I was originally planning on doing a Women's World Cup breakdown today. But I'm putting that off until my next post. Because it's just too difficult to ignore yesterday's shocking Baseball Hall of Fame election. The election in which Harold Baines, who never got more than six percent from the writers, was voted into Cooperstown.
To say his election was shocking is an understatement. In fact, there are a whole slew of adjectives that could be used to be describe the surprising news. "Controversial" is another popular one. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. There's not a single person (except for maybe the 16 in the room) who expected to hear Harold Baines' name when they made the announcement.
At best, Baines has been viewed as a borderline candidate ever since he retired. MLB Network's Brian Kenny has a show where he makes a Cooperstown Case for players he thinks are deserving and being overlooked. He's never done an episode on Harold Baines. Because very few people gave Baines any chance of ever being elected. Especially when there are so many players who you would consider Hall of Famers before him.
This certainly helps the candidacy of someone like Fred McGriff, another borderline candidate who many feel has a stronger resume than Baines. And, if Harold Baines can eventually get elected, does that mean players like Bernie Williams and Andruw Jones and Gary Sheffield will, too? Frankly, I don't think any of them are Hall of Famers. But, frankly, I don't think Harold Baines is, either.
The Hall of Fame honors the top one percent of all those who've ever played the game. It's the elite of the elite. Is Harold Baines part of that one percent? Sadly, no. Or, to put it a different way...would the Hall of Fame feel incomplete without him there? It certainly would not.
Harold Baines was a very good player for a long time. But he was never among the very best players. Yes, he was a consistent hitter who lasted 22 years. But the Hall of Fame is not a place for the consistently good. It's a place for the consistently great.
And, sorry, but I have an issue with a Hall of Fame that includes Harold Baines but not the far superior Dale Murphy (or even Steve Garvey, a player I strongly believe belongs in Cooperstown). Or, for that matter, a Hall of Fame that includes Harold Baines and not Marvin Miller, the man who literally changed the game in the 70s.
Let's not forget, too, that while Ron Blomberg will forever be the first DH, Baines is perhaps the very first full-time DH. He started off as an outfielder, but his knees became so bad so early in his career that he was limited to strictly hitting for the majority of his career. I'm not saying that to discredit DH as a position. I think you know me well enough to know that's not the case at all. However, I do think that DHing is precisely why Baines was able to play for 22 years. And playing for 22 years helped Baines accumulate numbers that included 2866 hits and 384 home runs.
Those numbers are literally his ONLY case for the Hall of Fame. And I'm sure the argument was made that he would've reached 3000 hits if not for the 1981 and 1994 strikes. Although, when ranking him on the list of all-time DH's, he's no higher than a distant third behind Edgar Martinez and David Ortiz. Fourth if you count Frank Thomas as a DH instead of a first baseman.
Well, that's not completely true. Baines had some friends on the committee, which undoubtedly helped him get in. There were 16 committee members. That group included Jerry Reinsdorf, the White Sox owner who drafted him No. 1 overall; Tony La Russa, his first manager; and Pat Gillick, the Orioles GM who traded for him during Baltimore's playoff run in 1997. That's three of the 12 votes he needed. And there's no doubt they were able to influence nine others.
Cronyism has, unfortunately, always been a part of the Veterans' Committee. That's how Bill Mazeroski got in. Although, Mazeroski at least had his signature moment with his walk-off home run against the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. Baines, however, has no such signature moment. His biggest claim to fame is being traded at the deadline a lot because good American League teams wanted his bat down the stretch. Sorry, that's not enough to make a guy a Hall of Famer in my book.
His election sets a bad precedent, too. Because if Harold Baines is in the Hall of Fame, how can you argue that Paul O'Neill or Jim Edmonds or even Kenny Lofton shouldn't be? I'd even go so far as to ask how you can make a case for him over Joe Carter, Will Clark or Albert Belle, the three other hitters who were on the same Today's Game Era ballot on which Baines was voted in.
Which isn't to say any of those players is a Hall of Famer. There's a reason why none of them are. They're all borderline candidates. Yet I'd rank every one of them ahead of Harold Baines. And Baines' election lowers the standard by which those players are measured, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Lee Smith was also elected to the Hall of Fame on Sunday night. Unanimously. His election brings no such controversy. Once he moved from the writers' vote to the Veterans' Committee, it seemed inevitable that Smith would eventually get in. But Harold Baines joining him in Cooperstown. That was definitely a surprise. And not necessarily a good one. (Although, if Edgar Martinez gets voted in by the writers, it could be fun to see the purists' heads explode when the Hall of Fame class consists of two closers and two DHs.)
No comments:
Post a Comment