2015 Baseball Hall of Fame Info and Bitchfest

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leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

The most important pro-Mussina argument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhOdDBCfKV8

# ? Dec 3, 2014 19:06

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 00:52

tadashi: Feb 20, 2006

MourningView posted:

Not saying you shouldn't do it because it could be fun but I imagine the goon ballots will all be almost entirely identical outside of maybe the last couple slots.

I'm actually curious where the variation will be. I think I could roughly support 11 returning names without counting 1st year guys.

I'd consider any BBWAA ballot without 10 votes this year to be a bad ballot unless the writer is just a super duper "small hall" voter and I don't think that writer exists.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 19:21

Shine: Feb 26, 2007; No Muscles For The Majority

leokitty posted:

The most important pro-Mussina argument

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhOdDBCfKV8

Owns. I remember Mussina as being one of those guys who when he was gonna face the 90's Mariners (with the A-Rod, Griffey, Edgar, Buhner lineup of doom), I would just be like "aww poo poo. poo poo, poo poo."

The other one was motherfucking Pedro who had something like a 1.7 goddamn ERA against us :argh:

# ? Dec 3, 2014 19:36

R.D. Mangles: Jan 10, 2004

Anyone who submits less than ten names should have his or her ballot taken away.
Anyone who submits a blank ballot should be arrested and sentenced to three months of monitored fungoes.

# ? Dec 3, 2014 22:37

zakharov: Nov 30, 2002; Tater Love

Buster Olney is abstaining this year because he's mad about the 10 player limit.

# ? Dec 4, 2014 16:56

MourningView: Sep 2, 2006; Is this Heaven?

zakharov posted:

Buster Olney is abstaining this year because he's mad about the 10 player limit.

That's a good reason to be upset, but it also kinda sucks because he's been a pretty good voter recently (he bought the Morris BS and had a weird Palmeiro vote last year, but otherwise it was good and he's not scared away by PED BS)

# ? Dec 4, 2014 17:10

Badfinger: Dec 16, 2004; Timeouts?!

We'll take care of that.

Abstaining, as opposed to casting a blank ballot, does not count in the denominator. It is actually better for every player that he would like to vote for but cannot that he doesn't vote at all.

# ? Dec 6, 2014 04:36

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

The results of the Golden Era Veterans' Committee ballot will be released today at 2 PM.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 17:17

leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

Lynn Henning is also abstaining from voting: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/lynn-henning/2014/12/08/henning-player-limit-justifies-boycott-hall-vote/20094565/

He is not happy with the way the BBWAA is handling everything:

quote:

I was told by BBWAA officials this year that the Hall of Fame bosses want ballots to be private. And I can't for the life of me figure out why that would be helpful or necessary. In fact, it's a policy as easily remedied as doing away with the 10-man limit. But we know how that urgency was met in 2014 and there is no real hope that public disclosure of votes will happen any time soon.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 19:37

leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

Dick Allen and Tony Oliva missed by 1 vote, latest rendition of the VC continues to stink

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:09

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Yeah I figured no one would make it. I'm a bit surprised those two got the most votes though.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:12

Groucho Marxist: Dec 9, 2005; Do you smell what The Mauk is cooking?

Thanks, Bill James, for keeping Dick Allen out of the hall atop your Paterno defending high horse

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:15

FairGame: Jul 24, 2001; Der Kommander

gently caress you, anyone who didn't vote for Dick Allen

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:16

ZenVulgarity: Oct 9, 2012; I made the hat by transforming my zen

Really no one

Really

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:16

ZenVulgarity: Oct 9, 2012; I made the hat by transforming my zen

Allen's ops was what

.05 under Aaron's or some poo poo over his career

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:21

Inspector_666: Oct 7, 2003; _{benny with the good hair}

ZenVulgarity posted:

Really no one

Really

So goddamn dumb.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:30

ChampRamp: Mar 29, 2010; SAVE_US.CHR

Does anyone have a list of who got however many votes? I can't seem to find a complete one.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:31

Tavarin: May 10, 2003; I am definitely a madman with a box

ChampRamp posted:

Does anyone have a list of who got however many votes? I can't seem to find a complete one.

http://baseballhall.org/hof/golden-era-committee-announces-results

quote:

Dick Allen 11
Tony Oliva 11
Jim Kaat 10
Maury Wills 9
Minnie Minoso 8
Ken Boyer 3 or fewer
Gil Hodges 3 or fewer
Bob Howsam 3 or fewer
Billy Pierce 3 or fewer
Luis Tiant 3 or fewer

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:35

Groucho Marxist: Dec 9, 2005; Do you smell what The Mauk is cooking?

