Category: Baseball Hall of Fame

Back in 2010, I started a semi-annual exercise here. Four times over the course of four years, I had people vote on the 50 best players not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. It was a fun exercise, though I eventually stopped doing it for a few reasons. Mostly, the effort seemed like it was starting to run its course creatively and in terms of research value for the amount of work involved.

Lately, though, I’ve been getting the urge to run another poll. Accordingly, I’ve created a survey which draws on my past efforts, but asks a slightly different question.

Essentially, when people talk about Cooperstown and the players not enshrined, they’ll sometimes say that one player should be enshrined but not before another. The following survey goes position by position and asks people to rank 10 players from most-deserving to least-deserving of induction. As with previous polls I’ve done, banned players Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose are here; so are some active and recently-retired folks.

For anyone interested, a link to the poll is here, via the survey website Qualtrics.

I’ll keep the survey open through the end of the month and look to publish results in early August. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or feedback via thewomack@gmail.com. Have fun voting!

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.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted here, which means a couple new Sporting News columns from me.

First, one that’s fairly innocuous. I wrote about Andrew McCutchen’s budding Hall of Fame case and if a trade might help it.

Second, I wrote about Curt Flood’s Hall of Fame case. Specifically, I think it’s a little overrated because of the historical misconceptions about Flood’s contributions to baseball’s labor movement, misconceptions that persist to this day.

Flood’s son has been pummeling me on Twitter since the story went live, accusing me of being paid to write a hit piece. I’d of course never take money from anywhere but a publication to write a journalistic story. But I’m curious to hear if anyone here agrees with the rest of what Flood’s son said.

It’s Tuesday, which means my latest edition of “Cooperstown Chances” is out for Sporting News. I also realize I forgot to share last week’s column here, so I’m going to drop two links.

First, I wrote about Ichiro Suzuki, who isn’t the “real” hit king now but will be an easy Hall of Famer five years after he retires. I didn’t spend too much time focusing on this in my piece. The real thrust of what I wrote about: a few better players will be lucky to draw 1/10th the votes that Ichiro does.

Meanwhile, I wrote last week about Joey Votto, who ranks as one of the better first basemen in baseball history through his first nine seasons. However, it’s critical Votto continue to rebound from his slump this season if he wants to keep his Hall of Fame hopes alive.

As always, feedback’s welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading.

This is about a week late. Chances are, some of you have already seen the following piece on Twitter or elsewhere online. For the rest of you just seeing this, my apologies. But I figure better late than never.

I’ve taken this week off from my column for Sporting News, partly because I have some other work pressing. Last week however, I released an interview with Boston Red Sox great Dwight Evans, one of the best players not in the Hall of Fame who is no longer on the writers’ ballot.

I’ve enjoyed every interview I’ve done so far, but I will say that Evans, like Bobby Grich or Alan Trammell, was in the inner circle of players I’ve wanted to talk to. It was very cool to get some time with him, and he said a lot of interesting things.

Again, my apologies for the lateness here. Hope you all enjoy the piece and are enjoying this series. That said, I’d welcome more feedback, positive or negative. I want to know what’s working and moreover, what isn’t working, so that I can continue to get better at this.

Thanks for reading.

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Other people I’ve talked to: Steve Garvey | Jeff Idelson | Tommy John | Jim Kaat  | Tony La Russa | Dale Murphy | Alan Trammell | Fay Vincent | Billy Wagner

My latest is out for Sporting News. I got two minutes with Tony La Russa at an event in Phoenix this past week. Because my mind quickly goes to the Hall of Fame, I asked him about the case of one of his former players, Jim Edmonds.

Edmonds got just 2.5 percent of the BBWAA vote for Cooperstown in January, disqualifying him from future writers’ ballots. But La Russa thinks he belongs.

As always, feedback is welcome and appreciated. Thanks for reading.

The latest edition of “Cooperstown Chances” came out for Sporting News yesterday. I’m at spring training in Arizona so I haven’t had a ton of time to promote this, but I hope this gets some reads. I interviewed Alan Trammell about his Hall of Fame case.

Trammell, who completed his eligibility on the Baseball Writers Association of America’s ballot in January, gave a good interview, worth a read for anyone who cares about Cooperstown.

Let me know what you guys think.

I have two related articles out at Sporting News today that might be of interest:

• I’ve ranked the 25 best baseball books of all-time;
• The latest “Cooperstown Chances” is about how I’d like the writers’ exhibit (what many fans and media refer to as the writers’ wing) to include more of my favorite writers who aren’t in because they aren’t BBWAA members.

As always, feedback’s appreciated. Thanks for reading.

My latest is out for Sporting News. For the fifth straight week, I interviewed the player I wrote about. In weeks past, I’ve spoken to Bobby Grich, Steve Garvey, Dale Murphy, and Jim Kaat. This week, I scored another great interview with Tommy John, who’s got a good shot of going in eventually but, like every player I’ve spoken to, is in long-term limbo.

As always feedback is welcome. Thanks for reading.

My latest for Sporting News dropped a little while ago. Continuing my recent spate of interviews, I scored an hour-long talk with one of my favorite candidates, Orioles and Angels second baseman Bobby Grich.

If you’re into sabemetrics or 1970s baseball, you might love this interview. Grich is a good storyteller, as well as a rare former player who understands how his value breaks down in terms of sabemetrics. He was a pleasure to talk to.

Expect more of these interviews, by the way. I feel momentum building.