Andrew Benintendi had the most excruciating plate appearance of last night’s World Series Game 2. It wasn’t because he was over-matched against Ryu Hyun-jin’s pitching; there were no Stanton-esque hacks at diving curveballs. Nor was there the nervous tension of accumulating foul balls, piling on the pressure for batter, pitcher and fan alike.
No, the at bat merely took an absolute age.
With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Red Sox right fielder Mookie Betts singled up the middle. This brought up Boston’s No. 2 hitter, Benintendi, with runners on first and second. The Los Angeles Dodgers were holding on to a one run lead, meaning Benintendi’s plate appearance was to that point the highest leveraged moment of the evening for a Red Sox hitter. By the end of the night only three plate appearances would have a higher leverage, all coming with the bases loaded (two of which were set up by Benintendi’s eventual walk in this plate appearance).
A tense moment then. Let’s see how it played out.
NB: A timestamp of 1:59:00 means an hour and fifty-nine minutes into FOX’s broadcast of the game. Pitches are in bold; egregious faffing around is in italics.
1:58:45 – Ryu pitches to Betts.
1:58:56 – Betts, having singled, stands on first base, removes various apparatus from his person, and has a nice chat with first base coach Tom Goodwin.
With no play on a runner, no challenges being made, and no pitching changes in sight, the next pitch is presumably right around the corner.
1:59:12 – Ah. The Dodgers infield has a meeting on the mound. Ryu, catcher Austin Barnes and middle infielders Enrique Hernandez and Manny Machado are present. The television feed cuts to Ryan Madson throwing in bullpen, before switching to a commercial for batteries. It’s the last time we’ll see an effective battery this inning.
1:59:38 – Benintendi ambles around the on deck circle, rubbing pine tar on his bat. We see a graphic comparing the starts of Ryu and Boston pitcher David Price.
2:00:09 – Machado, still on the mound, kicks dirt around with a presumed purpose.
2:00:16 – Not to be outdone, Benintendi steps towards the batters box and also engages in a spot of dirt kicking.
2:00:20 – Benintendi steps out of the batters box and fiddles with his sleeves. The home plate umpire comes into view, face mask not yet on face.
2:00:32 – Ryu is on the rubber and finally everyone is in the right position for playing a game of baseball.
2:00:36 – Ryu steps off the rubber.
2:00:43 – Benintendi having stepped out, steps back in.
At this point it has been two minutes since we have seen a pitch. The only action has been an uncomplicated single to center field and a spot of landscape gardening.
2:00:49 – Ryu bounces the first pitch to Benintendi. Chekov’s dirt is kind to the Dodgers, and Barnes scrambles successfully to keep the runners in place.
2:01:26 – Ryu pitches. It’s ball two.
2:01:59 – Benintendi fouls off Ryu’s third offering. FOX delights fans of #narrative everywhere by showing the Red Sox postseason batting average with two outs.
Three pitches in a minute. Rob Manfred starts drafting a letter of congratulations to all involved.
2:02:26 – Benintendi is in the box (good), but steps out as Barnes calls time (bad). Ryu can be seen muttering under his breath in an indeterminate language.
2:02:37 – The runners are shown getting ready to take their leads, but relax in a telltale sign that someone, somewhere has called time. Benintendi fiddles with his gloves, eyes.
2:02:47 – Benintendi steps back in.
It’s been almost a minute since the last pitch. Rob Manfred drafts a letter formally renouncing the previous dispatch.
2:02:55 – Ryu delivers, and it’s a called strike two.
2:03:23 – Benintendi waits, but time is called and he steps out. Barnes jogs out to the mound to discuss dinner plans with Ryu. A Youtube TV commercial plays, with the thrills of the mound meeting relegated to the corner of the screen.
2:03:54 – Benintendi steps into the box. The Youtube TV ad is still playing.
2:03:56 – Benintendi calls time. The Youtube TV ad is still playing. Benintendi mutters under his breath.
It’s been more than a minute since the last pitch.
2:04:11 – Ryu delivers ball three. Benintendi goes for a wander, fiddles with gloves, eyes, hat.
2:04:38 – The full count pitch is on it’s way and Boston’s left fielder fouls it off, before stepping out the box.
