Does Character Matter In Voting For Baseball Hall Of Fame?
ALSO: DID CONTROVERSIES KEEP DICK ALLEN OUT OF COOPERSTOWN?
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know ...
Dave Dombrowski, the new president of baseball operations for the Phillies, won World Series rings with the Marlins and Red Sox while also winning pennants with the Tigers . . .
On this date in 1956, the Dodgers traded Jackie Robinson to the Giants but he retired instead, nullifying the swap . . .
In his first game for the 1935 Boston Braves, Babe Ruth beat Carl Hubbell with a home run . . .
Travis d’Arnaud is the only player to hit three home runs in a game while catching and batting first in the lineup . . .
Madison Bumgarner is the only pitcher in baseball history to hit two home runs on Opening Day.
Leading Off
Hanging Chads? Missing Ballots? Hall of Fame Election Stays Contentious
By James Schapiro
Finally, the merry season is upon us. It’s that time of year again when we honor iconic, legendary figures. But somehow, it always seems to quickly devolve into an argument. What should be joyful turns into sniping and griping, conflict you wish you’d avoided.
That’s right: it’s MLB Hall of Fame voting season. And this one looks like it will be as contentious as ever.
There are all sorts of arguments about this year’s ballot. Should Billy Wagner, the second-best closer of all time, be denied entry because he only pitched about 900 career innings? Should Curt Schilling be denied entry because he openly displays the fact that he’s a loathsome human being? Should Todd Helton, who played at Coors Field for his entire career, have his candidacy handicapped after Larry Walker’s induction last year?
But arguments over this year’s ballot will be dominated by the two names at the top of it: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, arguably the greatest of the modern era at their respective specialties. Bonds and Clemens don’t have much time left. After this year’s vote, if they’re not inducted, next year will be their last chance for regular induction.
Obviously, the opinions on Bonds and Clemens are pointed and polarized. I’ll make my position clear right off the bat: keep them far away from Cooperstown. The steroids era corrupted baseball to an almost crippling degree, and they were enthusiastic participants. They don’t belong anywhere near baseball royalty.
Lots of people disagree with me, which is fine. Many fans — and indeed, many Hall of Fame voters — hold the view that so many players used steroids that they simply become a non-factor in voting. I don’t agree with this view, but I respect the logic. If almost everyone was using steroids, the theory goes, it doesn’t make sense to eliminate an entire era from the Hall of Fame. In terms of career numbers, PED use pretty much cancels out if everyone was doing it, and statistics from the steroid era are more or less valid. As I said: I don’t agree with it, but it’s at least logical if not defensible.
Other fans and voters, though, make a different argument. They don’t completely ignore PED use, but they’ll vote for players who, though they did use PEDs, would have been Hall of Famers even if they hadn’t.
This goes far beyond removing PEDs from the equation entirely. It constructs an entire alternate reality — and it makes about as much sense as one. It’s an argument that has no place in Hall of Fame voting. The basic argument goes like this: “Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens had Hall of Fame numbers even before they used steroids, so they’re Hall of Famers.”
The main issue, of course, is that it forces voters to construct hypothetical careers for players and vote based on those rather than based on the real world. Say Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are “no doubters” who would be Hall of Famers regardless of whether or not they juiced. What about Manny Ramirez? He was clearly a ridiculously-talented player: what if he would have been a Hall of Famer even without steroids? Sammy Sosa hit 609 home runs: what if, even without steroids, he still would have hit 500? At press time, no BBWAA voter has the Dr. Strange-like power to examine alternate universes. They have no idea what these hypothetical careers look like and they shouldn’t vote as though they do.
These voters acknowledge that steroid use is a character flaw: if it wasn’t, they would simply ignore it. Yet somehow, while they acknowledge that it’s wrong, PED use can somehow be outweighed if a player is particularly talented.
The argument basically amounts to this: you can use steroids, but only if you’re skilled enough.
