Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Weekend is a few days away, with near-unanimous selection Ken Griffey Jr., as well as Mike Piazza, set to join Cooperstown. By stats, each ranks close to being an inner circle Hall of Famer.
Not every selection in Hall of Fame history has been stellar, though. ForSporting News, I have a new piece ranking the 25 worst Baseball Hall of Fame selections ever.
I went one step further than many people go with these lists. First, I included managers, umpires, and executives. I also suggested alternative selections who were eligible at the time.
I’ve resisted doing one of these lists for several years, as it’s a little more negative than I typically like to go. As my friend Adam Darowski just tweeted:
@grahamdude Still this is a hard thing to write. I don’t like advocating that players were “bad” choices, rather celebrating the overlooked.
— Adam Darowski (@baseballtwit) July 20, 2016
Right there with you, Adam. That said, I admit I enjoyed writing this list more than I expected to.
How about Morgan Bulkeley? As far as I can tell, he was inducted because he happened to be the first president of the National League; he was president for one year, and largely because his name was drawn out of a hat. They should have inducted William Hulbert, who didn’t get in until 1995.
One bad choice almost always overlooked on lists like this of the worst is Wilbert Robinson. It is genuinely difficult to see why he was elected, either as a player or a manager.
As far as over qualified choices who were elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the following are just my opinion: Candy Cummings; Joe Tinker; & Morgan Bulkeley.
Very thought-provoking, and thank you. I shall ever be provoked, however, as long as Gil Hodges waits out in the yard for the day he might join such luminaries as Joe Gordon, Phil Rizzuto, and the highly overpopularized likes of Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance. Maybe I need to write a poem about The Great Gil.
Cheers,
Michael
Jack Morris has been elected since this post was written, and I still can’t fully wrap my head around that one, especially considering his ERA (3.90) and the fact that other pitchers who have more interesting resumes (in my opinion at least) – think guys like Kaat or John – can’t get any traction in the voting.