Hey all, sorry for the absence of a new nerd this morning. The Internet was down at work, prohibiting me from accessing the online nerd database. I was planning on posting when I got home, and then the McGwire “story” happened.
Posts Tagged ‘Hall of Fame’
Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn
Thursday, January 7th, 2010 by I Love Nerd York CityI was planning on a post congratulating Barry Larkin and Roberto Alomar on becoming the newest first-ballot-hall-of-famers, and Bert Blyleven on finally getting the call. Whoops.
Anyway, here’s the nerdiest card from a hall-of-famer that I could find through a very quick google image search.
Click the stars to vote: 
(18 votes, average: 3.28 out of 5)
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Thanks to Night Owl Cards for this image.
1933 Goudey: Earle Combs
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 by Nerdicus Finch
From the back of the card: “He used to be the ball maker for his baseball team as a boy, but used to lose most of the balls by hitting home runs.”
Known as “The Kentucky Colonel,” Earle Combs (Goudey incorrectly spells his first name “Earl” – such errors were common in old-timey baseball cards and are not considered error cards) is the first Hall of Famer card that I have acquired from the 1933 Goudey set. He really shouldn’t be in the HOF, though. But that’s not a knock on Combs, who was an excellent player over 12 seasons with the New York Yankees.
As the Yankees center fielder from 1924-1935, Combs compiled a career line of .325/.397/.462, which equates to a career OPS+ of 126. These are great numbers, but not really HOF-worthy, in my opinion, especially when compiled over less than 150o career games. He was elected to the HOF in 1970 by the Veteran’s Committee, which is notorious for having elected many very good, but not great, players from the pre-war era.
Over his career, Combs played in four World Series, of which the Yankees won three; Combs hit .350/.444/.450 in 16 career World Series games.
At age 28, Combs batted leadoff and played center field for the famous “Murderer’s Row” 1927 Yankees team that went 110-44 and swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. That season, he batted .356, led the league with 231 hits and scored 137 runs. That tends to happen when Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig are batting behind you.
He retired at age 36 after suffering a near-death injury crashing into the outfield wall in 1934, in which he fractured his skull. His 1935 attempted comeback season was cut short by another injury and he retired, paving the way for Joe DiMaggio, who would take over center field duties in 1936. He remained a coach in the major leagues for the next 18 years.
1933 Goudey: Hugh Critz
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 by Nerdicus Finch
From the back of the card: “Although he doesn’t hit .300 very often, he gets a lot of hits.”
Actually, Hughie Critz only hit .300 or better once, in his 1924 rookie season with the Cincinnati Reds, when he hit .322 in 102 games. That was also the only season in which he posted an OPS+ over 100. It was all downhill from there. Critz appeared in almost 1500 games in a 12 year career, as a second basemen for the Reds and New York Giants, posting a career OPS+ of 73. Somehow, he placed in the top 5 in MVP voting twice (2nd in 1926 and 4th in 1928).
In 1933, the year in which this card was issued, Critz was a member of the World Series champion Giants, who beat the Washington Senators in 5 games. That 1933 Giants team featured future Hall of Famers Bill Terry, Mel Ott, Travis Jackson, and Carl Hubbell, as well as some guy named Jo-Jo Moore.
Jim Rice Still Carrying Torch for “Good Old Days”
Friday, August 21st, 2009 by Nerdicus FinchRob Neyer already raked Jim Rice over the coals for this, but I don’t think adding a few comments of my own would be piling on. As reported by the Associated Press, Jim Rice, as part of a promotion for Allstate Insurance Co. (Full Disclosure Alert: they currently insure my car), recently spoke to a group of Little Leaguers in Williamsport, Pa. Here are some excerpts from the story:
“You see a Manny Ramirez, you see an A-Rod (Alex Rodriguez), you see (Derek) Jeter … Guys that I played against and with, these guys you’re talking about cannot compare,” Rice said to Little Leaguers gathered in the cafeteria.
Stay classy, Jim. Somehow you got into the Hall of Fame and, just a few weeks later, you feel the need to crap all over today’s stars. What an ambassador for the game.
What’s also funny, Jim, is that you can compare the players from your era with those from the modern era. There are statistics for that. I won’t discuss Manny Ramirez or A-Rod because of the steroid issue (and it’s clear that Rice has adopted a holier-than-thou attitude on that subject), so let’s focus on Derek Jeter. I’d love to hear from Rice regarding which shortstops from his era were better hitters than Jeter. I don’t think Rice played with Arky Vaughan or Honus Wagner, so he probably won’t be able to come up with any.
“We didn’t have the baggy uniforms. We didn’t have the dreadlocks,” Rice said. “It was a clean game, and now they’re setting a bad example for the young guys.”