2:05:09 – Ryu is on the rubber.
2:05:10 – Ryu steps off the rubber.
2:05:26 – Ryu shakes off Barnes once. Ryu shakes off Barnes twice. Ryu shakes off Barnes thrice.
2:05:33 – Benintendi, concerned about developing hypothermia, steps out for a little exercise.
2:05:38 – With Benintendi having long since left the picture, Ryu and Barnes finally agree on a pitch.
2:05:44 – Benintendi is back in the box.
It’s been more than a minute since the last pitch.
2:05:53 – Ryu delivers. Benintendi fouls off his offering, fiddles with gloves, hat, dirt, gloves.
2:06:16 – Barnes runs out to mound. Hernandez joins them. Replays show Dave Roberts, who has already eaten dinner, giving the go-ahead for the mound visit.
2:06:48 – Ryu pitches. Ball four.
2:07:09 – Roberts makes the call to the bullpen.
2:09:51 – Ryan Madson throws his first pitch.
Benintendi’s plate appearance, and the time either side of it, amounted to an eleven minute period in which eight pitches were thrown and none were put in play. There were six minutes between the first and eighth pitch of the PA, an average of 45 seconds per pitch.
High leverage situations call for a slowing of the pace, naturally. But it is not always necessarily thus. Per Dan Hirsch’s Baseball Gauge website, the play with the highest Championship Leverage in baseball history was an Eddie Murray bases-loaded at bat in Game 7 of the 1979 World Series. Murray flew out on the fifth pitch, two and a half minutes into the plate appearance.
The play with the second highest Championship Leverage in baseball history was Tony Womack vs Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of 2001’s World Series Game 7. Womack doubled in the tying run on the fifth pitch, less than 80 seconds after Rivera’s initial offering.
Even Rajai Davis’ game-tying home run off Aroldis Chapman in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series was not overly drawn out. Davis’ homer came on the seventh pitch of the at bat, just over two and a half minutes after the first pitch from Chapman. With all the recent talk of sign stealing paranoia, it’s worth noting that all of the above at bats came with runners on second base.
I have no grand conclusions to make here, aside from noting that that was a pretty unbearable ten minutes in an otherwise entertaining game of baseball. Just pick up the pace a little bit, eh fellas.
I’m with you, Aidan. That AB took far too long. I think it was last season that, for the first month or so, the home plate umpire would warn the hitter to get back in the box if he left it (even with time called, the hitter’s supposed to have at least a foot in the box as he fiddles with his batting gloves, or whatever). But, that experiment has evidently been forgotten.
Kike had a long AB as well, but at least that was a battle, with Hernandez fouling off pitch after pitch, which those offerings seeming to be delivered reasonably quickly. No complaints about that one.
So much for pace of play, huh?
I was puzzled by this post all the way through — it was engaging, but I was distracted by wondering whether Doug had developed a split personality problem. So it was more of a relief than a surprise to discover at the end that the post was from Aiden. Nice to hear an alternative voice (not that there’s anything wrong with Doug’s!).
Hah, sorry for the confusion. I should be posting more regularly in the coming weeks.
I was glad to see you posting, too. I would be happy to see more soon!
Game 5 was just the 6th game of 3 hours or less in the past twelve World Series. In contrast, in the eleven World Series from 1962 to 1972, there was only one game longer than 3 hours, and only two games longer than 3 hours (both 12 inning games) in all the World Series from 1903 to 1944.
So not quite sure where to put this, as it’s completely off-topic, but I’ve been posting here since 2011 so I do feel a kinship to many other commenters – I’m going to be taping Jeopardy! on November 28th. Once I have an airdate of my show, I’ll definitely post it here. Unfortunately it’s not Sports Jeopardy but I can only hope some baseball will come up.
CC
Good luck – Sports and Entertainment for $ 100 : Who was the first major leaguer to throw a no-hitter and win a batting title?
If that’s a $200 question, I’d be in trouble! I looked it up but I’ll let others have a crack at it.
That is not a $100 question.
(And the answer is not Babe Ruth via the Ernie Shore game)
The answer is not Smoky Joe Wood but he did pitch a no-hitter and finished 10th in BA with .296 in 1918 only a mere 86 points behind Ty Cobb.
