Quiz – Love Conquers WAR (solved)

Below is a list of noteworthy players of the past half-century. Among all players to play their entire careers since 1961, what is the common trait shared only by these players?

Player Count HOF Teammates
Gaylord Perry 17 Willie Mays / Willie McCovey / Orlando Cepeda / Juan Marichal / Warren Spahn / Duke Snider / Dennis Eckersley / Frank Robinson / Bert Blyleven / Fergie Jenkins / Dave Winfield / Ozzie Smith / Rollie Fingers / Reggie Jackson / Rich Gossage / Phil Niekro / George Brett
Tony Perez 13 Frank Robinson / Johnny Bench / Joe Morgan / Gary Carter / Andre Dawson / Carl Yastrzemski / Jim Rice / Wade Boggs / Carlton Fisk / Dennis Eckersley / Mike Schmidt / Steve Carlton / Barry Larkin
Rich Gossage 12 Ron Santo / Willie Stargell / Dave Winfield / Reggie Jackson / Gaylord Perry / Catfish Hunter / Tony Gwynn / Ryne Sandberg / Andre Dawson / Rickey Henderson / Nolan Ryan / Dennis Eckersley
Dave Winfield 12 Ozzie Smith / Rollie Fingers / Gaylord Perry / Willie McCovey / Rickey Henderson / Reggie Jackson / Phil Niekro / Rich Gossage / Bert Blyleven / Roberto Alomar / Kirby Puckett / Eddie Murray
Steve Carlton 12 Lou Brock / Orlando Cepeda / Bob Gibson / Mike Schmidt / Joe Morgan / Tony Perez / Ryne Sandberg / Carlton Fisk / Tom Seaver / Phil Niekro / Kirby Puckett / Bert Blyleven
Dennis Eckersley 12 Frank Robinson / Gaylord Perry / Rickey Henderson / Carl Yastrzemski / Carlton Fisk / Wade Boggs / Tony Perez / Jim Rice / Ryne Sandberg / Rich Gossage / Ozzie Smith / Reggie Jackson
Don Sutton 12 Frank Robinson / Juan Marichal / Hoyt Wilhelm / Jim Bunning / Don Drysdale / Sandy Koufax / Nolan Ryan / Robin Yount / Paul Molitor / Rollie Fingers / Reggie Jackson / Rod Carew
Reggie Jackson 12 Rollie Fingers / Catfish Hunter / Billy Williams / Orlando Cepeda / Brooks Robinson / Jim Palmer / Dave Winfield / Rich Gossage / Gaylord Perry / Rod Carew / Don Sutton / Dennis Eckersley
Fergie Jenkins 11 Jim Bunning / Ron Santo / Billy Williams / Ernie Banks / Robin Roberts / Hoyt Wilhelm / Gaylord Perry / Carlton Fisk / Carl Yastrzemski / Jim Rice / Ryne Sandberg
Rollie Fingers 11 Reggie Jackson / Catfish Hunter / Billy Williams / Orlando Cepeda / Willie McCovey / Dave Winfield / Ozzie Smith / Gaylord Perry / Robin Yount / Paul Molitor / Don Sutton
Carlton Fisk 10 Carl Yastrzemski / Jim Rice / Juan Marichal / Orlando Cepeda / Luis Aparicio / Tony Perez / Dennis Eckersley / Fergie Jenkins / Tom Seaver / Steve Carlton
Joe Morgan 10 Nellie Fox / Eddie Mathews / Robin Roberts / Johnny Bench / Tony Perez / Tom Seaver / Nolan Ryan / Mike Schmidt / Steve Carlton / Rickey Henderson
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 3/11/2013.

Hint: the common trait is a career “accomplishment”.

Congratulations to Ed and Birtelcom! They teamed up to identify these players as the HOFers to player their entire careers since 1961 and who played with 10 or more other HOF teammates. Tops on this list is Gaylord Perry with 17 HOF teammates, approaching half of the 41 HOFers from this period.

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Chuck
Chuck
11 years ago

They’re all Hall of Famers?

Josh
Josh
11 years ago

All of them are HOFers, and based on the title of the quiz, I assume the accomplishment is related to WAR. But I am still investigating.

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
11 years ago

They’re all from roughly the same time period…

RJ
RJ
11 years ago

Random thought based on no investigation except the title of the quiz: is the team that they represent in the Hall of Fame different to the one that they posted their best WAR season with?

RJ
RJ
11 years ago
Reply to  RJ

Probably not. But there aren’t any one-team guys here.

qx
qx
11 years ago

Hall of Famers whose defensive WAR (I don’t know the proper terminology) is exactly 0

qx
qx
11 years ago
Reply to  qx

Career defensive WAR, that is.

qx
qx
11 years ago
Reply to  qx

And I have no clue how to search for this, it’s just a shot in the dark. But no one here strikes me as someone I think of as a really good or bad fielder

RJ
RJ
11 years ago
Reply to  qx

If you scroll down to Player Value on a a player’s baseball reference page you can see their oWAR and dWAR totals. Dave Winfield, for example, is at -23.7, whereas Carlton Fisk has 16.3.

qx
qx
11 years ago
Reply to  RJ

That kills my theory. Thanks for the tip though!