The problem with this is obvious: steroid use isn’t a talent issue. It’s a character and respect for the game issue. The problem with steroids isn’t that they improve players’ numbers: it’s that they’re banned substances and PED users broke baseball rules. If voters don’t want to consider rule-breaking in their votes, that’s defensible, though I heartily disagree. What’s not defensible is to vote like this: “Rule-breaking is fine, but only for the very best.”
Either steroid use is a character flaw, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, then you can ignore it, and vote for players with Hall of Fame numbers whether they juiced or not. If it is, no juicer should get your vote, regardless of how talented they were.
When voters fill out their ballots this awards season, I hope they consider character. If they ignore character, I’ll disagree, but I’ll respect their ballots. What I won’t respect are ballots on which character matters for some, but not all.
James Schapiro is a freelance sports reporter. His writing has appeared in Baseball Prospectus, the Delacorte Review, and Irish Central. He writes the newsletter Shea Bridge Report. Follow him on Twitter @jschapiro_SBR or contact him by e.mail at JamesSchapiro5@gmail.com.
Cleaning Up
Controversy Clung To Dick Allen Like His Shadow
By Dan Schlossberg
Like Al Gore, Dick Allen lost by one vote.
Just as Gore missed the presidency when the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to give George W. Bush the White House in 2000, Allen missed the gallery of the Baseball Hall of Fame when the Golden Era Veterans Committee gave him 11 votes – one short of the 12 needed for 75 percent of the vote – in 2014.
The sheer mention of the name Allen conjures up memories of a terrific talent overshadowed by considerable controversy.
He was Richie Allen when he won National League Rookie of the Year honors in 1964 but Dick Allen was voted Most Valuable Player of the American League eight years later.
He got into an on-field altercation with the original Frank Thomas (not the Hall of Famer), feuded with Ron Santo, left three different teams before the season was over, and famously refused to report when traded to the Atlanta Braves because he didn’t like their location (the Deep South) or their Southern-born manager (Clyde King).
Allen, who died Monday at age 78, loved hoses, hated the designated hitter, and had trouble telling time – arriving late for games on multiple occasions and even missing flights that had been specially arranged for him.
Directly responsible for the resignation of Phillies manager Bob Skinner, he also pushed Danny Ozark to the brink of quitting, tested the patience of tightly-wound Gene Mauch, challenged Jack McKeon, and tested the patience of club owners Ruly Carpenter, Walter O’Malley, Gussie Busch, and Charlie Finley. No wonder he was traded five times during one six-year stretch.
On the other hand, Allen lasted 15 seasons because he was a powerful right-handed hitter who hit the ball often and hit it hard. A seven-time All-Star who twice led his league in home runs, he had a lifetime batting average of .292 and 351 home runs between Sept. 3, 1963, when he broke in with the Philadelphia Phillies, and June 19, 1977, the date of his last game with the Oakland Athletics.
The best of three brothers who made it to the big leagues, Allen got off to a bad start when he was sent directly from his small-town home in Wampum, Pennsylvania to the racially-charged town of Little Rock, Arkansas, where the Phillies had a farm team. The closed-minded fans there hurled flashlight batteries and racial epithets during the games and even sent him death threats.
Because fans in Philadelphia weren’t much better, Allen took to wearing his batting helmet on the field too. Teammate Bob Uecker playfully dubbed him “Crash,” which later became the title of Allen’s autobiography.
He wasn’t sure what to do with his first name, however. One of nine siblings, he was dubbed “Dick” by family and friends, but answered to “Richie” in response to Philadelphia media and to “Rich” from fans of his doo-wop singing group, the Ebonistics. He once performed with the group at the Philadelphia Spectrum, drawing 9,557 people, during halftime of a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game and changed initial boos to cheers with his musical performance.
Yet it was Allen who alienated his audience with such quotes as “I wish they’d shut the gates and let us play ball with no press and no fans.” He also said “I’ll play first, third, left. I’ll play anywhere – except Philadelphia.”
