It won't be long
by bucdaddy on Dec 16, 2009 10:28 AM EST
67 comments
The HoF ballot came out recently, which means it won't be long before Dave Parker starts his annual campaign to get himself elected.
I've ranted at some length about Dave's self interest before, and I'm not going to do it again. But a book I just finished reading raised an interesting notion.
Here are three lists with the career numbers of the same five Pirates, three of them HoFers and one wannabe
HITS
Roberto Clemente 3,000
Mystery Man 2,743
Dave Parker 2,712
Willie Stargell 2,232
Ralph Kiner 1,451
RBIs
Willie Stargell 1,540
Dave Parker 1,493
Mystery Man 1,326
Roberto Clemente 1,305
Ralph Kiner 1,015
BATTING AVERAGE
Roberto Clemente .317
Mystery Man .303
Dave Parker .290
Willie Stargell .282
Ralph Kiner .279
The author admits, "Yes, I've carefully chosen to omit home runs from this analysis ... [because] home run totals do not favor [Mystery Man] in any way .. " But for the record, Mystery Man hit 219.
The author isn't making a case for MM being as GOOD as Clemente or Stargell or Parker, just trying to make the case that MM was a pretty damn good hitter that nobody talks about much anymore. MM was on the HoF ballot for one year, drew <5% and was gone.
Which brings me back to Parker. What would make me more of a fan of Dave's case (and I'm a fan of Dave, but not his HoF case, and this is totally arbitrary, I know, but ...) is if he ever tried to make a case for someone other than himself, such as this former teammate of his, and for whom bb-ref lists, of all people, Dave Parker as the No. 5 most similar hitter. "Hey," Dave never says, "ignore me if you like, but I played with a real good hitter who never got much consideration. I wish the Vets would take a look at [MM]."
But of course Dave never does that, because, just as it's always been, it's all about Dave.
Mystery Man wasn't especially fast (his stolen base rate is pretty pedestrian, one year he was 13/29). He didn't walk much. He had good OBPs but they were largely BA driven. I see no evidence that he was an exceptional defensive player. He never led the league in anything (except games played, once) until he was 35, when he had his career year. It wasn't for the Pirates.
But Lord, that man could hit a baseball, and damn if he wasn't in the top 10 a lot. A LOT.
Al Oliver, people.
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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To a certain extent, I can understand Parker's gripe.
It’s hard to understand what Jim Rice has going for him that a guy like Parker (or Oliver, or Rusty Staub, or Ken Singleton…) doesn’t. Particularly if you have a vested interest in getting Parker elected, as Parker does.
Jim Rice didn't deserve election to the HOF,
but it can’t be undone.
But then again, it’s a matter of debate as to who does and who doesn’t in many cases.
If Parker hadn’t wasted several of his best years with the drugs and weight problems, he would undoubtedly have been a HOF-worthy player.
I also wonder if some of his late career production, especially when he was with the "Bash “Brothers”, might not have been aided by ’roids.
Question for Bucdaddy: How many years in the early ‘80s were you on the Pirates’ beat?
It’s always interesting to hear you talk about the Pirates of those years from your personal experience.
One
1983.
Somewhere in the next year or so my boss and I began to grow disillusioned with each other. He also developed a case of … what’s the fear of crowds? Agoraphobia? Especially unfortunate thing for a sportswriter to get, and anyway I think that may have exacerbated our falling-out somehow. By the time I left we didn’t much like each other, I don’t think.
I saw a chance to move to a copy desk job and took it, and that’s where I’ve been ever since, except for a foray into management, long enough for me to discover I hated doing schedules and performance reviews and other managey stuff. (Well, LONGer, actually).
Had me some fun that year, I did, though, seeing other cities and ballparks and observing the players a bit. I can never dislike Dave because of the time we were boarding or getting off a plane and he was strolling 10 feet down the ramp ahead of me and for whatever reason yelled at me over his shoulder, “How come I never see you out chasin’ no pussy?”
