Hall of Fame manifesto

Ted Williams (left) was a first-ballot Hall of Famer but somehow Joe DiMaggio was not. AP

So, the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot arrived in the mail on Tuesday ... and brilliant readers already know that this time of year makes me crazy. Here we are, back at the beginning, back with the Jack Morris and Jim Rice arguments, back wondering why more people don't see how good Alan Trammell was, back rooting for Bert Blyleven, back standing up for Tim Raines, back with the Mark McGwire hand-wringing.

Well, next post we'll run down the ballot entirely, if we can get to that. This time, I'm going to try something different -- I'm going to try and break down the Hall of Fame.*

*I've read ahead: I never should have tried.

See, the thing is, I think that as much as people TALK about the Baseball Hall of Fame, very few have a real and total grip of what it really is. I say this because ... I don't think I have a real and total grip of what it is. The Baseball Hall of Fame is a 286-inductee monstrosity with more than 70 years of triumphs, failures, trials, errors, experiments that flopped, risks that soared, political gambits and good old fashioned baseball love. It's the Hall of Fame that matters for any number of reasons, including the hard-work that people have put into it, and the fact that baseball history jumps off the page. But because it's the Hall of Fame that matters, its quirks and cracks are more visible to the public.*

*Nobody seems to know or care that Otis Taylor is not in the Football Hall of Fame. But EVERYBODY knows Bert Blyleven is not. It's a different animal.

So, this is a Hall of Fame breakdown that will hopefully offer up a little bit better idea of what the standards have been and how the players that are in the Hall of Fame got there. Let's see where it goes ...

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OK, first thing, we need to shave the Hall of Fame down so we get down to the essence: the modern Major League players who are in there. Let's get this out there: OBVIOUSLY, I am not suggesting that the non-modern Major League Players are in any way less deserving to be there. In numerous cases, I think they are far, far MORE deserving. But that's not what we're going for here. We're trying to get at the question: What's makes up a Hall of Fame baseball player? And while few are as deserving of being in the Hall as, say, Alexander Cartwright, who did more to invent baseball as we know it than anyone, well, he's not what we are targeting here.

So, we'll start cutting them down. As mentioned, there are 286 people inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. That's a huge number, and among those we have:

Pioneers: 6

These include Cartwright and also Candy Cummings, who is in the Hall of Fame for inventing/discovering the curveball (inspired, the legend goes, by throwing clam shells). That's his whole case really -- he pitched for two years in the National League* and had a losing record. So it's the curveball, that's the whole story, and man to get in the Hall you would think he didn't just invent the curveball, he traveled around the country barefoot and taught it to small children like Johnny Curveball-seed or something. Trouble is, it's pretty likely that Candy Cummings DID NOT invent the curveball -- I was once working on a book about the history of the curveball (don't ask) and I did some light research on the subject, and there are probably at least a half dozen other men who have as good a claim as Cummings, and two or three who have a significantly better claim. Putting him in the Hall for inventing the curve is like putting Romy and Michele in the Inventor's Hall of Fame for dreaming up Post-It Notes. And yes, that's my obscure pop-culture reference for today.

*To be perfectly fair, Cummings did have a good year in 1865, when he won 35 games, though to put it in context Dick McBride won 44 that year and I had never heard of him.**

**McBride also managed the Philadelphia Athletics that year, which might explain why he completed 59 of the 60 games he started.

OK, so now six pioneers down, we're at 280 Hall of Famers.

Executives: 25

Here are all your owners, your commissioners, your Tom Yawkeys, your Effa Manleys, your Bowie Kuhns. You might know, I've been doing quite a lot of research about 1975 baseball -- 09/09/09 -- and I have to tell you, I have yet to find anything good that Bowie Kuhn did for baseball. I mean ANYTHING. Every quote from the guy was like a little molotov cocktail of stupidity -- one minute he's predicting that teams are going to fold, the next minute he's talking about having a Western Division that would include teams in Hawaii, the Phillipines and Japan. One minute he's talking about assigning a team to Seattle because expansion isn't going to happen, the next minute he's fighting for his job. People will talk about the worst players in the Hall of Fame ... I have to tell you that the worst player in the Hall of Fame and the 500 players he just beat out for that spot are all INFINITELY more qualified for the Hall of Fame than Bowie Kuhn.

Now, with the executives out, we're down to 255 Hall of Famers.

Umpires: 8

If you ever want to wow 'em at a party, just say something like this: "Did you know that there are eight umpires in the Hall of Fame and not one of them has called a Major League game since 1978. So that's 30 years -- no Hall of Fame umpires.*" Oh believe me, that fact will be a hit at any party, seriously, you'll get dates galore. Trust me. And, should anyone ask -- and you know they will -- It was Hall of Famer Nestor Chylak who umpired a game in '78 at the end of a 25-year career.

*I should say that I've been semi-involved with a group trying to get my friend Steve Palermo some Hall of Fame recognition. He was a fabulous umpire by all accounts I've picked up -- a ball-and-strike savant -- and you certainly know he had his career taken from him when he was struck by a bullet and paralyzed when he tried to help strangers who were getting mugged. I'm not entirely sure what makes a Hall of Fame umpire, but Stevie's a remarkable guy and a credit to the game.

Now we're down to 247 Hall of Famers.

Managers: 19

OK, we've finally pruned out all the people who are not in the Hall of Fame primarily (or entirely) for their playing. And we have 228 Hall of Famers. But we've still got some more cutting to do.

Negro Leagues Baseball players: 30

Everyone, i suspect, knows how much I love the Negro Leagues and how much I appreciate what the Baseball Hall of Fame has done to honor those great players who excelled on rock hard diamonds and little towns while America turned away. Everyone, in the end, must believe what they believe, but I have no doubt in my mind that Oscar Charleston, Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Martin Dihigo, Cool Papa Bell, Buck Leonard and others were as great as anyone who came before or since. But the point of this exercise, again, is to get at the heart of the Hall of Fame, and realistically knowing some great Turkey Stearnes stories is fun, but doesn't help much in the process. We just don't have enough information about those players.

OK, 198 players left, and we have one more cut.

Predominantly pre-1900 players: 24

Again, this is not to knock the quality of those players, but they're not what we're talking about here. Sure, it's fascinating that Bid McPhee played without a glove, but let's just move on.

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So, that's it. We are now at the juicy center of the Hall of Fame -- we are down to 174 players, all of them Major League baseball players and all of them voted into the Hall of Fame primarily for what they did after 1900.

Just for your amusement: On that list of 174, we have:

First basemen: 14

Second basemen: 16

Shortstops: 19

Third basemen: 20

Leftfielders: 14

Centerfielders: 16

Rightfielders: 19

Catchers: 13

Pitchers: 52

Designated hitter: 1