hall of fame, next vote...

le batard <3 <3 <3

i suspect there were probably a few voters who didn't vote for maddux because they wanted to throw a vote to guys in danger of dropping off the ballot.

the bbwaa has an aol.com email address

Poor Biggio.

I still can't understand the lack of support for Schilling. Is it just because of the crowded ballot?

probably some combo of the ballot, people not liking schilling, "only" 216 wins, people who think he used a red marker on the sock

How long until the Veterans Committee votes Morris in.

He's eligible again in 2017.

High-character guy! Get 'im in there. (Forgot about this until today, when someone linked to it.)

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136544/index.htm

Many of the barriers facing women sportswriters have fallen, but at least two have not. They are named Jack Morris and Bo Schembechler.

Morris, the Detroit Tiger pitcher, behaved inexcusably before a recent game at Tiger Stadium when Jennifer Frey, a sportswriter intern for the Detroit Free Press, approached him to get some comments for a story on baseball's latest collusion ruling. Before Frey could get out a question, Morris, who was wearing only sliding shorts, snapped, "I don't talk to people when I'm naked, especially women, unless they're on top of me or I'm on top of them." Frey turned and left.

Free Press publisher Neal Shine wrote Schembechler, the Tigers' team president, to complain about Morris's conduct. Schembechler sent back a letter stating that Morris's treatment of Frey was "out of line but predictable," considering that "your intern watched men from 20 to 65 years of age undress and dress for more than half an hour without asking questions." As if that innuendo weren't insulting enough, Schembechler continued, "Your sports editor's lack of common sense in sending a female college intern in a men's clubhouse caused the problem. I really wouldn't doubt that the whole thing was a scam orchestrated by you people to create a story.... [R]est assured no female member of my family would be inside a men's locker room regardless of their job description."

Career Totals:
Player A: 2103 games, 1528 hits, 130 HR, 945 BB, 662 SB, .299 BA, 68.1 WAR
Player B: 2502 games, 1571 hits, 170 HR, 1330 BB, 808 SB, .294 BA, 69.1 WAR

(Both higher than Craig Biggio's career WAR fwiw)

tim raines and....don't know player A.

Kenny Lofton!

(tangent: i was just looking up career stolen base numbers on wikipedia, and saw billy hamilton at #3 and thought it was a joke! never knew there was a 19th century billy hamilton)

You got their runs and hits mixed up.

Just read Verducci's postmortem, and it looks like Thomas will just be an afterthought in all of this--barely mentioned him.

yeah those are runs, not hits. my bad.

key players who didn't make the hall of fame today w/BBR WAR and vote %

Barry Bonds 162.5 - 34.7%
Roger Clemens 140.3 - 35.4%
Mike Mussina 83.0 - 20.3%
Curt Schilling 79.9 - 29.2%
Jeff Bagwell 79.5 54.3%
Larry Walker 72.6 - 10.2%
Rafael Palmeiro 71.8 - 4.4%
Alan Trammell 70.4 - 20.8%
Tim Raines 69.1 - 46.1%
Edgar Martinez 68.3 - 25.2%
Craig Biggio 64.9 - 74.8%
Mark McGwire 62.0 - 11%
Mike Piazza 59.2 - 62.2%
Sammy Sosa 58.4 - 7.2%
Jeff Kent 55.2 - 15.2%
Fred McGriff 52.6 11.7%
Jack Morris 44.1 - 61.5%
Don Mattingly 42.2 - 8.2%
Lee Smith 29.4 - 29.9%

for me - what made Raines great was how infrequently he was thrown out. it's shocking just how efficient he was at swiping bags.

xpost

always feel bad for the guys that get 1 or 2 votes cause maybe some sportswriter just wanted to throw their ballplayer friend some love and they just end up being mocked by everyone

and like even the worst player in MLB will still be among the great ballplayers alive, to play long enough to make it onto the ballot means you were better than that, no need to give jacque jones shit 5 years after he retired

"ballplayers" meaning "the human populace as ballplayers" obv

love le batard

ditto, esp his explanation. apparently nobody at espn knew and pti today had the chuckleheads both attacking him for it which considering how loath espn is to have any drama in the family (they quasi-suspended simmons for tweeting something critical about the morning show on an espn affiliate) there's no way that didn't get an ok from above. hoping he doesn't suffer any negative consequences and it would be bullshit if they took his vote away after not doing anything about the 'i'm never voting for anybody again cuz steroids' morons for years. hopefully he inspires imitators. impressed w/ how good the deadspin ballot actually turned out tbh.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/greg-maddux-a-hall-of-fame-approach-that-carried-an-average-arm-to-cooperstown/2014/01/07/fdd7ae82-77d3-11e3-af7f-13bf0e9965f6_story.html

Maddux was convinced no hitter could tell the speed of a pitch with any meaningful accuracy. To demonstrate, he pointed at a road a quarter-mile away and said it was impossible to tell if a car was going 55, 65 or 75 mph unless there was another car nearby to offer a point of reference.

“You just can’t do it,” he said. Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different releases points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher’s hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision.

“Except,” Maddux said, “for that [expletive] Tony Gwynn.”

The Le Batard/Deadspin ballot was one of the most reasoned and sensible ballots -- it had the maximum ten names, included Bonds and Clemens, and had no Jack Morris/Lee Smith embarrassments on it. I'm guessing not more than 5% of voters could say the same about their ballot. So if the BBWAA suspends him or takes his ballot away then they're just adding to the travesty that HOF voting has become.