Asked later at a news conference to list current players worthy of the Hall, Rice suggested Seattle Mariner outfielders Ichiro Suzuki and Ken Griffey, Jr., and Chicago White Sox slugger Jim Thome.
Really? That’s the best list that he could come up with? I agree that all three belong in the Hall of Fame, but aren’t there a few really obvious candidates out there? Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez, Mariano Rivera, Albert Pujols, Ivan Rodriguez, to name a few.
He said he believes current Hall of Famers who did not cheat don’t want players who took performance-enhancing drugs to join them in the Hall.
Flexing the muscles in his right arm, Rice said, “That’s all the steroids you need. … It’s called God-given talent.”
What a piece of work. I guess Rice is feeling a little cocky due to his recent HOF election, which is still a mystery to me. I know that there is a lot of disagreement on this, but, in my opinion, Rice is not a HOF caliber player. He was a very good player, but not worthy of Cooperstown. Things are going to get awkward over the next few years when the baseball writers realize they elected Rice, but don’t want to elect Fred McGriff or Moises Alou. I guess McGriff and Alou weren’t as “feared” as Rice.
The last sentence of the article sheds some light on the interest level in Rice’s perspective. It reads like a little bit of an eff you from the AP writer:
He got a standing ovation from players and coaches, though some of the 11- to 13-year-old players were yawning or had their heads in their arms on the table about 15 minutes into the talk.
Sounds like your speech was a real showstopper, Jim. If it were Manny, A-Rod, or Jeter doing the talking, I doubt any of the Little Leaguers would have been daydreaming.
New Hall of Fame Criteria: Be a Culture-Changer
Friday, May 8th, 2009 by Nerdicus FinchThe general know-nothingness of ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd has been well-documented elsewhere. Fire Joe Morgan destroyed Cowherd in legendary fashion back in 2006, so I’m not going to spend much time ripping the guy in general terms since it’s been done so thoroughly in the past and in a much funnier way than I could ever manage.
I did want to note something that I heard Cowherd say this afternoon, however. While running some errands during lunch today, I had the misfortune of catching a few minutes of Cowherd’s radio show (by the way, ESPN Radio really screwed the pooch when they sent Max Kellerman packing; he used to have a show for the New York market during Cowherd’s time slot and he was surprisingly funny, interesting, and well-informed).
Anyway, Cowherd was discussing how important Curt Schilling and Manny were to the 2004 Red Sox because they “changed the culture” of the team. Their attitudes, Cowherd argued, made the Red Sox no longer fear the Yankees and gave them the confidence to beat them and become champions. He then said (and I’m paraphrasing): “To me, that’s what makes Schilling a Hall of Famer, even more than his 11-2 postseason record. He changed the culture of the Red Sox.”
So let me get this straight. Here is Cowherd’s list of Schilling’s Hall of Fame credentials, in order of importance:
- Changed culture of 2004 Red Sox.
- 11-2 postseason record.
- Everything else he ever did (127 career ERA+, 3116 Ks, 216 wins, 1.137 career WHIP, etc.)
That makes sense, right?
These Are Your Hall of Fame Voters…
Friday, January 30th, 2009 by Nerdicus FinchI was watching “Yankees Hot Stove” on the YES Network today (I think it was a repeat from sometime this week) and the topic of the suprising continuing free agency of certain players came up. One of the panelists, George King, the Yankee beat writer from the New York Post a Yankee beat writer from one of the New York papers (I forget his name, but it wasn’t Jack Curry of the New York Times, who was also on the panel) spoke about Bobby Abreu. He expressed how shocked he was that a player of Abreu’s caliber could not get a job and finished his comments by saying (I am paraphrasing): “I’d rather have Abreu than Manny Ramirez.”
This statement was not qualified by any mention of the relative costs of the two players, so I am pretty sure that he meant, if he could choose either player, regardless of cost, that he would rather have Abreu on his team than Manny Ramirez. Both are horrible defenders, so the comparison should be based purely on the offensive value of the two players. And, as I Love Nerd York City noted in a recent post, Ramirez absolutely destroyed the ball in 2008, which was apparently also the season in which he gave up on his teammates and cemented his “bad teammate” reputation. Specifically, Ramirez posted a 1.031 OPS in 2008, as compared to Abreu’s respectable, but unspectacular, .842.
This is just another example of Ramirez’s “bad teammate” label making the mainstream sports media forget that they are talking about one of the greatest hitters of all time. And these are the people who vote for the Hall of Fame and MVP awards. No wonder they so often get it wrong (Jim Rice, Tim Raines, and the frightening number of votes for Jack Morris, to name a few).
