MLB Hall of Fame Induction: Roberto Alomar a Symbol of Indians’ Glory Days
When former Cleveland Indian Roberto Alomar was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday, he did so with a Toronto Blue Jays cap on his plaque.
Disappointing though it may have been for Clevelanders, it wasn’t a surprise that Alomar entered the Hall without a ‘C’ or Chief Wahoo on his head; Robbie spent at least three years with three other teams over his 17-year career.
Painful though it is to admit, the Blue Jays were the natural fit for him. The five years he had with Toronto were the most he spent with any team, and he won two World Series with Boo Birds: 1992, when he was named ALCS MVP, and 1993, when he hit .480 with a 1.159 OPS in the Fall Classic.
But while he will be immortalized in baseball’s most sacred place as a Blue Jay, make no mistake: we Tribe fans will always remember what he did in Cleveland—both his contributions on the field and what he symbolized to the fans. (more…)
Cheaters Sometimes Prosper: Why Are Steroids Worse Than Spitballs?
In the wake of Manny Ramirez’ retirement last week, there’s been much ado about his chances of making the Hall of Fame. There’s no question that Ramirez’ numbers merit enshrinement, but Manny will likely be denied entrance to Cooperstown because of his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Voters who point to the Hall’s ethics clause as reason to keep Manny out find themselves in a logical quandary. After all, there are plenty of Cooperstown legends who you might not want to have a beer with, from stabby racist and spiked cleats wearer Ty Cobb to the guy who threw a brushback pitch in an old-timers game, Bob Gibson.
But Hall of Famers’ follies have not been limited to off-field issues and exhibition matches. Take Gaylord Perry. Perry, a legendary spitballer, was caught and suspended for doctoring the ball in 1982—48 years after the last legal spitballer retired. It didn’t keep him out of Cooperstown—he was inducted in 1991.
How can Perry be immortalized when guys like Ramirez, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds are all but certain to be left out in the cold? (more…)
Why Manny Ramirez Deserves a Place in Cooperstown
When Manny Ramirez was busted for violating Major League Baseball’s drug policy this spring for the second time in two years, it effectively ended any chance he had of being immortalized in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. If Rafael Palmeiro can be held out of the Hall for one failed test and Mark McGwire can be denied for cheating even though he retired before steroids were banned, what chance does Ramirez have of reaching Cooperstown?
But the fact that Manny won’t get in doesn’t mean he shouldn’t. Ramirez will go down in the annals of baseball history ahead of Tim Raines and Ron Santo as one of the most egregious snubs in Cooperstown history.
Forget the PEDs for a minute and take a look at the rest of his résumé. The first thing that jumps out should be the number 555. That’s how many home runs he hit in his 19-year career. That’s good for 14th on the all-time list, ahead of names like Mike Schmidt, Mickey Mantle, and Jimmie Foxx. Everyone in the Top 25 who hasn’t been linked to PEDs is either in the Hall of Fame already or will be surefire first-balloters when they’re eligible (Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome, Frank Thomas).
The next number that may strike you is his .585 career slugging percentage—for some comparison, Paul Konerko had the best offensive year of his career in 2010 and slugged .584. His slugging prowess puts him at ninth on the all-time list, behind only Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig, Albert Pujols, Foxx, Barry Bonds, Hank Greenberg, and Mark McGwire. Everyone else can take a back seat to Manny.
But Ramirez’ most amazing number is his .996 OPS, good for ninth in baseball history behind only Ruth, Williams, Gehrig, Bonds, Pujols, Foxx, Greenberg, and Rogers Hornsby. That’s pretty good company. (more…)
Hall of Shame: The Problem with BBWAA’s Secret Ballots
When the Baseball Writers Association of America announced Wednesday that Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven had been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, justice had been done. But to judge the voting process solely by the selections of two worthy candidates would be to ignore the massive problems with the way the BBWAA does business.
Only ten-year veterans of the BBWAA are allowed to vote for the Hall, so each of the 581 people who sent in their ballots should be fully capable of forming a well-reasoned opinion about who belongs in Cooperstown. No, this isn’t about the five hipster voters who thought supporting players for induction was too mainstream (I can’t think of any other reason for why they wouldn’t choose anyone), or Barry “Worst Ballot Ever” Stanton—it’s a trend that persists throughout the entire electorate.
Out of the nearly 600 Cooperstown voters, 122 had the decency to make their choices public. Using this tool to analyze all of the known votes, we can compare the ballots people put their names on to those that were turned in anonymously.