Maury Wills being 4th might be the biggest joke of all

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:41

MourningView: Sep 2, 2006; Is this Heaven?

Minnie Minoso only getting 8 is worse than Allen getting 11 but both are real dumb.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:47

IcePhoenix: Sep 18, 2005; Take me to your Shida

FairGame posted:

gently caress you, anyone who didn't vote for Tony Oliva

# ? Dec 8, 2014 20:47

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

Are Dick Allen's struggles to get inducted due to his career length? ~7300 PA's is on the low side for HoF first basemen, and it means he's got weak-looking counting stats like 1800 hits and 350 home runs.

Just based on brief BR browsing he seems similar to Hank Greenburg in terms of career length/ops+/home runs, though Allen should get some credit for playing 3B the first 4 years of his career.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:01

saffi faildotter: Mar 2, 2007

bawfuls posted:

Are Dick Allen's struggles to get inducted due to his career length? Just based on brief BR browsing he seems similar to Hank Greenburg in terms of career length/ops+/home runs, though Allen should get some credit for playing 3B the first 4 years of his career.

Racism.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:01

tadashi: Feb 20, 2006

^ Mostly that but Dick Allen has a bad reputation as a clubhouse cancer or w/e. That's why he might deserve to be in but can't get in even with former players voting.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:09

leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

tadashi posted:

^ Mostly that but Dick Allen has a bad reputation as a clubhouse cancer or w/e. That's why he might deserve to be in but can't get in even with former players voting.

Thanks, Bill James!

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:12

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

Does Bill James hate Dick Allen? I'm so out of the loop.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:17

Tony Phillips: Feb 9, 2006

bawfuls posted:

Does Bill James hate Dick Allen? I'm so out of the loop.

James wrote some terrible poo poo about Allen in his "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame" book.

An interesting book really, but the parts about Allen just seem way out there and lovely.

"[Allen] did more to keep his teams from winning than anyone else who ever played major league baseball. And if that's a Hall of Famer, I'm a lug nut."

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:26

leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

bawfuls posted:

Does Bill James hate Dick Allen? I'm so out of the loop.

One of the essays in Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame is essentially about how Dick Allen is the devil. People like William Kashatus have been trying to change this point of view of Allen for like 30 years now, and his teammates from the Phillies like Richie Ashburn have spoken up about it over the years. Ashburn specifically knew how important his word would be with the public/etc. Hell, some members of the Phillies management at the time have even apologized for how Allen was treated.

It was really a massive, massive fuckup by the Phillies that got him this rep. He is not an angel but they did everything they could to throw gas on the fire. I recommend reading "September Swoon" by Kashatus if you're interested, and there are some articles I have to dig out live links for.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:30

bawfuls: Oct 28, 2009

That is the least Bill-James-esque sentence I've ever read.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:35

MourningView: Sep 2, 2006; Is this Heaven?

I think it's mostly because he got hurt a lot, had a short career, and comes up way short on most counting stats (and some of the stuff he was good at, like taking lots of walks, wasn't appreciated at the time). He did definitely have a reputation for being a difficult to deal with rear end in a top hat (which no doubt had a lot to do with racism), which didn't help either. And as far as the public goes I think him getting traded a shitload sort of confirmed that rep for a lot of people, which was unfortunate.

Ultimately I think he should definitely be in, but I also think he's kinda borderline. He was a really really good hitter, but he missed a ton of time, had a short career, and he had no value outside his bat. What he did with his bat when he did play should make up for it enough to get him in, but I think just going "racism!!!" oversimplifies things.

I'm also pretty sure his rep as a bad teammate, which was undoubtedly overstated for a lot of gross reasons, existed way before Bill James came along so it's not like it was just him, even though he should definitely know better. I don't think the people who tend to get to vote for the VC (or the Hall of Fame in general, really), tend to give much of a poo poo about what Bill James thinks about anything.

MourningView fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Dec 8, 2014

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:45

Groucho Marxist: Dec 9, 2005; Do you smell what The Mauk is cooking?

A lot of his rep as a malcontent comes from not taking any poo poo from fans hurling racial slurs at him

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:49

leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

The root of the bad teammate rep before Allen really started acting out as he was clashing more and more with Phillies management has to do with Philly media deciding he was the reason the Whiz Kids collapsed.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 21:56

ZenVulgarity: Oct 9, 2012; I made the hat by transforming my zen

How did they gently caress up so badly they didn't elect anyone though jesus gently caress

# ? Dec 8, 2014 22:24

leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

ZenVulgarity posted:

How did they gently caress up so badly they didn't elect anyone though jesus gently caress

The VC as it is now is designed to not actually elect players.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 22:26

Pat Clements: Feb 10, 2008

Dick Allen's refusal to take any more poo poo from the Phillies also led to his being traded to St. Louis in 1970.

