WGOM Half-Baked Hall

WGOM Half-Baked Hall: 1900-1902

24 Comments

So after some discussion we decided that we do not want the same players on the ballot indefinitely, even if they don't fall below 25%. Here are the reasons:

1. Some players likely will not change much. For example, it appears about 35% of voters feel that Comiskey deserves to go in because of what he did outside of his playing days. This will likely stay rather static.

2. For players close to the 75% threshold, the pressure of falling off the ballot will likely generate more discussion.

3. We felt it will be more fun if players are judged against their contemporaries.

Therefore, the MAXIMUM number of times a player can be on the ballot is SIX. This is ballot number five. When it's a player's last turn on the ballot, it will be made clear.

Three years per ballot isn't standard, but so far it's how things are falling. 1903-1905 only has seven eligible players, so there may be more years on the next ballot if we have the regular amount of people fall off.

Due Date: July 7. I'm going on my honeymoon on July 11, so I hope to post results on July 10.

New Pitchers

Ted Breitenstein
Nig Cuppy
Pink Hawley
Amos Rusie
Gus Weyhing

New Batters
Cupid Childs
Jack Clements
Billy Hamilton
Dummy Hoy
Mike Smith

Previous Election Results
 Voting History
Player Spreadsheet (added positions!)

24 thoughts on “WGOM Half-Baked Hall: 1900-1902”

  1. Thoughts I have on some guys who have been around a while:

    Jim McCormick: 19th best pitcher of all-time according to JAWS. First nine years of his career his ERA was always above average, twice leading the league. He was a workhorse. In 1883, he pitched 342 innings and only allowed one homer.

    Paul Hines: I still can't separate a vote for him and Deacon White and I maybe even like him a bit better. White has a positional advantage (3B, C) over Hines (CF), but not by much. Hines was a better hitter in all aspects and he stole more bases.

    Buck Ewing: I like King Kelly better as he played a little bit more and was easily the better hitter. But Buck Ewing was more valuable defensively. He played catcher more often than Kelly, and played it better.

    Pud Galvin: I haven't voted for him once. He has a pretty high WAR thanks to a accumulating so many damn innings, and certainly this was very valuable. I just can't get past his ERA+ of 107. He was never the best pitcher in the league at any time and a few years he wasn't even an average pitcher.

      1. Rock on, Beaus! Have a great trip.

        And take it from experience: reapply the sunscreen frequently! I had zebra stripes on my hamstrings for a good six months after our honeymoon in Bermuda, thanks to getting royally fried after not-reapplying upon turning over on a lounge chair (first day!).

  3. Okay. Time to dance.

    * Roger Connor
    Pros:
    One of the very few people in MLB history to have played an entire season at third as a lefty.
    84 Career rWAR
    5th Place All time in JAWS Among First Basemen (ahead of people like Bagwell, the Big Hurt, and McCovey)
    Nice 'stache
    Lots of Triples (5th all time) - I like to reward triples
    He once hit a home run clear out of Polo Grounds off of Old Hoss Radbourn that prompted a sportswriter to write:

    "He met it squarely and it soared up with the speed of a carrier pigeon. All eyes were turned on the tiny sphere as it soared over the head of Charlie Buffinton in right field."

    Not as amazing as the quadruple spin in the outfield, but impressive.

    Cons:
    Not immortal
    Didn't live up to the power hitting levels of later first basemen (though he was generally in the top ten in at bats per home run for his era, he never approached the home run totals of, say, Frank Thomas).

    1. Lots of Triples (5th all time) - I like to reward triples

      At what point in history did some of those triples start turning into homeruns? For these early ballots, I've been treating triples and home runs as roughly equal, but I don't know if that's the fairest way to look at it.

      1. Touché. Fields were enormous, and I think that's primary reason there were more triples. Give them today's fields, some of those would be doubles, some homers. Players were probably relatively faster and elevated the ball less, so parks equal there may have been more triples anyway, but not that many.