He didn’t dig artificial turf either. “If a horse won’t eat it, I don’t want to play on it,” he said in his most notorious one-liner.
Rated the second most-controversial player in baseball history (behind Rogers Hornsby) by Bill James, Allen swung a 40-ounce bat that made Nolan Ryan’s life difficult. Against the all-time strikeout king, Allen batted .364 with a .567 slugging percentage, .682 slugging mark, and 1.249 OPS (on-base plus slugging). No one did better.
Used primarily at the infield corners, Allen also dabbled in the outfield. In fact, he once collided with a palm tree in Vero Beach, where Holman Stadium had no outfield fence.
Allen hit two balls over a Connie Mack Stadium grandstand that stood 65 feet high in left field and also hit a pair over the right-center field scoreboard, another 65-foot obstacle rarely reached by righthanded hitters.
He drew high praise from Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Goose Gossage, and Mike Schmidt, among others. Gossage called him “the greatest player I’ve ever seen” and “the smartest baseball man I’ve ever been around.”
The late Chuck Tanner might agree. The opposite of Gene Mauch in temperament, and a long-time personal friend of the Allen family in Pennsylvania, Tanner was the first manager who handed Allen one position – first base – and let him concentrate on his offense. As a result, Allen had the highest slugging percentage by players eligible for Cooperstown – until Albert Belle became eligible in 2006.
“It was my observation that when Dick Allen was comfortable,” Willie Stargell once said, “balls left the park.”
The problem, however, was that Allen seldom felt comfortable. His disdain for the notorious Philadelphia boo-birds was not much greater than his antipathy toward the headline-seeking Philadelphia press corps. Signed as a shortstop but moved to the outfield as a pro, Allen moved to third – an unfamiliar position – as a rookie under Mauch and made 41 errors.
But a bigger adjustment was playing for a team openly hostile to Jackie Robinson, Allen’s favorite player as a kid, and slow to integrate. The last NL team to integrate, the Phils stayed all-white for 10 years after Robinson’s debut and failed to have a major black player before trading for Wes Covington in 1961. Allen, who came up two years later, was their first major African-American star.
He seemed more at peace with his horses at Fairmount Park, near Philadelphia, and at Monmouth Park, New Jersey, than he did on the diamond. “I don’t think I’m as bad as I’m made out to be,” he said after missing three weeks of his only Cardinals spring training in a contract dispute. “I did things in Philadelphia but I don’t have any intention of doing those things in St. Louis.”
He never won a Gold Glove, a good conduct medal, or a World Series ring but Allen won fans for the power of his bat and the power of his stand for racial equality.
Allen’s name is certain to surface when the Golden Days Veterans Committee meets again a year from now. Don’t bet against him gaining that missing 12th vote.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is Weekend Editor of HERE’S THE PITCH, national baseball writer for forbes.com, contributor to Latino Sports and Ball Nine, and author of 38 baseball books. His e.mail is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
George W. Bush of the Texas Rangers was the only owner to vote against three-divisional play ...
The Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs in the 1918 World Series but the two teams have not met in the Fall Classic since . . .
An apparent home run in the 13th by Milwaukee’s Joe Adcock on May 26, 1959, pinned a 3-0 loss on Harvey Haddix, who had pitched 12 perfect innings for Pittsburgh, but the final score reverted to 1-0 because Adcock, in his home run trot, passed a stunned Hank Aaron on the bases . . .
Ken Griffey, Sr. and Ken Griffey, Jr. won All-Star Game MVP trophies 12 years apart.
Reader Reacts
More ‘Extra Innings’ Comment
I wanted to thank you for the nice review of the feature movie Extra Innings.
I appreciated you enjoyed the movie and wrote such nice words.
I’m the cinematographer, but I took care of all the frame and camera settings that usually are assigned to the director, so Albert could focus only on the acting, leaving me carte blanche regarding the visuals of the project. I’m happy to hear that many people loved the movie. Thanks again for the review.
LUIGI BENVISTO, AIC
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HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Brian Harl [bchrom831@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.
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