I said, “Well, David, I guess we don’t drink in the same bars.”
by bucdaddy on Dec 16, 2009 11:07 AM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Did he invite you to his favorite bars after that?
I’ve always enjoyed your anecdotes about the ‘83 Pirates. They were the first baseball team that I ever followed, at the impressionable age of eight (nine in July). It didn’t hurt their legend in my mind that they were the only decent team that the Pirates had for several years.
To clarify:
I’m not saying that Parker should be in because Rice is in – if we inducted everybody who was as good as Rice (or better), we’d double the size of the Hall.
I’m just saying that I can understand why Parker would think that, under the circumstances.
If quantities of cheeseburgers eaten, cigarettes smoked and cocaine snorted counted towards HoF induction, Parker would be a lock. Under the present rules, not so much.
Substitute
hot dogs for cheeseburgers,
cigars for cigarettes,
whiskey for cocaine,
and you can adjust for the Babe Ruth era.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 16, 2009 11:47 PM EST up reply actions
Sure...
but I’m not making a “morals” case, I’m saying all that stuff destroyed Parker’s production on the field. You can easily see the dropoff in his hitting starting in 1980, but I was there and his fielding got even worse. He was a beached whale out there in right field. If Dave could’ve done all that crazy stuff and kept hitting, he would be in is all I’m saying.
Not trying to infer "Morals Clause."
I wasn’t sayin’ you were, amigo… just sayin’ that “it’s always somethin’” in every era. Using your example of " …present rules, not so much." as my thought. Perhaps I was not clear. Wouldn’t be the first time. ;-)
Snake Oil Elixirs, Chewing Tobacco, Vaseline, HGH, Whiskey, Greenies, Coke, Alligator Testicles, Sandpaper… whatevs.
I understand that, in your response, you were talking about his production. I just wasn’t trying to get into the “detrimental to team,” or “to team and self?” thing.
++++++++++
Personally, I think Rice should be in. Maz should be in. SJ Jackson should be in. Rose should not be in.
I’m still not 100% on Parker, but I am leaning toward he should be in.
But I don’t really wanna get into the whole debate. Others are stating their cases well enough, and I have my reasons, none of which are really important anyway.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 17, 2009 11:01 AM EST up reply actions
Yeah...
my post wasn’t very clear on that point. I was just trying to say to say that if Cobra could have gotten credit for burgers consumed and lines of coke snorted (counting stats!) like you do for RBIs or doubles or whatever, he would’ve been in no doubt.
In any case, he needs to be in party animal hall of fame.
Based on that criteria,
of course. Shoe-in, First Ballot.
“In any case, he needs to be in party animal hall of fame.”
He’s in mine.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 17, 2009 12:41 PM EST up reply actions
For me
There are some things that transcend stats, even though I’m a big stats guy. I think the HOF should be for famous MLB players that were considered great players and were difference makers.
Parker was a difference maker. He was a seriously great player. He wasted several of what should have been his best years and that’s too bad. But if you just imagine he went off to war and forget about those years, he was great.
The guy is definitely self-serving. The guy was definitely very selfish as a player and a lot of that continues now.
But he really was great, and that’s who I want in the HOF.
"Reply" button doesn't work
Don’t know why … anyway, this is for MarkInDallas: I get your overall point, but let’s not equate putting one’s life on the line in service to one’s country with overindulging in the pleasures of the world, the flesh and the devil. What happened to Dave in those years was most likely a result of what Dave did to himself. That he cleaned himself up and became productive again and has been as far as I can tell a reasonably model citizen since is to his credit. But to suggest … well, it’s sort of like saying that if a player took a hacksaw and hacked his own leg off and spent the next five years as a one-legged player and was half as good as he previously was, and then miraculously grew his leg back and went on to a strong career twilight, we should just treat those five years as if he Jason Kendalled his leg through no fault of his own … I can’t buy that.