Ha -- Gwynn faced Maddux 103 times and hit .429/.485/.538.

that [expletive]

That's crazy.

tbf - i can even understand the BBWAA taking away his ballot. it'll be a shame, but it is any less of an embarrassment having a writer let a website make his picks for him?

he didn't 'sell' his ballot, as no money, even for charity, was exchanged. he took the advice of baseball fans and submitted a ballot far more reasonable than, say, ken gurnick's. why strip his vote? he didn't end up voting for jacque jones and armando benitez. as defenders of the current voting process like to say, it may have been ugly, but it ultimately worked.

saw something yesterday that maddux would purposefully throw hittable pitches in super low leverage situations (like if he was pitching in a 5-0 game) just to fuck with hitters heads

Whenever I made an effort to see someone during their absolute prime--Bonds in the early 2000s, Griffey in 1994--they usually didn't have a great game. But when my dad and I went to Montreal in '95 or '96 to catch Maddux, he was great. He won 3-2, I think--pitched a shutout for six or seven innings, got charged with a run or two after he'd left the game. He worked so fast. I remember watching him in bafflement as to how he made it look so easy.

i didn't say he sold his ballot.

i know -- but some of his critics are

I think this was the Maddux start I saw:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MON/MON199508040.shtml

If I'm right, I don't remember that we took much notice of the Montreal starter.

Why would you, at 9-7 he didn't know how to win.

most memorable game involving one of these electees:

i remember seeing the white sox against the boston red sox in '91 at comiskey park during frank thomas' first full season. it was pretty clear how good he was at that point, even halfway through that season. he hit two massive home runs off mike gardiner and came up against dennis lamp later. thomas was working the count and you could see lamp pacing off the mound and muttering to himself because he had no idea how to pitch to him, it looked like in the context of the situation that he didn't want to get back on the mound. there were at least two visits to the mound by the catcher. anyway, he eventually struck him out somehow but i just remember everyone watching thomas and knowing he was this new, unstoppable force.

also the game had a few future HOFers: thomas, boggs, fisk, raines (fingers crossed), sosa (ok maybe not...) plus ventura, burks, greenwell, jack clark, mo vaughn. lots of old school dudes on the way out and new school guys on the way in.

Any Toronto fan who witnessed Dave Stieb's 1985 season was not hung up on W-L record. (xpost)

I saw Thomas somewhere in there too, but I don't recall that he did anything memorable. When we travelled to Detroit to see Griffey, he (literally) didn't get the ball out of the infield. Probably this game:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA199406270.shtml

‏@richardjustice
BBWAA hot about LeBatard shining light on an issue. Apparently okay with dozens of idiots still voting.

@richardjustice
What about spts editors and columnists and Olympic writers who spend 3 minutes on their ballots? We should not give anyone a lifetime vote.

@richardjustice
We had a guy in Houston ask for fan help in filling out his HOF ballot. He still votes.

@richardjustice
We had a guy in Houston who voted for Jim Deshaies so he could write a column about it. He still votes.

@richardjustice
Houston BBWAA voted to give one guy the "Nice Guy" award. Only later did someone point out the voters hadn't actually been in the clubhouse

i remember this game crystal clear - http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL199709300.shtml

it was my birthday, i was home on leave, first time at turner field. two hours fifteen minutes.

But when my dad and I went to Montreal in '95 or '96 to catch Maddux, he was great. He won 3-2, I think--pitched a shutout for six or seven innings, got charged with a run or two after he'd left the game. He worked so fast. I remember watching him in bafflement as to how he made it look so easy.

Yeah, I saw Maddux pitch a complete-game shutout for the Cubs in 2004 and marveled at his command on the mound. Game was just a shade over two hours:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN200407170.shtml

@LeBatardShow 29m

Max penalty: BBWAA just lifetime banned me from Hall of Fame vote and won't allow me to attend a game as credentialed media for a year.

oh noes

The anti-Le Betard/Deadspin hysteria is a who's who of who sucks

Yep

Sorry, more Maddux.

I was curious if I had the right game. No ticket stub, but I wrote a long Maddux piece for my fanzine at the time, and it turns out the boxscore linked to above is correct. Relevant excerpt:

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/maddux_zps44278e11.jpg

I can't believe it. Saw Maddux at the peak of his peak, starting against a 23-year-old Pedro. Didn't mention Martinez then, remained completely oblivious to his involvement until I looked at the boxscore today.

I was at this game, it was Maddux's only time pitching in Toronto:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR199706170.shtml

The Jays managed to score three runs off of him, but he still left with the lead and threw only 76 pitches through six. Time of the game: 2:45, but when was the last time you saw an 8-7 game with 24 hits get finished in less than three hours?

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/88163/hotsportstakes-in-a-world-of-wrong-the-hall-always-gets-it-right

also from grantland, I just xp'd this in the PED thread, very good read:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10261642/mlb-hall-fame-voting-steroid-era

xpost it has an uncanny resemblance to a Bill Plaschke column ... well I guess that settles the argument about who is the worst writer on earth.

The second Grantland article is a must-read, even if you remember reading some or most of the articles it covers.

My most memorable game ever involving anyone but Frank Thomas was playing :)

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200610060.shtml