Roger Bresnahan

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Posted By: Darren

Excuse my ignorance, but why is Roger Bresnahan in the Hall of Fame?

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Posted By: dennis

http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/Bresnahan_Roger.htm this is why, a level 2 guy for sure

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Posted By: Steve Dawson

He invented catcher shinguards and facemask.


Steve

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Posted By: Darren

Thanks Dennis and Steve. I've done my research including the Hall of Fame site.

Why is Roger Bresnahan in the Hall of Fame?

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

No hijack intended, but I can understand Bresnahan being in with greater ease than I can understand why Gary Carter deserved to go in. Roger's an acceptable choice when his entire baseball career is considered.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

He's in the Hall of Fame because you can't take a guy out once he's in.

He was inducted in 1945. At that time, he was one of the best catchers to ever play. At the time of his induction, there was only one catcher in the Hall - Buck Ewing. I'd say given the physical abuse a turn of the century catcher had to take, Roger had a pretty strong career.

Cochrane should have gone in before Bresnahan. Bill Dickey, Rick Ferrell and Ernie Lombardi were still playing in 1945, and Gabby Hartnett was not yet eligible. Ray Schalk was arguably even worse than Bresnahan. So for his position, in 1945 Roger Bresnahan was a Hall of Famer.

There are few truly great catchers who have played the game long enough to be in the Hall, I think. Bresnahan belongs among the 16 that are currently enshrined, IMO.

-Al

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Posted By: Phil Garry

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Posted By: Steve M.

How about Ted Simmons and my own "Deacon" McGuire?

RUNS
Carlton Fisk 1,276
Yogi Berra 1,175
Buck Ewing 1,118
Johnny Bench 1,091
Ted Simmons 1,074
Mickey Cochrane 1,041
Bill Dickey 930
Gabby Hartnett 867
“Deacon” McGuire 770
Rick Ferrell 687
Roger Bresnahan 684
Roy Campanella 627
Ernie Lombardi 601
Ray Schalk 579

HITS
Ted Simmons 2,472
Carlton Fisk 2,356
Yogi Berra 2,150
Johnny Bench 2,048
Bill Dickey 1,969
Gabby Hartnett 1,912
Ernie Lombardi 1,792
“Deacon” McGuire 1,748
Rick Ferrell 1,692
Buck Ewing 1,663
Mickey Cochrane 1,652
Ray Schalk 1,345
Roger Bresnahan 1,251
Roy Campanella 1,161

DOUBLES
Ted Simmons 483
Carlton Fisk 421
Gabby Hartnett 396
Johnny Bench 381
Bill Dickey 343
Mickey Cochrane 333
Rick Ferrell 324
Yogi Berra 321
“Deacon” McGuire 300
Ernie Lombardi 277
Buck Ewing 237
Roger Bresnahan 222
Ray Schalk 199
Roy Companella 178

HOME RUNS
Johnny Bench 389
Carlton Fisk 376
Yogi Berra 358
Ted Simmons 248
Roy Campanella 242
Gabby Hartnett 236
Bill Dickey 202
Ernie Lombardi 190
Mickey Cochrane 119
Buck Ewing 66
“Deacon” McGuire 45
Rick Ferrell 28
Roger Bresnahan 26
Ray Schalk 12

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Posted By: Anthony

<<He invented catcher shinguards and facemask.>>

If I'm not mistaken the mask was invented by Fred Thayer.

The shinguards aren't too far off the pads that cricket batsman wear, so it's not exactly pulling something out of the blue. But he's credited with it.

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Posted By: Anonymous

Basically Bresnahan is in for the same reason Tommy McCarthy, Candy Cumming, Tinkers, Evers(whom I love deeply, but he isn't a hall of famer to me), and Chance among many others. The voters at the time voted for people based on who they played for, their noteriety during their careers and the fact that there was no meaningful criteria in place to decide who was a HOFer and who wasn't.

Stats played a minimal role in their election. Otherwise Sherry Magee, and Bobby Mathews would probably be in the Hall.

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Posted By: Paul

Bresnahan was one of the Hall's first and worst mistakes. I'm not a big fan of Ray Schalk either, but I do think he was leaps and bounds ahead of Bresnahan. Schalk led the league in fielding for catchers many times and during his career he was regarded as the finest defensive catcher ever to play the game.