I’d guess Cy Seymour.
How’s this for a mea culpa? Years ago (at least 30 or so) I ABSOLUTELY read somewhere that James Bentley (Cy) Seymout threw a no-hitter. It was possibly on a long list in the Sporting News record book, not exactly sure. Well, it appears that I’m a liar and the best Seymour ever did was 2 one-hitters in 1898 (per SABR page) with four shutouts that season.
Yes, that question was off the top of my head and, obviously, not quite the source of knowledge it might hope to be. So, another crappy day for an aspiring (and failing) game show host. This is almost as bad as Steve Harvey hosting the Miss Universe contest 🙁
Paul, You mean I got the right answer to a wrong question? Do I still get the trophy?
Paul, luckily, there is a correct answer. Guy Hecker did both – AA batting title in 1886, and a no-hitter in 1882. He’s also one of two pitchers to have a three HR game as a batter (other one is Jim Tobin), and the only pitcher with 6 hits in one nine inning game.
CC
Way to bail a brother out
Thanks!
Clearly the top tier question on a sports-themed Jeopardy spinoff let alone the real thing.
That’s exciting news, CC! You’ll be a great Jeopardy! contestant. Definitely let us know when it will air. I hope that all goes smoothly with the games and travel, and that it’s a truly memorable experience for you.
CC: And be sure to mention that your favorite past time is commenting on HighHeatStats.
Hopefully since HHS is a non-profit endeavor, plugging the site wouldn’t be considered payola!
Willie McCovey’s passing deserves some notice. I can’t think of him without thinking also of two of his contemporaries, Orlando Cepeda and Harmon Killebrew, Cepeda because he and Willie jockeyed for the first base position in SF for several years, Killer because he and Willie were similar hitters with similar liabilities on base and in the field. By JAWS and other rating systems McCovey tops the three, and his 1969 season is certainly the best any of them put up. 1969 was Killebrew’s best year, too, and it’s interesting to compare the two seasons, McCovey first:
PA: 623—709
R: 101—106
H: 157—153
HR: 45—49
RBI: 126—140
BB: 121—145
BA: .320—.276
OPS: 1.108—1.011
OPS+: 209—177
In the MVP voting both won the award, but Killebrew did so easily, whereas McCovey’s dominance was challenged by Tom Seaver’s 25 win campaign for the Mets.
I’m not a McCovey fancier, so maybe someone else can extend the commentary from here.
Well, during the formative years of McCovey’s career I was still a rabid fan of the Dodgers, and I guess the tribute I can offer is that it was scary to have him playing as an opponent. His 1959 rookie year was like Puig’s initial months in 2013, though not as colorful — I just couldn’t believe the Giants had brought up someone even more dominant than Cepeda. (They were successive Rookies of the Year.) I was hoping he’d be a flash in the pan, and for a while it seemed he might be, but I was disappointed.
Unlike Mays and Cepeda, I really never developed a sharp sense of McCovey as an all-around person and team member. When I saw news of his death yesterday I thought of commenting but really didn’t know what to say. Seeing nsb’s timely post this morning, I decide to read McCovey’s SABR biography, which gave me a much clearer sense of his career arc and the reasons for it, and of his character, the non-confrontational, low-key tone of which probably accounts for why I did not have a vivid sense of who he was. It’s good reading.
OPS+ ages 30-32, >1,200 PA’s
1 Babe Ruth 203
2 Ty Cobb 190
3 Willie McCovey 188
4 Mickey Mantle 187
5 Lou Gehrig 187
6 Frank Robinson 182
7 Dick Allen 181
8 Honus Wagner 177
9 Barry Bonds 176
10 Ted Williams 176
That ‘stretch” for McCovey from 1968-1970 kind of cemented his reputation as a Hall of Fame hitter, at least, for me it did. He was the superior, I believe, of Stargell and Killebrew (more contact-higher average/fewer GIDP)) as well as Cepeda (took a walk/Cepeda never really did).
