Since I completely dropped the ball in discussing player’s cases for the Hall of Fame prior to the election I figured I would go back in time to talk about past ones… Thanks to the amazing power of the internet, anyone can look at any ballot and see who got votes in what year. Thank you interweb. I will first select
January 1973, and I will check out who the writers voted for on the first election of my lifetime… I was only about a week old, but I am sure I was concerned. My parents said I cried a lot and they thought it was colic or teething, but in reality it was because I couldn’t believe the writers were such elitists that they didn’t think Duke Snider was worthy of the Hall. Seriously, the Duke didn’t go in until 1980 on his 11th try. That same year Al Kaline went in on his 1st try (I agree with that) but finishing 3rd and 4th below them were the Duke’s teammates Don Drysdale (6th) and Gil Hodges (12th).
More on Snider and Hodges later… Okay, I lost focus and drifted to 1980, that happens a lot, but let’s get back to ’73, shall we? There were a total of 6 new inductees into the
Hall in ’73, 3 of those people were living. The first (and foremost) was Roberto Clemente, my favorite player of all-time who died on the day I was born. I’ve said before my heroes aren’t athletes and they all have the same last name as me. For this Troll heroes are limited to my Mom, Dad, Grandfather, Wife and 2 Sons.
IF I were to have an athlete hero, it would be Roberto Clemente. He was inducted as part of a special election after his death, similar to Lou Gehrig’s induction. The Veteran’s Committee also selected “Smiling Mickey” Welch, who won 307 games over 13 seasons with the Troy Trojans and the New York Giants. His best season was in 1885 when he was 44-11 in 55 starts. His ERA was 1.69 and he had 55 complete games. Yep, he completed every single game he started! Over his career he started 549 games and completed 525 of them. Wow. He passed away in 1941 long before his induction. Also elected posthumously was umpire Billy Evans who died in 1956.
The Veterans Committee also elected George “Highpockets” Kelly, a dead ball era power hitting first baseman. He led the NL in homers in 1921 with 23. In his first year of eligibility for the Hall (1947) he received just 1 vote out of 160 ballots, but 26 years later, he was deemed Hall worthy. Hmm. The fourth player elected by the VC that year was Monte Irvin. Irvin spent 9 years in the Major Leagues, primarily with the Giants and in ’51 he hit .312 with a league leading 121 RBI. He led the Giants to 2 NL Pennants and a World’s Championship in 1954.
His election was based however on his time spent in the Negro Leagues with the Newark Eagles. He was a 4 time All Star at shortstop for the Eagles, he won 2 batting titles and led them to a Championship in 1946. Those 5 players were all selected by various Veterans Committees. The 380 baseball writers elected only 1 player to the Hall in 1973. That player was left handed pitcher Warren Spahn, winner of 363 games against 245 losses.
Spahn appeared on 316 ballots (83%) to earn himself a plaque in Cooperstown. He surely deserved to go to the Hall. He is arguably the greatest left handed pitcher ever. What is interesting is who the writers deemed not worthy of the Hall of Fame Class of 1973. Twenty players failed to receive enough votes to remain on the ballot. Some of the more recognizable names among them were Ted Kluszewski, Don Newcombe, Lew Burdette, Bobby Richardson and another amazing lefty, Billy Pierce. More interesting regarding the ballot are the 14 different players on the ballot that didn’t get in on the ’73 ballot, but did make it in eventually.
Duke Snider was on the ballot for the 4th time and received only 26%. Bob Lemon, Pee Wee Reese and George Kell were all on their 9th ballot. Johnny Mize, Phil Rizzuto and Ralph Kiner were on the ballot for the 11th time. Richie Ashburn was on his 6th attempt and received only 6%, yet 22 years later he was deemed Hall worthy. One man who received more votes than 12 players who would eventually be inducted into the Hall was Gil Hodges who ranked 4th in the voting that year with 57% of the vote and he STILL isn’t good enough. I could go on, but I won’t… (or maybe I will). I think I’ve proven my point to myself, if not to you the reader. It began yesterday as I was wondering why Andre Dawson is recognized as one the greatest outfielders of All Time today, but he wasn’t last year or 5 years ago. I don’t understand how today
Richie Ashburn is among the greatest outfielders of All Time, but in 1973 (or ’83) he wasn’t. Their production hasn’t improved in that time; did their mediocrity just fade from memory? After looking at the ballot from my birth year, I decided to check out the one from my Dad’s birth year, so let’s take it one step further and take a peak at the
1945 Hall of Fame ballot. The writers didn’t find a single player worthy of the Hall that year and the ballot included 56 players who would eventually go on to the Hall of Fame. Some of the names on that ballot who weren’t good enough for the Hall then were Hank Greenberg, Lefty Gomez, Charlie Gehringer, Ted Lyons, Zack Wheat, Carl Hubbell, Bill Dickey, Home Run Baker, Bill Terry, Tinkers, Evers and Chance, Pie Traynor, Frankie Frisch, Mickey Cochrane and Mordecai Brown to just name a few. Now granted, much like Warren Spahn in ’58 some of those guys were still active, but still…. In 1953 the 9th time was the charm for Dizzy Dean and Al Simmons just like 2009 was for Andre Dawson.