I can see at least one pennant race the Pirates might have won had Dave not been fat and up to his ass in nose candy. He didn’t just hurt himself, he hurt and deceived his teammates, his coaches, his manager, his employer, his team, its fans and city and the game of baseball. That’s a lot of demerits in my book for a guy to overcome.
I say: Out.
MVP tells the tale of how important he was.
Parker absolutely did it to himself. But, this is the baseball HOF we’re talking about, not the great guy HOF.
Parker was great, and finished in the top 5 for MVP 5 times, winning 1.
Al Oliver finished #3 in MVP once.
Willie Stargell finished in top 5 MVP vote 4 times (won 1).
George Foster – 3 times (won 1).
Mike Schmidt – 5 times (won 3).
Pete Rose – 5 times (won 1).
Tony Gwynn – 1 time (won 0).
Gary Carter – 2 times (won 0).
Reggie Jackson – 5 times (won 1).
Point is – being seen as one of the top 5 most important players in the league 5 years during a career is extremely rare. Parker is right up there with all the players considered most important during his era.
Al Oliver is not.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 16, 2009 6:15 PM EST up reply actions
And how often
Do you look at a thing like MVP balloting these days and think its a sham? Sorry, that just doesn’t carry much weight with me. It simply means he was a good player on a good team.
Really?
Please name for me any player besides Dave Parker that has 5 top 5 MVP finishes that you don’t think is a HOF worthy player.
I would like to see that list.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 16, 2009 7:15 PM EST up reply actions
Choose one from this list...
Albert Pujols, Barry Bonds, Frank Thomas, Alex Rodriguez
Which of these do you not think was a dominant player of their era?
They are the only players with 5 top 5 MVP finishes of any player that got even 1 vote in the last 10 years.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 16, 2009 7:28 PM EST up reply actions
I think Rice belongs, but many don't
He had 6 top 5 MVP finishes with one win.
If the people at that time see you as one of the 5 best players in the league and that happens 5 times, I say you are in.
Look how infrequently that happens. 5 players in the last 20 years.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 16, 2009 7:49 PM EST up reply actions
Plus
Parker had 4 other top 20 finishes. So in 9 years of his career, people thought he was among the top 20 players in his league.
He could have been more dominant had he not wasted some of his best years, but that doesn’t take away from the fact he was dominant in the others.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 16, 2009 7:55 PM EST up reply actions
How about..
Eddie Murray from the 90’s. He’s the one with 5 from that era.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 16, 2009 7:47 PM EST up reply actions
I didn't say anything about that
I said MVP balloting isn’t a reason someone should or shouldn’t be in. Not whether or not Parker should be in. Those 4 you mentioned are HOF players, but not because of how many MVP votes they got…
In my mind, MVP ballotting is more important in HOF consideration than anything
To get 400 HRs, you can hit 20 for 20 years or 40 for 10 years. Which player is more worthy of being a Hall of Famer? In my mind, the HOF is for transcendent players that were game changers – feared sluggers, base stealers, defensive wizards, and pitchers you prayed you could make contact against. The guys who were simply above average for a long time do not belong in the HOF. Give me the dominators – even if their star didn’t burn very long.
Where do you find these players? The MVP and Cy Young ballot is the one place where the people of the day vote on who they think these people are. Can we really say by looking at a stat sheet years later what these people meant to the game?
No, the best people to listen to are the people who saw these players change the game with their skills and reputation. It doesn’t matter that the right player wins the MVP award every year for it to be relevant for this purpose. The right player WILL be somewhere in the top 5. Who can look at the players in the top 5 this year and not say those players are among the best?
If a player is voted to be in the top 5 or 10 or 20 players in the league over a long period of time, that person is HOF worthy.
If a person is being debated for the HOF and they were NOT voted as one of the top players in the league on a regular basis, then I think you have to be very skeptical that they somehow were one of those players.
The comparison of Al Oliver’s stats prove that pretty succinctly.
He was seen as a top 5 player 1 time, a top 10 player 3 times, and a top 20 player 10 times. Is that good enough to be in the HOF? That seems like he was very good, but not extremely dominant.