  4. I have a hard time not voting for some of these guys simply because their names are so awesome.

  5. From Cupid Child's bio. Apparently, he was not lithe:

    Childs is the most curiously built man in the baseball business: he is about as wide as he is long and weighs about as much as Jeffries, yet there are few men in the league who can get over the ground faster than the 'dumpling.' He started in the business as a professional with the Kalamazoo club in the Tristate league in 1888 and his work was so good that year that he graduated into fast company, where he has been ever since. When he reported to the Kalamazoo club he came in on a 'side-door Pullman' and presented himself to the management of the 'Celery Eaters' and asked for a trial. The manager thought he was joking after looking at his short length and broad girth, telling him he would make a better fat man in a side show than a ball player. Showing them he was anxious for a trial he was told to go to the grounds and practice with the rest of the team. A search was made for a uniform that would fit him, but none could be found, the only thing of that nature large enough for him being a pair of divided skirts, which he put on, cutting them off at the knees. His appearance with this costume on can be imagined and was so ludicrous that it threatened to break up the practice. However, as soon as he got out on the diamond and began to practice they began to open eyes and wonder. Such stops and throws were made as they never saw before and with such ease and grace that all were at once convinced he was a wonder. The management signed him on the spot and at a good salary, a move they never regretted, as his playing was the sensation of league all the season. Besides being one of the greatest ball players in the business, he is said to be one of the best humored, not a single instance of his ever losing his temper in a game being on record.

  6. The first Billy Hamilton stole seven bases in a single game in 1894. He retired as baseball's all-time stolen base leader, and insisted until he died in 1940 that he had many more stolen bases than the record shows.

    His total differs depending on the source. The BBHOF credits him with 937, which puts him third on the all time list behind Henderson (1406) and Brock (938). Most have his totals closer to the 910 range, which would still be more than fourth place Ty Cobb (892).

  7. Amos Rusie

    As wild as he was fast, he walked more than 260 batters each of his first three years. Rusie's wildness with his terrific fastball terrorized hitters. His fastball didn't make his life easy, though, as Rusie noted years later: "It took a lot of pitchin' to strike a man out in those days. The foul strike rule hadn't come in. A guy had to miss three of 'em clean before he was out."

    A large man for those days at 6'1" and 200 pounds, Rusie threw so hard that catcher Dick Buckley said he put a sheet of lead wrapped in a handkerchief and a sponge in his mitt when he caught Rusie. More testimony about his fastball came from Cubs outfielder Jimmy Ryan: "Words fail really to describe the speed with which Rusie sent the ball. He was a man of great height, great width, prodigious muscular strength and the ability to put every ounce of his weight and sinew on every pitch. The distance was shorter then, Rusie had the whole box to move around in, instead of being chained to a slab; and the giant simply drove the ball at you with the force of a cannon. It was like a white streak tearing past you." Indeed, Rusie's fastball was so hot that many fans claimed that he did not always throw the ball but merely went through the motions.

    Rusie occasionally found himself in bizarre situations. One day he accidentally beaned Baltimore shortstop Hughie Jennings. Jennings somehow finished the final six innings of the game, then fell unconscious for four days.

  8. I'm not going to vote for Dummy Hoy, but he has quite a story. My 2014 sensibilities say I shouldn't call him "Dummy" - but he reportedly would correct anyone who tried to call him "William," so I guess the nickname sticks.

    Hoy lived long enough to throw out the first pitch in a 1961 World Series game at the age of 99. He died a few months later.

    1. Crap! The first half of this voting period was... not good for me to focus on this stuff. I'll get back on the horse next month.

      For what it's worth, I think I've been convinced by every stump for a player given here. But I'm large hall oriented anyway.

        1. Saw that. Did it quickly. Marked my definite "yes"es, and "no"s and punted with maybes on others I need to look more closely at. Next time.

          1. Philo and I were too busy correcting people who were wrong on teh Interwebz to vote until now.

            1. I was busy correcting you and still got mine in while having the same discussion with a HS friend. (He's the one that tipped me off to the "Dictionary Act".)
              I probably decided too quickly on a bunch of them, but you can't expect me to vote right the first time!

                    1. In all fairness, Free's favorite band sounds less like a crime and more like grounds for pleading insanity.

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