But, by the same token:
Seasons >/= 5.9 oWAR:
6 Killebrew – total 40.3
6 McCovey – total 40.3
Career oWAR:
71.5 Killebrew 9,833 PA’s (I guess Killebrew gets a slight bump in oWAR for standing on 3rd?)
72.0 McCovey 9,692 PA’s
Stolen Bases
26 SB/ 22 CS McCovey
19 SB/ 18 CS Killebrew
Almost looks like the only difference is that they played in different leagues?
Just wondering if having a teammate like Mays didn’t deflect from McCovey’s status as a preeminent ballplayer. He certainly had great teammates (Perry, Marichal, Mays, Bonds….)
Unrelated to anything:
Bill James just wrote one of the most significant and important things he’s done in years, and it’s really bad news for people who like balls in play. I’d absolutely recommend it as highly as I can to anyone interested.
https://www.billjamesonline.com/the_strikeout_pushpull_effect/
Doom, It seems to me that James is saying two things: recent success for teams and hitters who reduce batter K rates creates condition for lower K rates, but the greater success of high-K-rate pitchers more than counters that by driving teams to focus on assembling staffs of high-K-rate pitchers. The drive to increase K’s among pitchers will likely continue to more than overcome the drive to lower K’s among batters.
The underlying dynamic of James’s logic seems to me to support the dynamic of your earlier analysis, which is simply that high-K-rate pitchers, by virtue of the nature of the game, have a built-in success advantage over finesse pitchers.
Would that seem a fair take away to you?
There seems to me to be another dimension to consider when projecting future trends. There may be natural limits to how far pitcher power skills can be stretched, in terms of pitch velocity and spin, given requirements of control. In my lifetime, it seems to me pitchers have added about 5 mph and an array of new spin techniques to the upper limit of power pitching skills (thinking of Feller as a baseline, perhaps). With staffs increasingly approaching full-power profiles, perhaps K-rate increases from pitching are approaching their peak, opening the possibility that selecting for low-K batting skills could begin to tip the balance back. (I think there is less likely to be a physical limit on low-K batting skills than on high-K pitching skills.)
For BIP-lovers, it’s good to recall that even if we’re not a the limit of high-K environments, simple rule changes that don’t affect the basic dynamic of the game (e.g., limiting the thinness of bat handles; mandating increases in fence distances) could moderate current trends too.
Some points that I would add:
1) Nothing that James concludes ought to be surprising to those who have seen Doug’s occasional charts depicting the increase in strikeouts over the years, nor to those who have gathered the import of recent discussions here about current trends in pitching approach, notably those that isolate and define the current ideal as the 81-pitch, 27-strikeout game, which, after all, is the underlying premise of pitching perfection in the formulation of pWAR.
2) What James doesn’t mention—unless I skipped over it in his very lengthy, repetitive, somewhat self-defensive article, written in a digressive style more Henry Jamesian than Bill—is the phenomenon of the five-inning start, three-reliever finish which, of course, tilts the balance even more in favor of strikeouts. I think we’re ahead of the Master there.
3) His hurricane metaphor of the self-feeding trend of there being more and more strikeouts the more strikeouts there are has also been touched upon here, minus the picturesque image. I may be wrong but I think the attribution ought to be given more to baseball scouts and coaches in youth leagues and high schools than to forces of nature. These folks are the ones who promote young arms somewhat attached to impressionable and often empty heads into going for all-out velocity all the time.
His Hurricane analogy is bad statistics. I’m sorry to criticize such a prominent guy but it’s just poorly done statistics. If we assume a pitcher’s success has any correlation with Strikeouts (seems hard to argue that there is none) then you have to normalize how often they obtain that goal in reference to the percentage of outcomes. For example on the extremes where a pitcher either strikes out 1 guy a season or 2 guys a season, it probably makes no performance difference but the K rate would double. Similarly, a pitcher who strikes out 80% vs one who strikes out 90% are both out of line with today’s baseball but statistically the 90% guy is much closer to twice as good than simply a 10% increase over the 80% guy.
As strikeout outcomes increase in their percentage of PA’s, their incremental value does not substantially change. The value of a strikeout is dependent on the runners and outs and rate of other outcomes (basically RE24) and that is not dependent on the average rate of strikeouts. This is not a self-feeding trend.