Rice was seen as a top 5 player 6 times, but only cracked the top 20 two other times. That seems like he dominated for over half a decade, which means he would be an iconic player of that era.
Parker was seen as a top 5 player 5 times, and a top 20 player 9 times. Same thing – an iconic dominant player of the era. HOF I say.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 17, 2009 1:28 PM EST up reply actions
I don't think you are getting my point
Why wouldn’t you just look at the mans numbers and see he hit 40 hrs for 8 years and 10 in the other 5? Why wouldn’t you just say yeah this pitcher had a 2.00 era for 10 years and 6 in the other 4? Why does amount of mvp votes have anything to do with it?
Maybe they got the voting right this year, but usually a few guys are off by 10-15 spots (if they played on winning team they go up, losing team they go down) or players have pretty much identical numbers and the more famous player or the guy on the winning team moves up the list.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml
Go back and look through the results and you will see what I mean. Yes, most are good players but I just don’t see why something so subjective is being used for the hall of fame.
And yeah, I’m not arguing if Parker is or isn’t worthy, just that you should use other criteria like actual numbers and such
Because
Rightly or wrongly…it’s the hall of FAME. If a player is more famous, they should be in the hall of FAME. MVP and CY Young voting shows how the people in the day thought about what the impact of those players was thought to be on their teams. This isn’t like Van Gogh, where we should say years later – “You kow…that guy really was great and we just didn’t see it at the time.”
by MarkInDallas on Dec 19, 2009 2:09 AM EST up reply actions
I'll agree with both of you
I wouldn’t make MVP voting my No. 1 criterion, but it is what it is: Evidence of what supposedly qualified observers believed about a ballplayer AT THE TIME. It’s a snapshot, rather than a broad canvas, but still useful, though I’d suggest it’s more useful in evaluating a player from 20-30 years ago than five years ago.
Here’s what I mean (and this isn’t very original, James in the first Historical Abstract used a guy named Johnny Bassler as his example):
Most guys who would place in the top five of MVP voting five times would have monster career numbers and be overwhelmingly qualified for the Hall anyway. You wouldn’t need to look all the way down to MVP voting to see this: It would be right there in the career stat line: 450 homers, 2,800 hits, that sort of thing. The MVP voting might provide a little kick to a line like that, but really, you probably wouldn’t need to look.
Now let’s say you were looking at the stats of a player from the 1970s who had a career line like this:
.260/.320/.450
I don’t have a player in mind, I just made up those numbers and tried to make them pretty mediocre.
And then you see that this guy was in the top five in MVP voting four times and top 10 three more times. What does that tell you?
It tells you that while you might not be able to see it in the stats, this guy was a hell of a ballplayer. As least a number of qualified observers watched him play an entire season, compared him with everyone else in the league and decided “This guy is among the five best players in his league.” Whatever it was he had that made them think that, short of collective psychosis, they thought he brought a lot more to the game than his stats. Kind of like how occasionally a Terry Pendleton or Kirk Gibson will win an MVP with modest stats, but extend a season like that to a career.
I would suggest that it’s reasonable to assume a player like that got yakked about endlessly on TV for all the “intangibles” he brought to the game (think David Eckstein) and that, at least for good fans of the game, this made him famous.
And, yeah, shouldn’t one of the top criteria for being in the Hall be that you’re, you know, famous?
There are lots of players in the Hall...
…who got in on a long record of consistently good performances, rather than a briefer period of transcendent success. A good example is the most forgotten Pirate Hall of Famer of them all, Jake Beckley. He had a 20-year career, with 18 years as a starter. As a first baseman (i.e. the least skilled defensive position) who spent his entire career in an eight-team league (i.e. a player pool with a limited number of competitors), he only once led his league in a significant offensive category (triples, in 1890), and even that gets a bit of an asterisk because it came in the Players’ League, which was a slightly weaker level of competition than the NL of the surrounding years. He only ranked among his league’s top 10 in OPS/OPS+ in four seasons. As an active player, he was never really in the conversation about the best 1B in baseball – that was Cap Anson or Roger Connor or Dan Brouthers. And yet despite that lack of a truly great peak, he provided a huge amount of value for his teams, delivering above-average performances every year from 1888 to 1905, just like clockwork.