Did
Dizzy Dean and his 6 good seasons deserve to get in to the same Hall as Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson? Hell no, but apparently over 200 writers were eating steak dinners in new suits that year. Can you imagine the backlash on whatever the equivalent of the blog-o-sphere was back then? The moral to this story is the writers with all of the power were fickle, elitist idiots then and they still are. You can look at nearly any ballot from any year and see the same idiocy They had/have all the power and get all the rest of us totally up in arms and at the end of the day they don’t give a f… about what they are doing! Wait, do kids read this? Okay, deep breath and a few f-bombs screamed out loud and I am okay. The debate does not and should not end, I’m yelling at my poor dog right now asking her why
Rabbit Maranville was one of the greatest shortstops of All Time in 1954 (the year he died) but he wasn’t the prior 14 years he was on the ballot? Another guy in Maranville’s Hall of Fame class in 1954 was
Memphis Bill Terry, the New York Giants star first baseman from 1923-1936.
Terry was “suddenly immortal” in his 14th try, too. I obviously never saw him play-his career wasn’t very long but the guy hit .401 in 1930. They only played 154 games back then, but looking at his 162 game averages on Baseball Reference his line is AMAZING… Assuming he had 605 at bats per year, he average .341, 206 hits, 105 runs, 35 doubles, 11 triples and 14 homers with 101 RBI. Why did it take the writers 14 freaking years to think that was good? Switching over to a guy who was inducted in his very first year of eligibility after a career that lasted almost 50 years, Satchel Paige was elected in 1971 and was the first player ever to go into the Hall based on accomplishments in the Negro Leagues.
There was mucho controversy and talk of his plaque being in a separate wing of the Hall. During his speech he said “Today baseball has turned Satchel Paige from a second class citizen to a second class immortal”. Satch always had a way with words and I get chills just typing that, but (and this is NOT how he meant it) the idea of a separate wing of the Hall for second class (or second tier) legends like
Rabbit Maranville, Richie Ashburn and Andre Dawson aint a bad one. Perhaps the new wing should be reserved for the greatest; maybe they can get two plaques, call it the Hall of Hall and reserve it for the true immortal legends like Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Warren Spahn… No, I take it back that is a stupid idea. How bout we find a way to remove about 200 or so of the current writers who vote solely on personal agendas and don’t care about the game? I like that idea better… Before I sign off I have one more “suddenly immortal” player to bring up. We all know that none of the players (
Maris, McGwire, Sosa, Bonds) that have a claim for most homeruns in a single season made it to the Hall other than Babe Ruth.
For
Roger Maris, his career just wasn’t long enough and the other guys have other issues.
Roger Maris only played in the Big Leagues for 12 seasons and he only played in 120 games or more 7 times. He showed what he could do in a full season when he won back to back MVP Awards in ’60 and ’61, but he, like Dale Murphy and so many others just didn’t play long or often enough to be considered for immortality, right? I give you the Hall of Fame class of 1979 and
Hack Wilson. The Hack holds the single season record for RBI which has stood for 80 years. In 1930 he had one of the best seasons ever; he batted .356 with 56 homers and 191 RBI. He had 423 total bases and his slugging percentage was .723. Freaking amazing. Even more amazing was he didn’t get a single vote for MVP that year. That sounds pretty crazy, but that is another issue of context. There was no MVP Award in 1930 and there wasn’t one the year prior either, but anyway…
Hack Wilson was GREAT, but he was only great over a short (5 year) span. Just like Maris did, Hack only topped 20 homers 6 times and he only played in 120 games or more 6 times. There was no All Star game, Gold Gloves or Silver Sluggers during his era, hell there wasn’t even an MVP Award during his best years, so you don’t have that to judge on either. The bottom line is Hack Wilson, like
Roger Maris, only played at superstar level for about half a decade. Is that Hall of Fame worthy? Well it wasn’t for the 15 years he was on the ballot. The most votes he received before falling off the ballot was 38%, but 45 years after he hung up his spikes and 31 years after he died, Hack Wilson was “suddenly immortal” and was inducted into the
Hall of Fame in 1979 along with Willie Mays.
