This Isn’t the Hall of Very Good

So the other day, Andre Dawson was voted into the Hall of Fame. Big deal. 237 people have already done that, which is really a minuscule percentage of the players who have played Major League Baseball, but not minuscule enough for me. To quote Brent Harring, the Hall of Fame became the Hall of Very Good. I’d like to think I have pretty high standards in everything except blog-writing, so here’s who would be in the Hall of Fame if I were appointed supreme dictator of deciding who was freakishly good at baseball.

Just like the real hall in Cooperstown, the only rules are that there are no rules. You need 75% of the votes, but every player was a unanimous selection by me… which, by the way, has never happened in the history of the Hall of Fame. Which is completely ridiculous and says a lot about the process, but I digress. For some guys, I waived the five-years-after-retirement rule just for fun.

OUTFIELD
Hank Aaron
Cool Papa Bell

Barry Bonds (you heard me… .444 lifetime OBPs don’t come from supplements)
Ty Cobb

Joe DiMaggio

Mickey Mantle

Willie Mays

Stan Musial

Pete Rose (as a player… you heard me)

Babe Ruth

Ted Williams

FIRST BASE

Jimmie Foxx (.325, 534 HR, more walks than strikeouts)

Lou Gehrig

SECOND BASE

Roberto Alomar

Rogers Hornsby

Nap Lajoie
(there was an MLB team named after him for a while and he was the 6th-highest vote-getter in the original Hall of Fame balloting… enough said)
Joe Morgan

Jackie Robinson

SHORTSTOP

Ernie Banks

Cal Ripken, Jr.

Ozzie Smith

Honus Wagner

THIRD BASE

George Brett

Eddie Mathews

Brooks Robinson

Mike Schmidt

CATCHER

Johnny Bench

Carlton Fisk

Josh Gibson

PITCHER

Steve Carlton

Dennis Eckersley

Bob Feller
(missed chunks of time because of military service)
Rollie Fingers

Bob Gibson

Randy Johnson

Walter Johnson

Sandy Koufax
(even with the short career)

UPDATE: Greg Maddux (forgot about him, as crazy as that sounds)
Christy Mathewson

Satchel Paige

Nolan Ryan

Tom Seaver

Warren Spahn
(like Feller, would’ve had even more ridiculous numbers if he wasn’t in the military)
Cy Young

There you have it… 43 players in my Hall of Fame. And if you think it’s easy, sit down sometime and try to do it yourself.

I tried to look into more than just stats, since the game has changed so much over the years, but it’s impossible to evaluate players otherwise. And it’s REALLY tough to gauge players from before Babe Ruth, because the home run wasn’t really part of the game, but I gave it a whirl. I had a hard time putting any hitters in who didn’t hit .300, unless there was something else they did better than anyone else who ever played the game. And I was surprised there were only two first basemen, but that’s the way it is. For pitchers, the toughest thing to figure out was the closers. Eckersley was a good starting pitcher before he became the most dominant closer maybe ever (Mariano Rivera challenges that), and Rollie Fingers gets extra points for the best handlebar mustache of all-time.

So there you go… It’s the Hall of Fame, with the benefit of hindsight, as voted on by some 25-year-old punk, in 2010.

I’m sure everyone has an opinion on this… Fire away!

And now… just for fun… Musical guest, Was not Was!

Have a great weekend!

DW