Wanting a high peak for Hall of Famers is certainly a defensible position when putting together your own ballot, but it’s not a pattern that the Hall has followed in the past.
Yeah. I just don't agree they should be there.
If Jason Bay hits 30 HRs per year for 8 years and ends up with 425 HRs but never comes in higher than 7th in MVP voting (like this year) – is he a HOFer? I say no. He is a very good player, a consistent player, but not a dominant player.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 19, 2009 6:26 PM EST up reply actions
I'm leery of MVP voting as a proxy for greatness.
Look at Brian Giles. He’s not going to have the career length to make a good Hall case, but he clearly had a HOF-level peak. He ranked among his league’s top 10 in OPS+ six times… and finished in the top 10 of MVP voting exactly once. 2002 was particularly egregious – he played 153 games, finished second in the league (to Bonds) in OPS+ (including 38 HR), stole 15 bases at a 71% success rate, and played basically average defense per UZR. As a reward, he didn’t make the All-Star team, and he finished 13th in MVP voting.
If you give much credit to awards voting, you’re going to have an institutional bias in your system against great players from bad teams, since a large number of sportswriters discriminate against those kinds of players when casting their MVP ballots (because performances on losing teams have no “value”, don’t’chaknow?).
I Got
…a chance to talk to Al a couple of years ago and ask him about 3000 hits and the Hall of Fame.
Rough quote:
“Man, if I’d have got to DH I’d have got 3000 easy”. I know he ended up with the Rangers but don’t know how much or how long he might have gotten a chance to DH. I do know that he wasn’t the easiest guy in the world to get along with; re: the media, so I’m sure that does not help.
Damn "reply" failure
Oh, I’m not saying Al Oliver was as good as Dave Parker. That’s crazy talk. There’s Dave’s power, and the fact he was a much more formidable defensive player, and the fact he could run.
I’m saying you can’t just take those five bad years out of his career and treat them like they don’t exist. Those years have NEGATIVE value against his accomplishments, IMHO, because his “injury” in this case, if that’s what you want to think of it as, was self-inflcted. Besides everyone else, Dave let himself down, himself and his enormous talent. Al Oliver was a fair ballplayer, an excellent hitter. He was not Dave Parker’s equal. BUT I have never heard anyone accuse Al of squandering his talent, of pissing on the game, like Dave did. I have never heard anyone say Al Oliver didn’t give everything he had every time he stepped on the field. Dave Parker did not.
I’ve beaten this point to death, I might as well dig it up and beat it again: Parker, for better or worse, was a leader on those Pirates teams. He could have put a stop to the drug shenanigans if he wanted to, if he were a REAL leader. Instead he was one of the kingpins, and we’ll never know how many teammates their “leader” lured down the rathole of drugs with him. He disgraced himself, his team, his city and his game. He may be responsble at least in part for the atmosphere that eventually alllowed Rod Scurry to end up dead (I’m stretching, but only a bit, I think).
Put it this way: If I had to pick one or the other for my team tomorrow, I’m not sure which one I’d take. One is clearly a superior player, but if I had to assign a squadron of detectives to him to keep his nose clean and even then never be sure he wasn’t hustling dope IN MY FUCKING CLUBHOUSE and dragging his talent and his teammates down with him, I might conclude he’s not worth the trouble and take the guy who’s still a hell of a hitter. But if Al Oliver isn’t HoF worthy (and he isn’t) and I’m not sure I wouldn’t rather have him than Dave Parker, then Parker ain’t HoF worthy.
And don’t even get me started on that nitwit Tanner, who allowed an open drug market to flourish in the clubhouse. He has a lot to answer for too.