You could argue that strikeout percentage changes the run scoring environment but I think James covers that pretty well: It’s not correlated. Batters are not well measured by their strikeout totals. That does not hold true. The league scoring rates, even different components in that rate, can impact the relative value of a strikeout but that stuff has comparatively changed much less over the history of baseball. Strikeout rate is one of the true changes in the game much more so than the number of runs on the scoreboard.
What I draw from this is that we have not yet reached equilibrium. I think the truth is that Strikeouts are simply more pitcher affiliated than we like to admit. In the battle between pitcher and hitter that is baseball’s essence, the historical perspective that Walks are the failure of the pitcher and strikeouts are the failure of the hitter seems to be completely backwards. In that context, things make more sense. That needs to be embraced. This whole argument seems to be longing for the point when baseball’s underlying probabilities will actually line up with the inaccurate superstitions regarding those same underlying probabilities. It won’t. It never did. Change your model.
Hey, folks!
I’m still hoping that Doug will be posting my final awards voting post soon – it has the Rookie and Manager awards. But until then, I wanted to point out that MLB has unveiled its three “finalists” for each of the major awards. I wanted to point out that we, collectively, were right in tune with the BBWAA top-3 in both leagues for Cy Young voting (deGrom, Scherzer, and Nola in the NL; Verlander, Snell, and Kluber in the AL), and we had two out of three in the MVP voting for both leagues (we had Yelich, Baez, and deGrom in the NL, but deGrom was not a finalist in favor of Nolan Arenado, ninth in our voting but he was one of only four players named on every ballot; we had Betts, Trout, and Bregman in the AL, but Bregman was not a finalist in favor of Jose Ramirez, fifth in our voting and one of seven players named on every ballot). That’s to say, I think the BBWAA is going to get pretty close to being as smart as this particular group of people this year. That makes me happy.
I saw the “finalists” story on mlb.com yesterday and was surprised: I guess I haven’t been following closely these past few years and didn’t realize this new process was being used: the old slow-reveal. Really, what’s the point? The ballots are all in and tabulated. It reminds me of beauty pageants: “And the second runner-up is . . .” My first thought was, “What revenue stream is this designed to generate? Or is it a circus ploy for its own sake?”
I did notice that our ideas about the MVP and CYA were close to the voters’, Given their past performance, I took that to be good news about the voters, rather than about us.
So they released the Today’s Game ballot and it’s pretty weak.
Albert Belle, Joe Carter, Harold Baines, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Davey Johnson, Lee Smith, George Steinbrenner, Charlie Manuel and Lou Piniella.
I think Steinbrenner belongs and there’s a pretty good case for Piniella.
I’ll just say this:
Being no fan of players who go out of control or hide behind emotional instability as an excuse, I still think Albert Belle, considered on his record alone, was a remarkable player. People who explain away the jerkdom, for instance, of Jimmy Piersall both during and after his playing career on the grounds that he had ‘issues’ that should be considered—I strongly suspect that these people somehow fail to give similar credence to issues like those that plagued Belle which were less outwardly forgivable. Piersall, too, used his reputation as a ‘flake’ to get away with obnoxious behavior and speech, whereas Belle made no effort to do or say anything, however obnoxious, that wasn’t transparently up front.
That being said, from 1993 to 1999 he put up inner circle HOF numbers with his bat, but his relatively late start and forced early retirement keep his career stats from looking as impressive as they truly were. In those 6 2/3 seasons (one was 1994), though, he averaged 111 runs, 44 doubles, 44 HRs, 133 RBIs, with a .308 BA and an OPS+ well over 160. Hard to find too many HOFers who had a similar 7-year run.
So while I agree with you to an extent, since none of the players listed are really Hall worthy, I don’t agree with a description of Belle’s career as ‘weak.’
Oh, not at all, Belle was a tremendous hitter. I saw his prime in Cleveland – scary good extra base guy. But he had a short career due to his hip trouble and contributed little besides his bat, and his offense came during a boom period for bats.
In his favor, during his prime, he was extremely durable – I think during that 7 year stretch he may have missed about 10 games? And though he was a prickly personality to put in mildly, I never got the feeling that his teammates disliked him.