Hack Wilson was a power hitter who gathered up 244 homers over a 12 year career, Willie Mays was a 5-tool threat who hit 660 homers over his 22 year career, but on that day in
1979 Willie Mays and Hack Wilson were equals as 2 of the greatest outfielders in the history of the game. Yep, Willie Mays was just as good as
Hack Wilson was, just like Richie Ashburn, Enos Slaughter, Jim Rice, Billy Williams, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Henry Aaron and Andre Dawson.
They are the greatest outfielders to ever play the game. Just saying… Let the great debate rage on! And speaking of voting (keeping the segues smooth) there are only a few days left to vote for the
2009 Gummie Awards! Chris Harris (Mr. Stale Gum) mentioned that this year he has already received more votes than last year which tells me that this hobby is alive and well, but if you haven’t voted yet, please do! The more folks who vote, the more meaningful the awards become and the more of a chance that the card companies will take notice when their product receives a vote for WORST in 2009. Huge thanks by the way to
Baseball Reference for having all of this info at a Troll's fingertips. Before I sign off, ponder this-was this LONG post just an excuse for the Troll to show off some of his new cards which are NOT up for trade??? Maybe. I did resist the urge to post any Billy Pierce cards-he will get a solo showing... I am starting to consider doing what several other bloggers do-trying to get at least one card of every member of the Hall. The reason why I am leaning towards no is that I don't want to give the stupid writers that much power over my card collection. I will say that I am falling for early '60s Fleer though... Pack breaks will return shortly... Troll out!
Since I completely dropped the ball in discussing player’s cases for the Hall of Fame prior to the election I figured I would go back in time to talk about past ones… Thanks to the amazing power of the internet, anyone can look at any ballot and see who got votes in what year. Thank you interweb. I will first select January 1973, and I will check out who the writers voted for on the first election of my lifetime… I was only about a week old, but I am sure I was concerned. My parents said I cried a lot and they thought it was colic or teething, but in reality it was because I couldn’t believe the writers were such elitists that they didn’t think Duke Snider was worthy of the Hall. Seriously, the Duke didn’t go in until 1980 on his 11th try. That same year Al Kaline went in on his 1st try (I agree with that) but finishing 3rd and 4th below them were the Duke’s teammates Don Drysdale (6th) and Gil Hodges (12th). 
The dude won 20 or more games 13 different times in his career. At 42 years of age in his 20th season he led the league with 22 complete games and had a 23-7 record with a 2.60 ERA. The fact that Warren Spahn wasn’t good enough to be a first ballot Hall of Famer seemed more ridiculous than David Segui getting a vote in 2009. I looked into things a little deeper and found this to be untrue, well sort of… There were a few complications with Spahn. He retired from the Giants after the 1965 season, but played the following 2 seasons in the minor leagues which delayed his eligibility, making the January 1973 ballot his first year eligible. He was voted in on the first ballot he legitimately appeared on. It was technically not his first ballot though. After Spahn’s (and the Braves) amazing run in 1957 when they won the World Series and Spahn was 21-11 with a 2.69 ERA and won the NL Cy Young Award, Spahn actually received a vote on the 1958 ballot. He was 36 years of age then, he would continue to pitch for another 8 seasons and win about 150 more ball games, but somehow he received a vote. 
I don’t know if the Hall ballot had write-ins or what in ’58, but he received a vote. It was that one single vote that he received while he was an active player that made him appear “2 Years on Ballot” for that election. I am glad to clear that little matter up… In the post I mentioned from Heartbreaking Cards… he references 
Thanks for the blog fodder guys! A lengthy post about the ’73 ballot is on its way… I couldn’t find my Spahn plaque, so I borrowed this image from 
This is a deserved honor. I must say that I am surprised that he is the only one going in. My emotions about Alomar, Larkin, McGriff and Martinez are mixed, but I am shocked that not one of them made it, or even got close. Now speaking of close… My favorite hurler of All-Time who isn’t in the Hall of Fame, Bert Blyleven, came within 5 votes of getting in. 5 votes! He received 74.2% of the votes, he needed 75% to get in… 
Wow. Alomar was the only other player to come close (73.7%), after them Jack Morris finished 4th in the voting with 52.3%. The good news is that Blyleven, Alomar, Morris, Larkin, Smith, Martinez, Raines, McGwire, Trammell, McGriff, Mattingly, Parker, Murphy and Harold Baines all received the requisite 5% to remain on the ballot next year so the debate on them can continue. It makes you wonder though, if a player was only good enough to get 40 votes this year, why would someone give them 420 votes next? Anyway, congrats to Hawk Dawson, you are a Hall of Famer! The 9th time is the charm! Wow. I am pretty surprised... I wait for this moment every year, then I forgot about it, then remembered, now it just feels anticlimatic and I don't really feel like writing anymore about it...Troll out.