It just depends on how strictly you take the character clause and whether you feel it can be redeemed.
Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose…Those guys broke the cardinal rule in MLB. You cannot bet on baseball.
However, if that weren’t a cardinal baseball sin, those guys would be in.
He would have a LONG way to go, but what if Josh Hamilton somehow put together 5 top 5 MVP seasons now? He squandered a good bit of his talent too. He let himself and his team down. Now he’s atoning for it.
Barry Bonds is probably going to go into the HOF. What he did was 1000 times worse than what Parker did. Parker did not ruin the integrity of the game. He just ruined a few years for himself and teammates.
Very bad, yes. Unredeemable?
by MarkInDallas on Dec 16, 2009 8:10 PM EST up reply actions
refresh my memory...
Didn’t Rose state he never betted against his own team? If that’s the case I don’t see the fuss (unless he paid the other team to lose).
by BlindSquirrel on Dec 17, 2009 6:58 PM EST up reply actions
After first denying wagering at all (for years)
he suddenly came completely clean and made sure we all knew he never bet on his own team, cross his heart. I think he may have been crossing his fingers behind his back though.
In this I believe Rose
I believe Rose would never have bet against his own team. He says he bet them to win every night. Speculation is that if he DIDN’T bet on them, that would be tipping people off just the same as betting against them. Of course, the more serious thing is if players are allowing gambling to change the game. On this, I do not believe Rose would allow that. he was too much of a competitor, and I do believe he loved the game of baseball and would do anything to win at it.
None the less, there is a cardinal rule in MLB. No betting on baseball. Period.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 17, 2009 9:48 PM EST up reply actions
Well, for one...
…the knowledge that Rose WASN’T betting on his team to win on a particular day allows gamblers to exploit the knowledge of Rose’s lack of confidence to make particularly advantageous bets against the Reds. It looks bad for the game to have a manager give a virtual vote of no confidence in his team like that.
Also, having money on the Reds to win on a particular game also provided a financial incentive for Rose to maximize the team’s chances of winning that particular day, rather than maximizing the team’s chances of winning over the full season. Maybe Mario Soto is wearing out in the 6th, but Rose has him go an extra inning or two anyway because he doesn’t trust his middle relief and wants to lock down his $10k bet, and as a result Soto blows out his arm. Or the team’s out of the race and in a position where they should be looking at young players like Gary Redus, but Rose knows that veterans (who have little or no value to the organization going forward) give him a slightly better chance of winning that particular day, so the team’s young players rot on the bench.
Also also, allowing managers to bet to win on their own teams puts them in contact will all manner of scuzzy individuals, since sports betting is illegal outside of Vegas. Rose and his betting was getting mentioned all the time on FBI wiretaps of organized crime figures, who were trying to decide whether to break his knees over outstanding debts. Can you imagine how that would’ve tarnished the game’s reputation, if it had come to pass? And of course, he was also running his bets through his roommate at the time… who was a convicted steroid dealer. Pete has admitted to taking amphetamines – maybe his betting habit led him to the dealer, and then he started using other PEDs as well?
Also also also (and this is the biggest one of all), when a player accumulates a debt the size of Rose’s, he’s firmly in the control of the gamblers to whom he owes that money. At some point, they’re going to suggest that rather than paying off the debt, he work it off, by putting the fix in on a game (and letting them make more than the original debt in bets). Maybe Rose would’ve gone along with that kind of arrangement, and maybe he wouldn’t, but banning all association with gamblers and gambling is the only way to be sure that players won’t fall into that kind of trouble. It’s the hoof-and-mouth-disease solution.
Totally agreed.
Your last also is the reason why I say that Rose should be permanently banned from baseball. However, allowing him in the HOF is a separate issue, IMHO. Post-mortem induction should be done for the sake of keeping the HOF the ultimate place for the history of the game.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 19, 2009 6:17 PM EST up reply actions
It's also worth remembering:
There’s already an honest-to-goodness drug trafficker in the Hall of Fame. Orlando Cepeda, who tried to smuggle five pounds of pot into Puerto Rico. Drew a five-year sentence, served ten months.
