More Baseball Hall Of Fame Fun

Well, here I was liking Mike Mussina, and there he goes, joining the enemy. Come on, Yankees fans. You have to be able to step away from your partisanship for a second and realize why everyone hates the Yankees so much. Didn't you ever have a kid in your class who raised his hand for every question and aced every test? Don't you remember struggling through your day, and then seeing that little putz coast through life and feeling your heart fill with righteous indignation?

Well, anyway, I've already beaten the anti-Yankees issue to death. Instead, I'd like to revisit my favorite place, a magical land of wonder and plaques, the Baseball Hall of Fame. Specifically, I'd like to stage a Hall purging, in which the undeserving enshrined get ousted.

The problems with the Hall are well-documented. Naturally, the one who did it was Bill James, who is to serious baseball intellectualism what Darwin is to evolution.

In James' book, "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame," (aka "The Politics of Glory") he reveals just how slipshod and inconsistent Hall of Fame elections have been over the years. There are more than a few current Hall of Famers who, in truth, are as deserving of enshrinement as Jose Canseco is of a trophy case of Gold Gloves (Man! I am the king of analogies today!).

And the harsh finger of blame must be pointed first at Frankie Frisch, a legitimate Hall of Famer in his own right. In the 1960s and 1970s, Frisch was the de facto head of the infamous Veteran's Committee, responsible then and to this day for electing those who didn't make it in the regular BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) vote.

By James' estimation, Frisch was an intelligent, likable person. He was also a bit intimidating, and because everyone on the Committee wanted to stay on his good side, he got his way most of the time. That meant electing a bunch of his old teammates to the Hall, players whose statistics look superficially OK because they played in an era (the '20s and '30s) when offense was through the roof.

In a previous column, which laid out my choices for the upcoming Hall of Fame election, I laid out a number of sophisticated measures that intend to quantify a player's career value and worthiness for the Hall. I like quantifying things like this. It gives some weight to arguments, so that we leave the realm of fuzzy memory and first-glance impressions of career totals. Subjective considerations are important too, but I prefer to have a foundation of the objective and then work from there.

Last time I said that a Standards number of 50 or above is a surefire Hall of Famer. A Monitor number of 130 or above is pretty much a lock. Of course, keep in mind that none of the numbers are definitive, they're just tools with which we can sum up a player's career and which we can use to inform our opinions.

I refer you to the aforementioned column for further explanations of the following numbers (I really don't want to write all that out again). Meanwhile, here are Frisch (thrown in to demonstrate what a real Hall of Famer looks like), and his teammates on the Cardinals and Giants, all of whom are currently in the Hall of Fame:

                 Stan.  Mon.    Most-sim. (HOFers)   TPR (rank)

Dave Bancroft-SS  29     70     Dick Groat 1/9      35.2 (90)

Jim Bottomley-1B  42     99     Joe Medwick 4/7     -2.7 (none)

Frank Frisch-2B   60.4  182     George Davis 7/10   39.0 (67)

Chick Hafey-OF    33     69     Ken Williams 0/8    12.6 (none)

Jesse Haines-SP   27     61.5   F. Fitzsimmons 0/10  7.0 (none)

Travis Jackson-SS 29.1   28     Lou Boudreau 1/7    24.0 (206)

George Kelly-1B   21.7   48     Bob Watson 0/10      2.4 (255)

Fred Lindstrom-3B 26.9   56     Baby Jacobson 2/10  11.0 (none)

Ross Youngs-OF    32     73     Chick Stahl 0/9     10.8 (none)

OK, well apparently, cases can be made for Jim Bottomley and Dave Bancroft. But Travis Jackson was basically a '30s version of Garry Templeton, Hafey is an old Mike Greenwell, Haines is a Mark Langston, and so forth. I say we de-elect the whole bunch. It's getting crowded in there.

And there are a bunch more of Hall of Famers that are clearly undeserving. But let's not dwell on the negative. Let's turn that frown upside down. For fun, let's take a look at the active players who, if they retired today, would be serious candidates, even shoo-ins. The TPR is only calculated through 1998, I'm afraid, so keep in mind that it's actually even higher for most of these guys:

                 Stan.  Mon.    Most-sim. (HOFers)   TPR (rank)  Age

Roberto Alomar    46    146     Barry Larkin 3/4    24.6 (197)   32

Barry Bonds       62    185.5   Mickey Mantle 6/6   79.0 (13)    36

Roger Clemens     59    196     Jim Palmer 7/9      54.1 (27)    38

Ken Griffey Jr.   46    185     Albert Belle 3/5    39.5 (61)    31

Tony Gwynn        54    286     Zack Wheat 7/9      48.8 (33)    40

Rickey Henderson  52.8  158     Lou Brock 5/8       79.7 (12)    41

Randy Johnson     47    173.5   Lefty Gomez 2/7     20.6 (267)   37

Greg Maddux       55    175.5   Juan Marichal 9/10  51.4 (30)    34

Mark McGwire      40.4  174     Jose Canseco 2/5    30.5 (120)   37

Mike Piazza       55    121     Roy Campanella 3/6  29.5 (131)   32

Cal Ripken Jr.    59.4  253     Robin Yount 6/6     39.9 (59)    40

Frank Thomas      48.3  168     Jeff Bagwell 3/5    35.5 (85)    32

Some of these guys, of course, might as well be retired. Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken and Rickey Henderson probably aren't going to amass too many more credentials, as they're all on the downswing and are 40, 40, and 41 respectively, at this writing.

More interesting, to me, are the rest of them, who still have many years left to build up their already-Hall-of-Fame-qualifying cases. For crying out loud, Mike Piazza, Frank Thomas, Roberto Alomar, Greg Maddux and Ken Griffey probably have 5-8 more good years in them, each.

It also confirms that Barry Bonds is the greatest player of our time. He's a got a few more years left to prove that he is one of the top ten players in history. (My vote for top ten in history, since we're having fun: Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Rogers Hornsby, Cy Young, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Honus Wagner, Stan Musial. Basically, no one who played a single game after 1976, the year of my birth. I'm rooting for Bonds to crack this bunch).

Anyway, every era has a few players who are among the all-time greats. But I doubt that any era can compare to the glut of super-duper-stars that we're privy to right now. And there's no shortage of Hall of Famers in development -- Jeff Bagwell, Pedro Martinez, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra, Vladimir Guerrero ... the list goes on.

Anyway, enough ramblin'. Any comments?

Previous Diatribes ? I Mean, Columns:

• Why Do I Stick With Baseball?
• Tony Suck For The Hall Of Fame
• Pedro Martinez Should Be AL MVP
• More Yankees Talk, Jim Rice A HOFer?
• Clemens, Yankees Deserve Each Other
• Tony La Russa Must Go
• Yankees Have The Edge, Plus More MVP Talk
• The NL MVP, Cy Young, And ROY Are ...
• Who Would You Put In The Hall of Fame?
• Why The Cubs Stink: Too Much Love
• Baseball's Public Enemies
• What Kind Of Baseball Expert Are You?