Terry Pluto, sportwriter extraordinaire, accomplished author and genuinely nice guy, wrote an article for Sunday's Beacon Journal taking to task the few Hall of Fame voters who left Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn off their ballots in the first year of eligibility for both players. Here's what Pluto had to say in his article, "Omissions Inexcusable":
I'd like to know who didn't vote for Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken for the Hall of Fame.It doesn't matter that Willie Mays, Hank Aaron or any other great failed to receive 100 percent of the Hall of Fame votes. The people who didn't vote for those guys were just stuck on stupid when it comes to the honor of voting for the Hall of Fame.
Among a few writers is the belief that no player deserves every vote on the first ballot, so they refuse to vote for anyone such as Ripken or Gwynn who is obviously going into the Hall of Fame.
Look, either a guy belongs, or he doesn't.
If you're not sure -- as I was about Mark McGwire -- you can leave him off for a year to consider the situation.
But there are no questions about Gywnn (.338 lifetime average in 20 years) and Ripken (the new Lou Gehrig, 431 home runs, 3,184 hits), who represent the best of the game from performance to attitude.
There were 545 Hall of Fame ballots. All but eight voters picked Ripken, and 13 left off Gwynn. I don't want to hear why: No excuses.
As Lee Corso would say, "Not so fast, my friend."
According to Terry, the year (or more) he grants himself to give more thought to the McGwire nomination is not an option for a voter who is "not sure" about Cal Ripken. There can be no excuse for being unsure about the first-ballot Hall of Fame merits of Ripken. And Terry doesn't "want to hear why."
He had to know someone would just have to tell him why.
Now, I am a charter member of the Terry Pluto Fan Club (see above), and of course, I have no Hall of Fame voting privileges. But I'm not sure about Cal Ripken, and I can understand how some voters might be similarly conflicted about him, certainly about his status as a lead pipe cinch, no-brainer, first-ballot Hall of Famer.
Because Cal Ripken, in my opinion, is emblematic of a recent trend in voting for the various Halls of Fame. It seems induction used to be reserved for truly "great" players, whereas these days it can suffice to have simply been "very good", but for a very long time. And Cal Ripken is the poster boy for that trend.
Consider:
Cal Ripken had a lifetime batting average of .276.
There is a certain shortstop who will probably get into Cooperstown mostly on the merits of his glove, but whose detractors point to his lack of offensive prowess as a mark against his candidacy, calling him "light-hitting". His 18-year career batting average is .276.
Reaching the 3000 hit plateau is generally thought to be the automatic door-opener for Cooperstown, and Ripken amassed 3184 hits in his fine career. There is one number, however, which mitigates this automatic Hall of Fame trigger. That of course, is .276.
Because Ripken also amassed 11,551 career at-bats, hence the relatively low (for a Hall of Famer) batting average. By contrast, Tony Gwynn had a similar career hit total (3141), but accomplished that feat in 9288 at-bats. In other words, with "Iron Man" Cal averaging a whopping 570 at-bats per 162 game season, it took him four full 570 at-bat seasons longer than Tony Gwynn, to achieve approximately the same hit total. (By the way, I have no similar reservations about Gwynn, who was arguably one of the top three or four pure hitters who ever walked the planet.)
Ripken also had 431 home runs, a very respectable number, although 500 is generally considered the total that assures HOF status. But here again, as admirable as his longevity was, it also qualifies the home run total somewhat. Ripken homered once every 27.8 at-bats. I checked the ratio for some of the other players around him in the all time career home run rankings for comparison purposes. Mike Piazza (419 HR, 15.7 AB per HR), Billy Williams (426, 21.9), Juan Gonzalez (434, 15.1), Darrell Evans (414, 21.6). Very good. Long time.
So Cal Ripken averaged a .276 batting average, with 21 home runs and 84 RBI over his 20 full big-league seasons. Those are very good numbers, especially when you consider the remarkable length of his career. They are not, however, numbers that scream out "Cooperstown" just to look at them. They are solid, steady numbers. Good, not great numbers.
Cal Ripken was an above average defensive player. He was extremely reliable, but did not have the best range. He was one of the first of a new breed of exceptionally big men who were coming to play the shortstop position. While his team gained something in offensive punch from the position, they gave up a little in defensive range as well. That said, if there were two outs in the ninth, and I were an Orioles fan, I would want the ball hit to Ripken. Steady.
And "steady" is really what it's all about. "Iron Man" Cal Ripken showed up every day to play. His career was "made" by virtue of The Streak more than it was made by his greatness on the field. If Cal Ripken had sprained a thumb in say, 1985, and missed a couple of games, and if he had then had the misfortune to come down with the flu in say, 1991, and missed another game or two, it would not have appreciably changed his career statistics or performance. And yet, without the streak record, I daresay we would not have had the near unanimity on him as a first-ballot Hall of Famer.
He broke one of the most romanticized baseball records of all time, the great Lou Gehrig's consecutive game streak. In another time and place, he would be Saint Cal by now, or at the very least, a knight. I am not among those people who have criticized Ripken as selfish for maintaining the streak, perhaps to the detriment of his team, by playing when he was hurt or fatigued or slumping, when most players would sit down or be benched by their manager. I have nothing but admiration for the guy. You have to first be good enough to be penciled in as a starter every game for 2632 in a row in order to achieve what he achieved, although it did take a bunch of good fortune just to stay healthy enough to do it. But there is a case to be made that while the streak helped make him a baseball icon personally, the positive effects for his team of his playing every game without a break may well have been partially counteracted by the negatives.
And the consecutive game streak has to be the most overhyped record of all time anyway. For starters, it doesn't involve anything that happens "between the lines" other than trotting out to the field in the first inning (or for that matter, pinch-running in the eighth.) Had the record been held by John Altobelli instead of the revered Lou Gehrig, whose tragic death touched millions of fans, breaking it would not have elicited much more than a few stifled yawns.
I know, there are lots of intangibles that go into what gets a player into the Hall. I believe that Cal Ripken possessed many of those intangibles in large quantities. Leadership, clutch play, dependability, consistency, were all hallmarks of his career. If I did have a vote, those attributes might very well put me over the top to vote for Ripken on the first ballot myself.
But the bottom line is that lots of ballplayers have demonstrated those qualities in the course of their careers, without making it into the Hall of Fame. Vern Fuller might have had wonderful attributes of leadership, and consistency and dependability. He might even have suited up for thousands of games in a row without anyone much noticing.
In case this long ramble is at all unclear (how could that be?), I am not saying that Cal Ripken doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. What I am saying is that if eight voters out of 545 opted to leave him off of their ballots, there is a valid case to be made for doing so, and the fact of their disagreement with the estimable Mr. Pluto doesn't make their action inexcusable. It just means they disagree.
Posted by dan at January 16, 2007 10:11 PM