If it were me
I would place Shoeless Joe and Pete in after their deaths. Players that were transcendent should be in for our sakes, not theirs. Also place the story of how the screwed up in their as well.
The HOF should be the ultimate place for baseball history and those that were important to the game.
by MarkInDallas on Dec 17, 2009 1:32 PM EST up reply actions
I like your
post-mortem induction idea.
That would be the only way I’d like to see Rose in the HOF.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 17, 2009 1:46 PM EST up reply actions
Pete should still be banned from baseball
They could even induct him while alive, but not allow him to attend the ceremony.
:-)
by MarkInDallas on Dec 17, 2009 4:03 PM EST up reply actions
I tend to lean more toward
this, after all.
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 17, 2009 11:26 PM EST up reply actions
If, God forbid, they ever put either of those guys in the Hall...
…they should write in huge letters at the top of the plaques that they were banned for life for betting on baseball.
Maybe it should even be the only thing on the plaque.
Technically...
Jackson is banned for receiving a bribe to throw the World Series, not for betting. I’m not saying this is a lesser offense, but it is different enough that I think the distinction should be made.
You're right
…and how many are in that weren’t caught or convicted, y’know?
Free your ass and your mind will follow.
by cocktailsfor2 on Dec 17, 2009 1:45 PM EST up reply actions
You Should Have Declined to Reveal MM's Name
I actually guessed Al Oliver, but no one will believe me since the name was in the post. It made sense as he was one of the few greats from the 70s whose name came to mind. He was a great outfielder and probably would’ve have set the standard for Pirates outfielders vis-a-vis defense if not for Roberto.
Just found someone else
entering the Hall of Fame this year….
For those of you way, way too young to remember this evil, Satanic-inspired, group whose music is right up there with Air Supply and the Village People, its ABBA
Sorry, I don't recognize them and I don't know what Abba is.
What did they do exactly?
by IAPiratesFan on Dec 18, 2009 9:21 PM EST up reply actions
NetFlix "Mama Mia"
Listen to the songs for as long as you can stand it.
ABBA in, KISS out
Which is why the RnRHoF has no real relevance. It does not really exist to honor the greats of rock and roll. It exists to put on a concert once a year to support itself and to remind potential tourists to come spend their money at the Hall.
Hmmm … sounds a lot like Cooperstown, acyually.
I like the RRHOF, actually.
Just seeing Les Paul’s first guitar was worth the price of admission for me.
But you’re right about the actuall Hall itself being one of the least impressive/important parts of the whole deal.
I meant the Hall concept
rather than the collection of artifacts. One of the RnR Hall’s huge problems is that there have to be five new inductees every year, so that they can put on the concert, and I’m here to tell you there aren’t five worthy inductees every year. So they end up inducting sidemen and backup singers and other people who were likely famous only among other musicians, if at all. I’m not saying that to denigrate the work of session muscians and the like, there SHOULD be a place of honor for those folks, but really, if you’re going to call it a Hall of Fame, shouldn’t all the inductees be at least remotely famous among the music-buying public? Does some horn player in the Stax house band really deserve to stand side by side with, I dunno, John Lennon?
I’ve been to the RnR Hall, once, and it struck me as kind of cold and bloodless. I get no visceral feeling from looking at David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust costume on a mannequin. Rock and roll is and should always be a punch in the gut, and I didn’t get anything remotely like that from the Hall. Rock under glass just struck me as … sad and pointless. Really, it should have been aiming for something more like being the ultimate Hard Rock Cafe.
Yep.
They started with too large of classes, and as a result they’ve gotten themselves into a real pickle.
They could’ve just as easily named one band a year, and then held a concert with that band (if they were still around) and four other famous bands who were fans of the first band and wanted to honor them. Like a testimonial or a tribute concert, y’know? I’m sure guys like Clapton or Robert Plant or Keith Richards would’ve come out to help honor Robert Johnson and talk about how much his music meant to them, even if they themselves weren’t being inducted.
