{"id":1140,"date":"2003-05-14T11:27:15","date_gmt":"2003-05-14T15:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/vardibidian\/2003\/05\/14\/1140.html"},"modified":"2003-05-14T11:27:15","modified_gmt":"2003-05-14T15:27:15","slug":"yep-another-baseball-column","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/2003\/05\/14\/yep-another-baseball-column\/","title":{"rendered":"Yep, another Baseball column."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your Humble Blogger went to the National Baseball Hall of Fame this winter, so now that there's active discussion in the baseball world about what constitutes a Hall of Famer, that qualifies me to chime in, doesn't it?\n\n

If you're just joining the baseball world, Rafael Palmiero<\/a> recently hit his 500th home run. Raffy has been an awfully good player for an awfully long time, but he's never been the best player in the league, and has never really been the best first baseman (or DH) in the league, either. Part of that is that he's been playing during the same years as Historic Greats such as Bonds and A-Rod, but also through the peak years of players with high peaks (and less durability), such as Clark, Gonzalez, Thomas, Galaragga, McGriff, McGuire, Mattingly, and Fielder. So the argument about whether he should be inducted into the Hall of Fame is, in large part, a question about peak versus career value in judging HoF candidates. If you favor career value, you think he's a no-brainer. If you think that you can't be in without being dominant at some point, you aren't convinced.\n\n

Now, it's time for a short digression to some thoughts I had about the HoF during the most recent phase of the Pete Rose controversy. I came to the realization that there are three Halls: the room with the plaques in it, which is the actual Hall of Fame; the museum part, which is where most people spend most of their time, and which has more pictures of non-inductees than inductees; and the Hall of Fame in the hearts and minds of baseball fans. Pete Rose is not in the first, is in the second (although neither his famed Reds nor the Wheeze kids of Philadelphia are done justice), and well, you will have to decide whether he is in the third for yourself. The categories are all overlapping and cross-influenced as well; if somebody shows up in enough of the museum stuff (Nolan Ryan, for instance) it will influence the voters for the plaque, as well as the hearts and minds of fans. If a player is prominent in the hearts and minds of fans (Tony Perez, perhaps? or Cepeda?), that also will influence the vote, as well as the museum. And, of course, if a player is inducted, it will affect how people think of him (Harmon Killebrew?)\n\n

On the other hand, if (for instance) Gossage is not inducted, he will still be in my personal Hall. I remember him coming in at the end of a game in Jack Murphy in 1984 or so and the crowd going nuts; he was feared beyond reason, and was a Star in a field without a lot of star power (at the time).\n\n

So if you think Raffy should be in the Hall of Fame, then he's an inductee into the Hall of your heart and mind, and that is no mean feat (is Roger Connor<\/a> there?). Nothing in the discussion, or the eventual vote, can or should take that away.\n\n

That said, for an actual plaque in the Hall, my question has become this: Ten years after the induction, would a ten-year-old ball fan get excited about either seeing the plaque, or seeing the player at an old-timer's game? Ten years ago, Reggie Jackson was inducted; I can't imagine a ten-year-old baseball fan today who wouldn't be thrilled to meet him. Tom Seaver, the year before, or Steve Carlton, the year after, are also obvious. Rollie Fingers, also a 1992 inductee, makes my list, but then I saw him pitch; ask a nearby ten-year-old if they'd like to meet Rollie.\n\n

The year I was born, Stan Musial and Roy Campanella were inducted. I have my own issues with Campy, but there's no question they both pass the ten-year-old test. The next year, Lou Boudreau was inducted, and I ought to have been excited to see him, although I wouldn't have been at the time. That's part of it, too; if you count too much on charisma or mediageniety, you wind up thinking that Jeter is a Hall of Famer, just because he's in the comic books. You have to make some allowances, sure. The previous year Ducky Medwick got in, and I would have been excited about him, because I'd read more books about the Gas House Gang than about the Indians of the 40s (not sure why, they had that Feller with the Indians, not to mention Bob Lemon, and in that pennant-winning 1948 year, Satchel Paige).\n\n

Anyway, the question is whether Raffy passes the ten-year-old test. It's a tough test, not only because it's hard to predict which images will last, and whether that hard-working second-best thing will be as romantic as it seems now to many people, or whether with careers getting longer, and more players playing well into their late thirties and early forties (if that happens at all) his longevity and consistency will be seen as out of the ordinary. That's leaving aside the issue of predicting Raffy's future; he could certainly make it easy on everybody by having a tremendous year next year, getting an MVP, and nailing down the Hall right then. Anyway, if I had to decide right now, I'm inclined to say put him in. I'm imagining a kid whose father uses Raffy to teach about the value of consistency, hard work, preparation, and persistence (with Junior Griffey as the grasshopper?) and, looking at it that way, I like the idea of a Raffy plaque (and thus side with the career-value).\n\n

Sorry, no statistical analysis. On the other hand, no dick jokes, either.\n\n

Thank you,\n
-Vardibidian.\n<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your Humble Blogger went to the National Baseball Hall of Fame this winter, so now that there’s active discussion in the baseball world about what constitutes a Hall of Famer, that qualifies me to chime in, doesn’t it? If you’re…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[193],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/vardibidian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}