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

Bresnahan is in for the same reason you mentioned for Schalk, he was considered by his peers (who were still around then) to be one of the great defensive catchers of his day. Catching around the turn of the century was very different than today, and fielding Pct's of catchers are not always completely accurate. Many a catcher hit right around the Mendoza line at the time, not to mention the fact they were often playing with injuries (usually to hands, etc). It is important to note that hitting for a catcher back in the day was probably more like hitting for a pitcher (but not to quite the same extreme), you needed your catcher to be good at many things, however, hitting was not at the top of that list. It does a disservice to those catchers to compare them to the catchers of today (two totally different animals).
-Rhett

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Posted By: Rhett Yeakley

I just chose a random year (1906) to compare Bresnahan to his peers in the National League (these are the starting catchers of 1906).
AVG. GAMES FLD/PCT.
Boston--Needham .189 (83 games) .945
Brooklyn--Bergen .159 (103 games) .977
Chicago--Kling .312 (107 games) .982
Cincinnati--Schlei .245 (116 games) .961
New York--Bresnahan .281 (124 games) .974
Philadelphia--Dooin .245 (113 games) .948
Pittsburgh--Gibson .178 (81 games) .971
St. Louis--Grady .250 (97 games) .983

Note: this was the best year Kling ever had (I chose a year Bres was close to his carerer avg (.279)

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Posted By: davidcycleback

(double post)

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Bresnahan was the first to wear shin guards as a catcher. I also thought he was the first to wear a batting helmet. I don't see how either 'invention' would boost a player into the Hall.

I believe Al Spalding was the first player to wear a fielder's glove, though he had a lot else going for him Hall-wise-- including being one of the best pitchers of the day, founder of Spalding sporting goods and baseball exec.

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Posted By: Mark L

Don't forget that he was probably the leading hitter on those great Giants teams of 1903-07.

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Posted By: Dave Snyder

Bresnahan was not so much an inventor as he was a pioneer. Some of my fathers relatives from the midwest knew members of Bresnahan's family and they claim he never once mentioned he thought of himself as a hall of famer - granted the hall was only 10 or so years old at the time of his death and there wasn't nearly the obsession among players then as there is now.

Bottom line - he was elected posthumously - the year after he died. He was most likely one of the first cases of major league baseball acknowledging that they didn't give him enough credit during his life, so they decided to honor him in death by electing him to the hall. A mistake?....maybe if you could see 60 years into the future to see what guys like Berra, Campanella, Bench, Fisk, Munson, Piazza and Pudge rodriguez have done. But at the time, he was one of the all time greats and baseball had been played for roughly 75 years, so they had a good sample.

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Posted By: Kenneth A. Cohen

Statistical criteria for catchers are definitely more lenient. I think that the leadership nature and special physical demands of the position must be and are taken into account. The same can be said for shortstops. Statiscally speaking, why are Ozzie Smith, Pee Wee Reese, and Phil Rizutto in the Hall? Maybe they shouldn't be.

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Posted By: Denny Walsh

Isn't he Irish?

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Posted By: Patrick McMenemy

Here's a link to a site that provides excellent reasons why Roger Bresnahan most certainly does belong in the HOF:

http://keith.baseballevolution.com/06comments.html#bresnahan>



Key quote: "We all know that Bresnahan was far and away the best offensive catcher of his era, but he may have simply been one of the best offensive players of his era as well."

Lastly, I'm sure all of the experts on Roger Bresnahan were also aware that he played every single position on the diamond including pitcher. He broke in as a pitcher and went 4-0 in 1897. He was also generally regarded as one of the top baserunners of his era as well.

Patrick

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Posted By: RC McKenzie

Deserves to get in on the strength of his nickname alone,"The Duke of Tralee". Batted .350 in 1903 as an outfielder which may indicate how he would have faired if he had not caught.

BTW, that list has some strange names on there.... Edgar Martinez would rank about 427th on my list of best players. regards

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Posted By: Anonymous

Hmm, I didn't realize he was that good offensively. I knew he hit for average, but the OBP is quite impressive. Realistically it probably comes down to him vs Chief Meyers for best offensive catchers of the deadball era. But even with these credentials, he missed so many games that it's hard for me to say he had a HOF career. The argument that he was a catcher and had few contemporaries does make sense though, so I can understand why he would have gotten in.

That being said can anyone defend Rube Marquard or Pop Haines?

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Traditionally, catchers and (especially) shortstops were considered defensive positions, and offensive prowess was not essential. Most managers would chose to build their team around a good short stop. In fact in 1995, there was a poll of MLB managers of which player they would pick to build a team around. You know which player won the poll? Barry Larkin. Mike Piazza is a fine offensive player, but twenty or thirty years ago he wouldn't playing catcher-- as he sucks defensively. It was once said that, irrelevant to which sides of the plate you stand, if you you bat less that .200 from one side, you ain't a switch hitter. By looking at Piazza try to throw out runners, I'm not certain he's a catcher. Ivan Rodriguez has always been a superior catcher and his batting numbers have almost been inferior.

In the dead ball era, many considered first base to be the most important defensive position-- and many ranked Hal Chase as best the first baseman.

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Posted By: Mike