A pickle indeed.
I don’t usually let myself get dragged into Hall of Fame arguments because really, as absurd as it sounds here having spent thousands of words discussing the merits of Dave Parker and Al Oliver, I just don’t care who’s in and who’s out. Doesn’t really matter to me. I made up my mind some time ago that I have no interest in ever going to the Baseball Hall (if I go to Cooperstown it will be to the Ommegang brewery).
But I have to admit that it seems like the Hall voters (both the BBWAA and the Vets) have done a much better job lately of turning down the spigot on the number of players who flow into the Hall. Seems like now we get one or two from the BBWAA, maybe one or two players from the Vets and a handful of behind-the-scenes guys. (The Vets now meet every two years, right?) The last real absurdity I recall was when a batch of Negro Leagues players went in and I hadn’t heard of half of them, although I’ve read a fair amount of the available literature about the Negro Leagues.
The Rock Hall eventually will have to take the same limiting approach or it will end up inducting the equivalent of backup shortstops and pinch hitters. It has already had to greatly expand the definition of “rock” just to find five inductees every year. I mean, come on. ABBA falls under nobody’s definition of “rock and roll” music, does it? You know Madonna’s going in on first ballot. Is that rock? Doo-wop and soul and other subgenres — is that what you generally think of when I say “rock and roll,” or is it the Stones and AC/DC? I know the lines blur some but … if they want to have a Doo-Wop Hall of Fame or a Pop Hall of Fame or a Soul Hall of Fame, I’m fine with that. A Rock and Roll HoF ought to be about rock and roll, or it makes no more sense than putting people who aren’t famous into a hall of fame.
None of the Negro league players in that big batch...
…were too bad of selections, IMO, and some had been very notable omissions up until that point (Biz Mackey, Cristobal Torriente, Boojum Wilson, etc.) Some of the executive/owner/manager selections were more questionable, particularly Effa Manley, but since the Hall has been all over the place on the standards for non-players (Bowie Kuhn? Abner Doubleday? Tom Yawkey?), that’s hardly surprising.
On matters related to the Negro Leagues, The Hall of Merit is a good sanity check. They talked over the cases on a lot of those guys in pretty agonizing detail (for example, here’s the link to the discussion for Andy Cooper, whom they did not select – the general conclusion was that he was still pretty good, though).
I think that the Rock Hall needed to take action some time ago, and they’re pretty much cooked by now. There isn’t any easy way out of their current predicament.
I'll bow to people
who did the research on the Negro Leagues players. I only meant that I’ve read “Only the Ball Was White” and bios of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige and assorted essays and bits of other books and do not recall many of those names being mentioned. I’ll grant that my memory may be faulty or that some of these guys may not have played in the same era or whatever, which could account for the discrepancy.
BTW, I’ve read enough to think that a joint biography of Greenlee and Posey would be a great idea, from a “life and times” perspective. They were not only prominent men in Pittsburgh sports of the 1930s but nationwide, and also (mostly in the case of Greenlee) just prominent period. The two seem to present such a contrast as people too, one dour and serious, the other flamboyant and flashy. The kind of stuff that gets fictionalized all the time, but these were real people, shrewd businesmen competing for championships just a few miles from each other, scheming to hire away from each other the greatest black ballplayers of the day.
I tried to sell the P-G’s Tony Norman and a few other people on the idea, while any first-hand acquaintances might still be alive for interviews, but I don’t detect any interest. Too bad, really.
Only the Ball Was White is a good one.
My copy of Riley’s Biographical Encyclopedia gets a lot of lap time – I think it’s propably the best general reference work on the subject. I also recommend Holway’s “Blackball Stars”. And a lot of the personal narratives are also quite good (Buck O’Neil’s, Quincy Trouppe’s, etc.).
In case we have any Strat players in the thread, they just came out with a new set of Negro League cards.
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