Going back the other way in exchange? Curt Flood, who promptly refused to report to the Phillies, in part because he saw how they had treated Dick Allen (and, of course, in part because he didn't want to be treated like property).

The rest of that story is history.

# ? Dec 8, 2014 22:38

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

It's sad and upsetting if the thing that keeps Dick Allen out of the Hall is people parroting unfounded "personality" issues that originated from racist or dishonest front office sources. Craig R. Wright wrote a really well-researched rebuttal to Bill James's article that quotes almost all of his former managers, teammates, and some other coaches. It's really well done and everyone should check it out, and his sources are unanimous in how much they liked Allen during his playing days. It's a shame that a well-liked and talented player could get slandered by somebody, and then have to live with that reputation forever because people who don't know any better keep appealing to nebulous "issues" and "rumors."

Anyway here's some quotes from the Wright essay, which you can read at http://www.whitesoxinteractive.com/rwas/index.php?category=11&id=2065

quote:

Yet this slanted assessment of Allen's fielding is nothing compared to the wild things that have been written about his influence in the clubhouse. James concluded that Dick had such a negative clubhouse presence that despite his heavy hitting he did "more to keep his teams from winning than anybody else who ever played major league baseball."

When Dick Allen was a spring training instructor with the Rangers in 1982, I got to know him a bit and talked with him about his career. In the intervening years I have had the chance to talk with several people who were also there at various points in Allen's career. Their accounts are consistent, and it is clear there are some gross factual errors in many of these harsh written assessments of his career, and the authors also seem to have mightily misread his impact on his teams, managers, and teammates.

In writing this article, I interviewed Gene Mauch, Bob Skinner, Red Schoendienst, Chuck Tanner, and Danny Ozark. With the exception of Walter Alston who died in 1984, that covers every big league manager who had Allen for at least half a season. While I could not interview Alston, I did discuss Dick's year in LA with two of their coaches, Carol Beringer and Danny Ozark. I also interviewed Roland Hemond who was the GM in Chicago during Dick's White Sox days, and I spoke with numerous others who had personal contact with Dick.

The most helpful in that regard was Pat Corrales, who was an early teammate of Allen's in the minors and in his first two years in Philadelphia. Gene Mauch recommended Corrales as someone from those early days who knew Dick Allen "better than anyone, perhaps better than Dick himself."

quote:

Gene Mauch managed Allen longer than any other manager, and in his mind there was no question that the pluses outweighed the minuses.

"I've never been in contact with a greater talent. He was held in absolute awe by every player in the league. He had tremendous power. He had a great feel for the game, and he was one of the finest base runners -- which is different from base stealing -- that I ever saw. If I was managing California today and Allen was in his prime, I'd take him in a minute."

[...]

James' basic complaint against Allen is that he was a divisive presence on his teams, that: "Every team that he played for degenerated into warring camps of pro-Dick Allen and anti-Dick Allen factions." I asked Mauch if that was true with any of his teams, he was emphatic in his denial, "Never. His teammates always liked him. You could go forever and not meet a more charming fellow." Later in the interview he came back to this topic to make the following point:

"He wasn't doing anything to hurt [his teammates] play of the game, and he didn't involve his teammates in his problems. When he was personally rebellious, he didn't try to bring other players into it."

quote:

Corrales made the point that Dick "was years ahead of us [players] in seeing that it was wrong for the owners to have such complete control over our careers." In the off-season, on January 1st, the players' union had a historic meeting of 130 players where they discovered the solidarity of their feelings in battling the owners for their rights. Over 20 years later, in Marvin Miller's book A Whole Different Ballgame, Dick Allen's voice was the one he remembered best.

"He [Allen] did not speak in the early part of the meeting but later spoke with quiet dignity in a fashion that indicated he had been listening carefully. He was eloquent and forceful, and the other players listened intently. He didn't speak as a superstar, but as a player who understood both the issues and the importance of the player' moving forward as a group."

quote:

From my interviews with his managers, it is safe to say that his extreme offenses in 1969 were something that Allen had never done before and would never do again. Mauch had trouble with Allen getting to the park on time, but he also noted that he was never late for a game and never missed a game. With the Cardinals, Red Schoendienst said, "He was always on time for me ... He never gave me any trouble." Chuck Tanner and Carol Beringer (LA coach) said pretty much the same thing. Danny Ozark was very emphatic: "He wasn't any problem for me, ever, not in LA or Philly. He was super. He did everything I asked him to."

quote:

I asked Bob Skinner if he ever felt his 1969 team was better off without Dick.