Card #740 Pat Mahomes Minnesota Twins
Card #612 Jody Reed LA Dodgers
Card #603 Billy Ripken Texas Rangers (Billy is NOT holding a bat in the photo)
Okay, that was pack #1. Fourteen cards, 12 different players. I went crazy with the scanning because this was the first one, most pack rips will only have 1 scan per pack. I really hope those info cards aren’t in every pack… Pack 2 should be up in about an hour…troll out for now…
(that I really shouldn’t be buying anyway!) Champions and got on the phone with my doctor. Initially the receptionist said there were no appointments till next week, but she is a roller derby fan and made an exception for me-thanks Jaime!!!! I wasn’t planning on waiting at the doctor’s office today, but I did. For about thirty minutes, then I saw him, he wrote me a scrip, I paid my $20. co pay and was out of there. Twenty bucks for him to scribble a drug name on a pad seems pretty outlandish, but I am glad I have insurance because otherwise that scribble would have set me back a hundred! Anyway, I refused to go back to Target after that (I keep on swearing off stores, but I always go back-eventually) so I went to Walgreens. 
They were busy, as always, but said that it would be ready within a half hour. My day was pretty much shot already, what damage will another thirty minutes do? I waited. I hit the magazine aisle and read the library copy of Sports Illustrated for a while then went back to the counter to check on my scrip. After waiting in line till it was my turn (about ten more minutes) the clerk said “Your doctor put Friday’s date on it, I can’t fill it until then”. Fudge!!! “Well, I really need to take it today, this is regulatory medication that I must take daily, can you call them?” I pleaded. It was 3:15 at this point and the doctor’s office was open for another 45 minutes. She agreed, but said she was really busy and it would take a while. I told her I would be back in thirty minutes and she promised it would be ready. The card shop is pretty close to Walgreens, so I made a quick stop over there. 
I had put my ’78 Topps set into a binder, or at least started to. I was halfway through the 400s when I ran out of pages. That’s an excuse to go to the card shop if ever there was one! So I got there and I just happened to have my list of the 21 cards that I still needed to finish off my 1978 Topps set. 
I have gotten 4 packages in the past two weeks and I am so close I can feel it! I know I won’t be able to afford the Eddie Murray or Paul Molitor rookies for a while, but I still wanna finish off what I can… I count out 30 Ultra Pro pages and pay the 3 bucks for those and grab one of his boxes of ’78 Topps. He has two 5,000 count boxes full of ‘78s, but for some reason I have never had any luck at all finding cards I need in them. I searched and searched and managed to find 4 cards out of 10,000. I showed him my list and he said he hadn’t had a Murray rookie in a while for sale. He builds sets himself and used them all for his own sets. Oh well, I only had 5 bucks to spend anyway… He did spot one card off of my list that he had in the display case, though. I explained the 5 dollar situation to him and was still able to work it out-thanks for the hook-up my friend!! For 5 dollars I leave the card shop with 5 more cards crossed off of the list and enough pages to house the entire set. I am now the proud owner of a George Brett card that isn’t a reprint and I am 16 cards away from completion!!! 
Sweet. Back to Walgreens. After waiting in the prescription line again, Dotty informed me that she had in fact got in touch with my doctor’s office. Awesome! But, that she just called and more people had moved ahead of me, so it would be a while. I was really glad that I went to the Post Office yesterday to ship and today was just to pick-up because its gonna be after 4:30 by the time I’m done and I started my medication mission at 12:30. Incidentally, yesterday packages went out to GSNHoF, CCC, MPT…ILI!, ROtB, HBCoSG, HTM and INaWLITBS blogs, plus some stuff to traders who don’t have cool abbreviations. Anyway, I went back to the magazine library aisle to waste some more time. I priced the dog food here, but they only 6 lb. bags which is like a single serving for Emma, so that is another trip I will have to make. I had already planned on blowing off homework this afternoon in favor of blogging, now I don’t think I can do either. My name finally got called and I shelled out even more money for my prescription. I started the day with 50 bucks and I ended it with about enough change to grab a newspaper that I probably won’t have time to read. Four hours later, I finally have my scrip, so I don’t have to worry about a heart attack today! I was close by to my wife’s bank (yes, she is a banker) and it was about time for her shift to be over, so I scooted on over and stalked her (waited for her) in the parking lot. 