RJ
RJ
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

All have more career WAR than noted beanpole, Slim Love? Ah, but then that would be ‘WAR conquers Love’.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/lovesl01.shtml

qx
qx
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Is the “love” part perhaps refering to something about the number 0?

bstar
11 years ago

Can’t get anywhere on this one.

I thought I was onto something with maybe these were the only Hall players since 1961 who had played for four teams or more, but Fisk blows that theory. And I’m sure there’s many more out there.

It can’t be a postseason feat because of poor ol’ Fergie.

Now I can’t even come up with a good guess.

Josh
Josh
11 years ago

I thought love might have something to do with staying with the same team, such as times becoming a free agent.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Taking “fraternity” as a hint….I was thinking that it might have something to do with being teammates. I had to put together a spreadsheet but everyone of these players, played with fellow HOFers on multiple teams. For example: During his time with the Phillies, Carlton was teammates with both Perez and Morgan. And he was also teammates with Fisk on the White Sox. Fisk, as I mentioned was teammates with Carlton on the White Sox. And when he was with the Red Sox, he played with Eck, Perez, and Jenkins. Jenkins overlapped with Fisk on the Red Sox and with… Read more »

birtelcom
birtelcom
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

Ed: I was following the same clue in the the same direction. Sutter and Larkin, who Doug mentions as furthest from making the list, played with only one fellow HOF inductee — Larkin very briefly with Tony Perez and Sutter with Ozzie.

RJ
RJ
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Whilst chasing up a blind alley looking for the answer yesterday, I was perusing Barry Larkin’s HoF induction speech and he had a lot of love for Tony Perez. More impressively he busted out into Spanish at one point to thank the Latin American players that inspired him and that he played with, specifically regretting not getting the chance to play with Roberto Alomar. Maybe he was just pining for more Hall of Fame-calibre players to play with!

Mike HBC
Mike HBC
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

GAH! I was reading/investigating JUST as you gave this hint, and I thought to myself, “It’s definitely gotta be the HoFers who played with the most other HoFers,” especially after realizing Larkin and Sutter had only played with one each… but I couldn’t and/or didn’t have the patience to prove it, so I didn’t speak up. I’ve never solved a quiz before! As usual, a fun, fun trivia hunt.

I’ll get you next time, High Heat. Neeeeeeeeext tiiiiiiiiiiiiime. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2_cJxYYhM)

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago

The word accomplishment is in quotes so I guess something unusual is involved. Does it concern being married to the same woman for a specified period of time?

John Nacca
John Nacca
11 years ago

This is probably way out of left field….but….does it have to do with the players highest WAR season in a year they DIDN’T win some sort of award (meaning the voters showed them “love” even though they weren’t the best WAR player, much like Trout vs. Cabrera this year)?

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago

I noticed that the players on the list are listed in order of franchises played for in descending order.

Josh
Josh
11 years ago

Fisk only played for 2 franchises, less than Sutter, so if that is part of it, it can’t be all of it.

What about having faced both of a set of brothers during their career. I am not exactly sure how one would check that, but based on the fraternity clue, it seems like something that would make sense.

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  Josh

Although Fisk played for only two franchises, he was teammates with 10 different Hall of Famers (according to my count), a large number, especially compared to guys like Sutter and Larkin.

John Nacca
John Nacca
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

Hmmm…might all those HOFers have a greater WAR value then Fisk?

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

So HOFers who played with 10+ other HOFers?

Ed
Ed
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

I’ll take 5-10% of the credit at most. Birtelcom deserves most of it!

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

– Hoyt Wilhelm
– Orlando Cepeda

They would need to play for a number of (good) teams.

A weakness of checking yearly team rosters is that for partial seasons, the player in question may not have been on the team at the same time as the HOFer.

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
11 years ago
Reply to  Lawrence Azrin

#34/Doug,

What do I win, he ha?

An interesring coincidence is that they were both on the 1969 Braves.

I remember The Baby Bull very well on the ’73 Red Sox- he could still hit well, but not run at all. Every one of those 25 doubles were doubles of “the bat”. Too bad his knees gave out completely – as a DH, he might’ve played into his early 40s.

no statistician but
no statistician but
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Interestingly enough, in spite of the select company they kept, Perry and Wilhelm each appeared on only one playoff team.

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago

It will be forever one of the sadder baseball stories that the Giants had Mays, McCovey, Marichal and Perry together for ten years running, 1962-1971, but in terms of post-season had only one lost WS and one lost NLCS to show for it. SF had the best regular season record in the NL, by a substantial margin, over that 10-year period, and the second-best record in the majors (to the O’s), but always seemed to fall a bit short of the summit, including the famous McCovey lineout with two men in scoring position ending the ’62 Series with a 1-0… Read more »

Doug
Doug
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

At least they fared better than the Cubs with Banks, Santo, Williams and Jenkins for several seasons running, and nary a pennant (or even a division flag) to show for it.