"No, I had a poor team, and he was way above everyone else. He was a good player, a drat good player. We certainly weren't a bad team because of him. I didn't appreciate some of his antics or his approach to his profession, and I told him so, but I understood some of it. I do believe that he was trying to get them to move [trade] him. He was very unhappy. He wanted out. There were people in Philadelphia treating him very badly, throwing garbage on his lawn, things like that."

I also asked Skinner my standard question about whether Allen had been a divisive presence on the team.

"I didn't see any of that in the time I had him. He obviously did some things that weren't team oriented, but his teammates did not have a sense of animosity toward him. Not that I saw. They had some understanding of what was going on."

I asked Skinner that if he were managing somewhere in 1970, would he have okayed a trade for Allen at a reasonable price:

"At any price. Any time you have a shot at a player of that caliber, you want to take it. He was a great hitter; one of the best base runners you'd ever want to see, and he had great instincts for the game. He had some throwing problems with the bad hand, but you could play him at first base well enough. I'd gladly have taken him."

Skinner resigned in August, after ownership gave Allen permission to skip an exhibition game with their AAA farm team. When I asked if his problems with Allen contributed to his resigning, Skinner said, "No. In my eyes, Allen was just another player. My problem was with the front office."

quote:

White Sox GM, Roland Hemond:

"He came in with a tremendous amount of respect from our players. And that was always there. He was a very analytical player with a great memory for past situations. A smart player, an outstanding base runner. I'll never forget him, and I'll always be grateful to him. He gave us great years; he made it fun. He revitalized baseball in Chicago [for the Sox]. Attendance had been down for years. You know we had experimented with playing a few games up in Milwaukee [1968-69]. Dick got them out to the ballpark again. He had a tremendous impact on our attendance."

Compared to the average attendance in the seasons before and after Dick's time with the Sox, the average yearly attendance was up over 50% during Allen's 3 years!

White Sox Manager, Chuck Tanner:

"He was the greatest player I ever managed, and what he did for us in Chicago was amazing. In Pittsburgh I had guys like Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Phil Garner, Bill Madlock, but in Chicago it was Dick Allen and, what, Bill Melton? There just wasn't a lot of talent there. With Dick -- well, we were able to battle the Oakland A's, one of the greatest teams ever. Without him we simply weren't a first division team. They talk about his hitting, but I want to tell you that in 19 years in the majors, the two best base runners I ever saw were Don Baylor and Dick Allen. They ran aggressively and never made a mistake. Dick was the leader of our team, the captain, the manager on the field. He took care of the young kids, took them under his wing. And he played every game as if it was his last day on earth."

# ? Dec 8, 2014 22:42

tatankatonk: Nov 4, 2011; Pitching is the art of instilling fear.

Also Frank Thomas (the racist white 60s one, not the one you know) hit Dick Allen with god drat baseball bat during batting practice in 1968 and he was still the bigger man about it

quote:

When Mauch told Allen that Thomas was being put on irrevocable waivers, Dick protested on Frank's behalf. Mauch ordered Allen and his teammates not to speak to the press about the fight and backed it up with a threat of stiff fines. That was unfortunate as the press and the fans heard just Thomas's side, and they did not take kindly to a young black guy popping a white veteran. Mauch told me, "They really turned on him [Allen] after the Thomas fight. From there, if he did one little thing wrong, they would see it as so much worse because it was Allen. They got it in their heads that this was a bad guy, and they booed his every move."

# ? Dec 8, 2014 22:47

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

leokitty posted:

The VC as it is now is designed to not actually elect players.

The last version was also designed that way.

# ? Dec 9, 2014 01:04

leokitty: Apr 5, 2005; I live. I die. I live again.

I've been catching up on ballots and because the world at large for some crazy reason thinks that John Smoltz is way better than Mussina, Mussina is probably in serious peril of falling off the ballot. Sheffield is also probably gone.

# ? Dec 15, 2014 20:03

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# ? Apr 24, 2024 00:52

regfairfield: May 22, 2005

leokitty posted:

I've been catching up on ballots and because the world at large for some crazy reason thinks that John Smoltz is way better than Mussina, Mussina is probably in serious peril of falling off the ballot. Sheffield is also probably gone.

Why would Mussina drop off the ballot after he got 20% last year? Three guys made it in and unless you're a Sheffield voter there's three guys on this years ballot that should get votes. People just giving up on him as a lost cause?

# ? Dec 15, 2014 20:11

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