I mean I don’t think Will Clark had a weak career either. He’s probably better than a few of the VC 1B inductees. Baines was a very good hitter for a very long time, and Carter…well, we’ve spilled a lot of ink about him. I was saying it’s a weak ballot in terms of guys with a serious chance of making it, not that anybody on the ballot had a weak career.
HOFer or not I could not find anybody to match those 7-year stats. His OPS+ was actually 156.
I think we’re smart enough on this site to know that the people whose public personas are loud and obnoxious are far from the worst people.
The true monsters put on a good face.
Some of the people most worthwhile to get to know in my experience have been ‘challenging.’
I’ll take the assholes over the army of phonies.
I don’t know what was wrong with Albert Belle. I do know that I was excited about Roger Clemens when he was young, and following his record in every game, until, upon Belle’s return from treatment for alcoholism, Clemens heckled him about his drinking problem — so much for Clemens, in my book. I was sorry he put together a Hallworthy career, and unsurprised to discover he’d taken shortcuts to do it. As a player, Belle was awesome. His career is not HoF quality, but his peak unquestionably was. I agree with CC that none of the players on the ballot are worthy of election, but I think Belle’s abilities make his shortfall the most poignant.
I do know what was wrong with Piersall: he was psychotic. You don’t get over that, drugs or no: you either learn to cope, at enormous and never-ending effort, or you’re done for as a member of society, which is what befalls most of those in Piersall’s position, through no fault of their own. Movie title notwithstanding, fear never strikes out: it is a lurking threat, and that Piersall was willing throughout his life to remain in the public eye, where every slip would be magnified, took guts, in my view. It is no knock on Belle to say that his challenges were, so far as public information indicates, not in Piersall’s class (thank God).
As for Steinbrenner, with apologies to CC, I wouldn’t give him a eleventh-place vote. He was a rich man who bought the most valuable franchise market in baseball when it was at an anomalous low point, CBS having given corporate ownership a richly deserved bad name. There were probably hundreds of magnates who could have “brought the Yankees back” under those circumstances, and done it without tyrannizing, lying, heckling, seeking a presidential pardon, or being twice banned from MLB for eminently good reasons. He was the Bobby Knight of baseball, without the actual skill and knowledge that led college sports to tolerate Knight’s bullying, tantrums, and coarseness. His seven championships and four additional pennants in 37 years may sound like a lot, but in my view it’s what should be expected from a franchise with the advantages of the Yankees, in terms of market potential and recruitment cachet.
Jacob Ruppert was principal owner of the Yankees for 24 years and won nine pennants and six World Series. There were fewer teams then, but Ruppert built the club from nothing after buying it in 1915 and subsequently stealing the Boston Red Sox at a fire sale that only he thought to attend. It took him 75 years to get into the Hall and he accomplished far more than King George III. Dell Webb was the dominant owner for twenty years and won fifteen pennants and ten Series — who cares how many teams there were: his always won. Where’s his Hall plaque (God forbid)? Of course, in modern times, Dell Webb, who revived syndicate baseball in light camouflage, was perhaps the most unscrupulous owner ever (beating Charlie O. by a whisker) — that is, until The Boss arrived on the scene. Do we really want his plaque in the same hall as Dave Winfield’s? The guy’s not only not Hallworthy, he’s more lifetime-Hall-banworthy than Pete Rose. . . . IMHO, of course.
Bob, I definitely respect your opinion, and I don’t even entirely disagree. But going by the standard the HoF has set for owners and execs – I mean, pretty much every commissioner that served more than a few years is in the Hall. Happy Chandler is there. Walter O’Malley is the devil incarnate to many NY area fans, and he’s in. Tom Yawkey’s teams never won a WS and his Red Sox were the last team to integrate – but he’s in. Effa Manley is most famous for the many rumors that she slept with her players – she’s in.
That said, what he did to Winfield was despicable, certainly worse than anything the PED players ever did, and that alone might be enough to disqualify him.
CC, As for O’Malley, I’m a Brooklyn fan — To Hell with O’Malley! — but objectively, the greater blame lies with another SOB, Robert Moses, and O’Malley is the man who broke through baseball’s half-continent mental block. His influence on the modern game was enormous. I’d never say, “To the Hall with O’Malley!” but there are valid reasons why, if executives are going to be there, he might be numbered among them. (Mom, if you’re surfing the web up there, please forgive me!)