We don’t get to see each other very often since we work opposite shifts, so it was a treat to get a mid-day kiss before she sped off to go to school. With my kiss completed, I finally headed home to walk the dog, finally eat and take my medicine. Here I am, it is now 7 o’clock and I am finally here for a few minutes. The reason it took so long to arrive at the computer is, after the walking of the puppy, we both drove out to the post office and I am SO glad I did. I opened my box to find a key. The key is great because it means the stuff that I was going to get was too big for my normal box. The key is an awesome sign. There were 5 packages in the larger box and a few of them were unexpected, too. 3 of the packages-when I finally opened them while driving-very nearly caused me to drive right off the road! I should have learned my lesson with the first one, but they just kept on getting better! It started with an amazing package from fellow Tampa Bay resident Justin from ITaWL?NITNS-I will post this one up very soon. 
It continued with a mind-blowing and surprise package from Mike of JDs Wild Cardz fame. I was expecting a couple of cards from him, but nothing like this! Probably won’t post this till next week, but then you will be totally understand why I was driving off the road. The last of the three came from my good friend Alfredo of My Past Time…I Love It! This one very nearly caused my early death and I am so glad that it didn’t because I have been waiting a very long time for what he sent (not waiting for him, waiting in general) in this amazing surprise package. The other two packages were just as cool, but not quite as shocking. One of them actually came at precisely the right time. It was filled, well not quite filled, but had a bunch more 1978 cards in it! This set has been gathering dust for a long, long time, but suddenly everyone in the blog-o-sphere is hooking it up! With this package I am officially down to needing only seven more cards to complete this set. The other package was pretty great, too. It has a complete D-Rays team set from 2004 and short print cards from 2008 and 2009 Topps Heritage. Normally I would be jumping up and down and screaming for a package like that. This should tell you how great the other 3 envelopes were. I will show you the highlights of the 4th envelope that I opened. It had some rad Rays cards in it, but I will skip over those for the time being and get to the ‘78s. First off, the much anticipated Nolan Ryan card.
Then, we have the baddest mother trucker alive, George Foster in all his mutton chopped glory. His stats on the back of the card will make your jaw drop even in the steroid era; in 1977 Foster’s line was .320 with 52 homers and 149 runs batted in. Yes, he did win MVP that year. He also led the league with 124 runs scored and had a slugging percentage of .631 and he had 388 total bases, which was 50 more than Dave Parker in second place. Wow. He had 85 extra base hits and he homered once every 11th time at bat. He led the league in pretty much every offensive category, but missed the Triple Crown as he was 4th in batting average. 
Dave Parker paced the league with a .338 BA. There were a few cards that he included that weren’t actually on my want list, but served as upgrades. I seriously don’t remember what I had against poor Jim Spencer as a kid, 
but I gave him a moustache for some reason and wrote all over the back of his card. He also included Lou Piniella as a player, Joe Torre as a manager (of the Mets) and the second year card of a slugger that totally belongs in the Hall of Fame-Mr. Andre “Hawk” Dawson. 
Those are pretty big names to cross off of my list and some good upgrades too. He also took a chunk out of some common cards as well, not that anyone would consider Bob Boone to be a common card…
Well, it is now 8:30 PM and I still have yet to crack open a book or do homework or housework of any kind. In 2 hours the Wife will be home from Derby practice and I think I would like to be able to actually hang out with her, so for now, I will sign off. I promise there will be one, perhaps 2, but no more than that, posts about my quest for 1978 completion. This ride has taken me over 30 years and it’s really starting to get fun-I appreciate everyone’s patience with me. I promise that the trades I got in the mail today will fresh, new and awesome cards to look at, with potentially more interesting stories than Troll goes to the pharmacy. For the sake of breaking up text, many of the cards that I just mentioned were shown earlier in the post than they appeared in word form. Sorry for the confusion. Tomorrow afternoon will fill empty bowls and will also reveal the contents of the super package from my friend, Wicked Ortega. Stay tuned. In the event that anyone wants to continue seeing more and more 1978 Topps cards, please check out my new venture, brought to you by popular demand-