As a reminder, all of the voters are longtime professional sportswriters who have extensive experience with analyzing players and forming opinions about baseball. More importantly, it is their job to present their positions to the public. It only seems logical, then, that everyone who turned in a ballot should be able to provide a well-reasoned defense of his or her picks, and therefore there should be little difference between the known ballots and the anonymous ones. Right?
Wrong. While a few candidates received roughly the same amount of support from both groups, more than two-thirds (12) of the 17 players who received enough votes to stay on the ballot had a difference of at least three percent, and nearly half (eight) had a disparity of more than five percent. It could be a series of coincidences, but I don’t think it’s random chance. Look at the players who had the biggest advantages on the public ballots:
Notice a trend here? Alomar was a clear fan favorite for induction, especially after being unfairly snubbed last year, and keeping PED users out of Cooperstown is a flimsy excuse for denying a man with over 500 homers and 3,000 hits. The other three are beloved by sabermetricians and some of the baseball media’s most influential outsiders. In other words, the players who got the most love from people willing to share their votes are the ones whose absence from the ballots would receive the most scrutiny.
We see a similar pattern with the other extreme, the players who got significantly more support from those who kept their ballots secret:
All of the candidates on this list have flaws that drag down their overall worth. Morris’ candidacy is founded almost entirely on the longevity of his career. Walker’s explosive years with the Rockies are tainted by his playing in Coors Field, and most of Smith’s value is derived from saves, a statistic that loses ethos by the day (though I would have strongly considered voting for both if I had a ballot). And Gonzalez, Murphy, Mattingly, and Parker are simply not good enough for the Hall of Fame. They weren’t necessarily the worst candidates (I’d take any of them over B.J. Surhoff in a heartbeat), but they all would make some fans raise their eyebrows.
If those numbers don’t seem like much of a disparity, consider this: private balloters were nearly twice as likely to vote for Larry Walker, more than doubly supportive of Don Mattingly, and gave Dave Parker over triple the approval rate of their more upfront peers. The unnamed voters were also twice as likely to vote against Roberto Alomar, and while nearly half the writers who made their choices public picked Tim Raines, barely a third of those who kept their selections secret put him on their ballots.
It’s clear that voters who chose more popular players were more likely to make their picks public. Unless the correlation is pure coincidence—and with large disparities across the ballot, the odds of that are practically nil—this isn’t a ringing endorsement for the baseball media.
The conclusion I draw from this is that many voters can’t construct convincing arguments to explain their selections. For a layman that might be understandable, but for a professional sportswriter? If you’re one of the most knowledgeable people in the world about the game of baseball and you can’t explain why you voted for Dave Parker without sounding stupid, you shouldn’t have voted for Dave Parker.
If secrecy (or lack thereof) changes the decisions people make, you’ve got a problem, and privacy shouldn’t be a top priority. Voting for the Hall of Fame is a privilege, not a right. If someone is honored with a ballot, he or she should be held accountable for his choices. If any voter is embarrassed to reveal his or her picks—or worse, unable to defend his or her selections—then the process is fatally flawed. Putting an end to secret ballots wouldn’t mean the BBWAA would suddenly start making all the right decisions, but at least we would know that the voters took their responsibility seriously enough to put their names on their ballots.
In the almost-words of Greg Lake: “The Cooperstown we get, we deserve.”
Roberto Alomar Elected to National Baseball Hall of Fame
It’s not often that we Cleveland fans have something to be proud of. We’re the mistake on the lake; the city so dirty that our river caught fire, and so backwards that we didn’t learn our lesson the first time it happened. It’s been 56 seasons since the Indians brought home an MVP trophy to put on the mantle. A baby born the day we last won the World Series would now be 61 years old.
But today—today, we have excitement. Today we have joy and exuberance and celebration, even if it’s a year late.
Today, Roberto Alomar has been named to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In his second year on the ballot, he received an astounding 90 percent of the vote. Bert Blyleven also earned more than the required 75 percent for induction.
We might not be the first team other fans associate with Alomar, and it’s doubtful that our cap will adorn his Hall of Fame plaque. After all, he spent only three seasons with the Tribe over his incredible 17-year career. He wasn’t an Indian when the ninth inning of his career came to a close, but it was here that he had his last hurrah, his final moments of glory.
With apologies to the Blue Jays and Orioles, his years in Cleveland were his best, and his significance to our city goes far beyond the 309 RBI, .902 OPS, and 19.2 WAR he earned while wearing a Chief Wahoo cap.
