and Johnson to pay for another purchase. Mathewson is a T207 end panel.




Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

[cliffyb]

Here’s mine[ATTACH]i[/ATTACH]

[Rich Falvo]

Cobb Front.jpg

[brianp-beme]

Here is my version of the inaugural messed up first class of five.

Brian

[Rhotchkiss]

Notice Cobb's grip on Leon's Orange Borders card and Wagner's grip on Tim's Polo Grounds card. Both guys have their hands separated on the bat. This grip was common in the dead ball era: The batters would wait to see the pitch. If it was a fast one, they would slide the upper hand down and swing for power. If it was a slower or tricky pitch, they would slide their lower hand up, thus choking up, and try to punch the ball into an open area for a single. I believe Willie Keeler was also an expert at this.

Very cool to see that on these cards.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

Here is my version of the inaugural messed up first class of five.

Brian

Some serious eye candy there, Brian!

Once again, my kind of cards!

[cgjackson222]

Matty Dark Cap is my favorite image on a card

[rats60]

.

[molenick]

I think that we need to take into account both the opinions of people that saw the players play and the statistics available to later voters that were not available at the time. I like to think of our evaluation of players as an evolutionary process...we get farther and farther away from having seen them play but we know more and more about them statistically (and not only are there more statistics available now, they are much more easily accessible than they were to earlier voters).

And I don't just mean advanced statistics (which some people don't like), I mean traditional stats as well...people voting in 1936 did not know about Sam Thompson's RBI totals (zero votes) that were only retroactively calculated while producing the 1969 Baseball Encyclopedia. Besides Thompson, there are other players in the 1936 election that many people consider top-tier 19th century stars that got no votes (Roger Connor) or few votes (Nichols three votes, Brouthers two votes, Hamilton two votes, Keefe one vote). On the other hand Jerry Denny got six votes (probably because he was a "suggested" player, while Nichols, Brouthers, Hamilton, and Keefe were not).

So while I think it is interesting that some players with a lot of votes did not later make it, I don't think we can make a blanket statement about the voting and say that Herman Long should be in the Hall because he got 15-1/2 votes. It might mean that we should reassess his candidacy, and maybe there is something about him that statistics are not capturing...but I would take Glasscock (two votes) or Dahlen (one vote) over him as a 19th century shortstop that should be in the Hall. And I think it is safe to say that despite his place in the voting, he wasn't the eighth best 19th century player.

[molenick]

Here are three of mine...I have a Ruth I need to scan.

[mrreality68]

Wow a lot of great cards for these great players

Keep them coming

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by molenick

Here are three of mine...I have a Ruth I need to scan.

Michael, the horizontal Mathewson (your example Dockman) has incredible color and appears to be in perfect register, the best horizontal Matty I have seen. I would love to see a larger scan of it!

Brian

[Kawika]

[bn2cardz]

1921 w516-2-1

[pitburgfan]

Here are my low-grade examples.

[Casey2296]

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I can name that tune in 4 notes...
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[GasHouseGang]

It's funny how they spelled Honus on that PC796 postcard. I hadn't noticed that before. I searched the term “Honus Wagner” on Newspapers.com and it came up with 14,558 references during his 18 years as a player for the Pirates. I changed the search to “Hans Wagner” (in quotes each time so they are mentioned together) and 63,383 references came up. Honas Wagner only came up 58 times during his playing career. Anyway, here are 4 of the 5.