Chandler in no way whatever belongs in the Hall. His only claim is that he did not stand in the way of integration, and it is true, he might have done so. Otherwise, he was completely out of his depth, as the Mexican League fiasco showed (not to mention his clumsy suspension of that paragon of virtue, Durocher). As for Yawkey, his demonstration that racism infested northern minds as well as southern was certainly a valuable contribution to scientific knowledge, but looking the other way in order to honor a stalwart good ol’ boy in the Owners Club was shameful.
Just because Rick Ferrell and Highpockets Kelly are in the Hall we don’t support induction of other players of that caliber, and the same should be true of executives, especially since Ferrell and Kelly are far more worthy that many of the executives currently enshrined. (Warren Giles?) I do think there are executives worthy of the Hall: pioneers like Al Spalding and George Wright, and transformational influences like Ban Johnson, Judge Landis, Branch Rickey, or . . . well, maybe that’s enough. (I really don’t know anything about the Negro League execs, but what’s disqualifying about sleeping with your players? Saves you the trouble of bedcheck on the road.) Of course, I’m happy Bill Veeck is in, but only because they let in some of the SOBs that made his life miserable (and speaking of miserable . . . George Weiss??).
Steinbrenner should go in the Hall for his executive contributions after Bill Bergen goes in for his slugging contributions. But Bergen gets there first.
(Don’t mind me: post-election I’m always a little cranky.)
Bob, to be sure, I knew I was engaging in the “If X, then Y” fallacy, the idea that an inductee needs only pass the minimum standards of the worst Hall of Fame members to be a viable candidate. My only counter argument would be that with executives, do we even know where the line is?
We know that Lloyd Waner and Tommy McCarthy and Freddie Lindstrom are bad choices because we know what a good choice looks like. There are objective standards (and some subjective ones, certainly) that we know a player has to reach and they clearly fell short of those. We know that even though there are some stinkers, for the most part, the voters haven’t done a terrible job. The vast majority of players elected to the Hall were good, deserving inductees.
With executives – well, you could probably argue that the *majority* have been bad picks. There’s clearly no real standard being met. Bill James has often talked about how people have an incorrect perception of the Hall of Fame standard for players, that the Hall is only for the likes of Stan Musial and Ted Williams and Willie Mays. As informed fans, we know that isn’t and never has been true. For executives, you might argue that it should be true – that the Hall doesn’t need to be honoring a handful of executives from every 10 or 15 year period, that it should only be people like Landis and Johnson and Rickey and Spalding being honored. And I might even agree with that. But it clearly hasn’t been the case.
The big problem, to my eyes, is that every executive and pioneer pick has been by committee, and we know it’s the committees who makes the worst choices because they’re the most vulnerable to the type of good old boy politicking that got us Frankie Frisch’s entire rolodex in the Hall.
But that’s also true of managers, and the manager picks have been way better than the executive picks. I suppose it’s easier to judge a manager on wins and losses than an executive, but it could just be an information/enthusiasm gap. The byzantine world of executives is often so far removed from the everyday concerns of baseball fans and writers that I could almost excuse the various committees for basically throwing darts to pick inductees, but I know the more sinister truth is that many of them were backroom atta-boy picks amidst card games and cigars and tumblers of bourbon.
CC, after reading your comments it seems to me that we are basically of one heart and one mind on the essentials. My basic view of the appropriate dimension of the “executive circle” is that it should have a diameter of one point: no one should be in the Hall because they were an executive, regardless of how successful in executing. The Hall was not intended to honor people with big bankrolls or high performance ratings in a desk job. It has nothing whatever to do with the concept of the Hall, and the only reason the Hall includes executives is because executives wanted them included.
