My new book, Cooperstown at the Crossroads, offers a nine-point plan to reinvigorate the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (The book is now available from Niawanda Books.) I’m going into detail about each of my nine proposals on successive Fridays in this newsletter. Today — Point No. 1, a general amnesty.
Jay Jaffe, a thoughtful baseball analyst, wrote a book about the Hall of Fame in 2017. He chose a safe, straightforward title: The Cooperstown Casebook. Then he cranked up the voltage with a subtitle that hinted at real controversy: Who’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Who Should Be In, and Who Should Pack Their Plaques.
It turned out to be a very interesting book, though it didn’t deliver the promised sizzle. Jaffe pointed out the weak choices made by the hall’s electorate over the years, but he stopped short of recommending expulsions. His subtitle raised the prospect of a wholesale housecleaning, yet he failed to carry his concept to its logical conclusion.
Jaffe wasn’t the first to broach such an idea. John Leo, a syndicated newspaper columnist, suggested in 1988 that the Hall of Fame should follow the lead of art museums that “deaccession” — a polite word for “unload” — paintings and sculptures they no longer want.
Leo posed this question: “Who wouldn’t like to deaccession players like Sunny Jim Bottomley, Zack Wheat, Jesse Haines, Chick Hafey, or George Kell, who was mistakenly accessioned a few years ago by the perennially woeful Committee on Veterans?” But Leo didn’t follow through. He didn’t suggest a procedure to achieve his goal.
Peter Clark, an editor at the San Diego Union-Tribune, was similarly caustic in a piece he wrote for the Sporting News in 2002. Clark expressed disdain for several of the honorees who share the plaque gallery with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and other all-time greats. “Ruth and Cobb,” he said, “should not be surrounded by Phil Rizzuto, George Kelly, Ray Schalk, Rick Ferrell, Jimmy Collins, Lloyd Waner, and Tommy McCarthy.” Clark suggested the removal of an unworthy member upon any admission of a new inductee — a one-for-one trade — though he didn’t discuss the mechanics.
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It’s remarkably easy — and tempting — to assemble a list of Hall of Famers who might deserve to be drummed out. So easy, in fact, that I put together a full 25-man roster of possibilities. It features the current members who carry the two lowest quality scores at each position, except for pitchers (the eight lowest) and designated hitters (the one lowest). I excluded Negro leaguers from this exercise, given the unreliability of some of their QS ratings.
Everybody on this squad was a fine player, of course, yet 24 of them rate lower than 30 points on the QS scale, an indication of their weak status in the plaque gallery. The highest score on the list is Catfish Hunter’s 30, which puts him at the very bottom of the marginal range. Here’s the complete roster, with each player’s big-league span and quality score in parentheses:
P: Jesse Haines (1918-1937, 11)
P: Jack Chesbro (1899-1909, 13)
P: Rube Marquard (1908-1925, 20)
P: Bob Lemon (1941-1958, 20)
P: Waite Hoyt (1918-1938, 27)
P: Herb Pennock (1912-1934, 28)
P: Mickey Welch (1880-1892, 29)
P: Catfish Hunter (1965-1979, 30)
C: Rick Ferrell (1929-1947, 9)
C: Ray Schalk (1912-1929, 10)
1B: George Kelly (1915-1932, 5)
1B: Gil Hodges (1943-1963, 15)
2B: Bill Mazeroski (1956-1972, 11)
2B: Johnny Evers (1902-1929, 12)
SS: Joe Sewell (1920-1933, 12)
SS: Travis Jackson (1922-1936, 13)
3B: Freddie Lindstrom (1924-1936, 4)
3B: George Kell (1943-1957, 10)
LF: Chick Hafey (1924-1937, 13)
LF: Heinie Manush (1923-1939, 17)
CF: Lloyd Waner (1927-1945, 10)
CF: Earle Combs (1924-1935, 14)
RF: Tommy McCarthy (1884-1896, 1)
RF: Ross Youngs (1917-1926, 12)
DH: Harold Baines (1980-2001, 23)
Let’s not stop with players. Our Hall of Fame squad needs a manager, doesn’t it? I nominate Bucky Harris (.493 career winning percentage) or Wilbert Robinson (one game above .500). The general manager could be Lee MacPhail, a nice man who didn’t accomplish anything special at the helm of the Yankees and Orioles.
The owner’s box could be occupied by the amiable (yet ineffectual) Tom Yawkey or the relatively anonymous Barney Dreyfuss. A plethora of uninspiring inductees — from Morgan Bulkeley to Bud Selig — could fill the top administrative posts of league president and commissioner.
So, yes, it’s a simple matter to nominate Hall of Famers for eviction. But it’s not so easy to proceed from the general concept to a specific process, as several writers before me have discovered. Who would decide which honorees would be removed? What public explanation would be given? Would some kind of a farewell ceremony be held? How frequently would expulsions be conducted? Could an ex-inductee be reinstated to the hall at some point in the future?
And there’s an even bigger question to ponder.
Every player, manager, executive, and umpire who was admitted to the Hall of Fame was assured of permanent enshrinement. There is no provision in the hall’s rules for the reconsideration of past election results or the removal of members. The accolade was intended to be perpetual. How could such a promise be broken?
Revocation, quite simply, would be dishonorable. Hence my proposal of a general amnesty. The rest of my nine-point plan — to be discussed on coming Fridays — will suggest major changes in many of the Hall of Fame’s procedures and operations. Almost everything should — and will — be open to question. Except, that is, for the hall’s current membership. It should be sacrosanct.
All 340 plaques in Cooperstown’s gallery can rest easy.