Also, the Red Sox during Jim Rice’s tenure had just the two post-season appearances (both memorable, though) despite being matched with Boggs, Fisk, Perez, Yaz, Seaver, Eckersley, Jenkins and Marichal (though, of course, not all in their primes).

RJ
RJ
11 years ago
Reply to  birtelcom

The Giants are clearly aware of that groups misfortune: the 2010 winners managed to scrounge a few extra rings to present to those four, as well as Orlando Cepeda and Monte Irvin i.e. the Giants’ six living Hall of Famers.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20110409&content_id=17592926&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago

I’m curious, Doug, is there a straightforward PI method to get the teammate output you used here, or did you need to put together a complex spreadsheet to get your results?

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

I also would be interested in your methodology.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago

Doug: Never mind, I see what you did.

birtelcom
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

I admire your patience, Doug. Working on your quiz, I did what you did for Larkin, Sutter and Fisk, but that’s only three players who played for a grand total of six franchises. I don’t think I would have had the fortitude for much more than that.

John Autin
Editor
11 years ago

Doug, since you have the spreadsheet, can you tell us the longest careers that:
(a) *always* had a HOF teammate?
(b) *never* had a HOF teammate?

Of course, Lou Whitaker should be a candidate for (a), but … never mind that now.

John Autin
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

On a random check, I found that Reggie Jackson had a HOF teammate in each of his 21 seasons.

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

JA, Pete Rose had a HOF teammate for all 25 teams he played for in the 24 years of his career (he split time in ’84 between Montreal and Cincy).

John Autin
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  bstar

Much appreciated, bstar.

John Autin
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Thanks for the updates, Doug!

bstar
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

So if I’m reading your post correctly, Doug, Rose is the only one of the four players we mentioned who had a Hall of Fame teammate on every team he played for. Is that right? Two of your statements about Carlton contradict each other, so I’m not sure. You say, “there was at least one other..[HOFer]..on every team he played on” but then you say he played for the Giants in 1986 with no such teammate. So if I’ve got you right, it’s Rose 25 for 25 teams Kaat 25 for 26 teams Carlton 24 for 25 teams TJohn 24… Read more »

Doug
Doug
11 years ago
Reply to  bstar

Yes that’s right. Kaat and Carlton each missed one team. But, in both cases, it was in a season split between two or more teams. Thus, each had a HOF teammate every season.

Doug
Doug
11 years ago
Reply to  bstar

Actually, Carlton had 25 for 26 teams, over 24 seasons. He played for 3 teams in 1986, two of them only in that season.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Have you checked Bobo Newsom?

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

I imagine there are at least several NY Yankees who had HOF teammates their whole careers.

Without even checking rosters, LOU GEHRIG:
-1923-34: Babe Ruth
-1935-1939: Bill Dickey

The time-consuming part is checking HOF Yankees who played for other teams.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  Lawrence Azrin

These are the years in which there was not a HOFer on the Yankees;
1910-1912
1969-1974
1991-1992
1998-present (which will eventually change when Jeter gets in)

1944 and 1945 were close calls. The only HOFers were Paul Waner and Red Ruffing who each saw limited action.

Ed
Ed
11 years ago

Richard – Aren’t 1913-1915 close calls as well? For 1913 and 1914 the only HOFer is Frank Chance. In 1913 Chance played in 12 games and got 33 PAs. In 1914, he only played in one game (looks like he briefly played 1b but got no PAs). Then in 1915, the only HOFer is Dazzy Vance who pitched in 8 games, 28 innings.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  Ed

You’re right, I never bothered to check those years.

John Autin
Editor
11 years ago

Looking back before ’61:

Tris Speaker had 17 HOF teammates 17 — not bad, for a guy who never changed leagues.

– 6 with BOS (Ruth, Cy Young, Hooper, Pennock, Chesbro, J.Collins)
– 2 with CLE (Sewell, Coveleski)
– 3 with WAS (W.Johnson, Goslin, Rice)
– 6 with PHA (Cobb, Grove, E.Collins, Foxx, Cochrane, Simmons

I wonder if anyone played with more of the super-elite? Counting Spoke himself, this gang has nos. 1, 4, 6, 11 and 21 in career WAR by position players, and nos. 1, 2 and 6 on the pitching side.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  John Autin

Just for the heck of it I checked out non-HOFer Jack Quinn. If I did my work correctly I found that he was teammates with 24 HOFers.

Yankees: Keeler, Chesbro, Ruth, Baker, Hoyt
Braves: Maranville
White Sox: Schalk, Collins
Red Sox: Ruffing, Pennock
A’s: Simmons, Cochrane, Foxx, Grove, Cobb, Collins (again), Wheat, Speaker
Dodgers: Wilson, Lombardi, Kelly, Vance,Hoyt (again)
Reds: Bottomley, Hafey, Rixey, Lombardi (again)

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

Quinn and Faber were not on the 1918 White Sox at the same time in 1918. Faber left for military service in mid-June and Quinn joined the team in August.

John Autin
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  Doug

… or at least the overrepresentation by the Friends of Frankie Frisch.