Executives should be considered only in the event that they played a fundamental positive role in shaping or reshaping the game. The threshold is not related to team building but game building. Take away Al Spalding or George Wright and it’s a toss-up whether baseball survives as a professional sport. Take away Ban Johnson and baseball loses the energy to grow and innovate through structural competition (and the World Series). Take away Ken Landis and baseball loses its fan base to corruption. Take away Branch Rickey and baseball remains a white sport and its seminal contribution to weakening the hold of racism in America is lost. As a side note, three of these guys were pretty awful people — Spalding’s aims devolved into ensuring the market for his products remained undamaged by misguided attempts to give players a fair financial shake; Johnson became a self-obsessed tyrant who confused his league with himself; Landis was as arbitrary, biased, and pompous as a commissioner as he was as a judge. They are all Ty Cobbs of executive rank: I wouldn’t want to have dinner with any of them. But their impacts were essential to the shape of baseball. (Rickey escapes because he was too outrageously interesting to be a bad guy. I wouldn’t really look forward to a dinner with St. George Wright, but I’d fight for a Rickey invitation.)
Now, can you imagine the shape of baseball without, for example, Charlie Comiskey, Ed Barrow, Warren Giles, Bill Veeck, George Weiss, Bowie Kuhn, Bud Selig, Pat Gillick (– Wait . . . what? Pat Gillick’s in there? Honestly?). Well, sure you can: the distribution of pennants would have been different; we’d lose the Black Sox, exploding scoreboards, and inspiring All-Star Game locker room speeches, but baseball would be pretty much what it is.
Bob epm,
“I don’t know what was wrong with Albert Belle?”
Perhaps, roid rage? He was either the most insecure and defensive baseball player that I have ever seen or the most belligerent. He was a 220# Billy Martin. His numbers were created in perhaps the greatest offensive era of all time and he certainly had great teammates. FCS, he batted between Manny and Thome…and later, Frank Thomas. That 156 ops+ is fantastic but certainly has been duplicated-even in his own era. Great hitter, though, for sure
Is it “automatic” that someone from this proposed group makes Cooperstown?
Actually, during Belle’s best years in Cleveland (1994 and 1995), he batted between Carlos Baerga and Eddie Murray. Cleveland’s lineup was so stacked that Manny Ramirez usually batted 7th (!) with Thome batting 6th.
Wasn’t until 1996 after we traded Murray and Baerga mid season that it tended to be Thome/Belle/Ramirez, though sometimes it was Thome/Belle/Julio Franco.
Belle’s unique 50 double/50 HR season will always stand out for me, more especially for coming in the shorter 1995 season. He came within a whisker or two of repeating the feat in 1998, one of only three 200 hit seasons with 45 doubles and 45 HR.
Belle has one of my favorite monthly splits ever. In September/October of 1995, his 50/50 season, his line in 120 PA’s was .313/.420/.929 with 10 doubles, 17 homers…and 4 singles. His BABIP was .203. I figured, he must have been tattooing the ball every time up and just getting robbed, right?
Well, I investigated it using retrosheet’s PbP accounts and looking at the his distribution of outs. And I found out he really wasn’t being robbed. I don’t have the exact numbers any more, but almost all of his ball-in-play outs were grounders, pop flys, or routine fly balls to the outfield. Only a handful were line drives that could have been hits had the defense not made plays. Just a crazy month where everything he hit well was going to be an extra base hit.
Belle, Sammy Sosa, Hank Greenberg and Barry Bonds (twice) are the only players with 30+ hits in a month with more HR than all other hits combined. I counted Sept/Oct as a month.
Total Bases, Ages 27-31
1 Lou Gehrig 1967 1930 1934
2 Stan Musial 1808 1948 1952
3 Sammy Sosa 1785 1996 2000
4 Albert Belle 1756 1994 1998
5 Al Simmons 1752 1929 1933
6 Jimmie Foxx 1737 1935 1939
7 Willie Mays 1731 1958 1962
8 M. Cabrera 1726 2010 2014
9 A.Rodriguez 1716 2003 2007
10 Hank Aaron 1706 1961 1965
Rick Ankiel is attempting a comeback as a pitcher at age 39.
He hasnt pitched in the Bigs since 24.
That would be beautiful.
It would also be unique.
Paul Schreiber is the only pitcher to appear before age 25 and again aged 39+, but not in between. However, his “comeback” was a wartime emergency promotion (?) from a coach and lasted less than a week.
Schreiber pitched in the ML at age 20 in 1923 and then again in 1945 at age 42. I believe he was a batting practice pitcher in 1945, that’s what kept him in shape.