There were so many holdovers from the previous ballot that we're going through only one year this time. So I've decided to assign some blurbs for players that have been on a while that have been getting some votes.
Final Ballot
Eddie Cicotte
Due Date for Blurbs: August 24
New Hitters
Bill Terry (DPWY)
Travis Jackson (CanOfCorn)
Freddie Lindstrom (bhiggum)
New Pitchers
George Uhle (yickit)
Tom Zachary (nibbish)
Firpo Marberry (philosofer)
General Crowder (Scot)
Old Players Who Are Getting Their Blurbs On
Stan Coveleski (AMR)
Zack Wheat (daneekasghost)
Urban Shocker (Beau)
Red Faber (New Britain Bo)
Joe Sewell (freealonzo)
Urban Clarence (Red) Faber was born on a farm by Cascade, Iowa (Dubuque County) in 1888.
Quick Dubuque story – early NBBW and I history – during the course of two days we ran into 3 Dubuque references (Some TV news story on Dubuque, IA, a Dubuque ham commercial, and a joke by Johnny Carson on the tonight show referencing Dubuque). So of course, that next weekend was “RoadTrip!!1110101!! to Dubuque in my light blue LTD (the boat). It was great, especially Paul’s Tavern (awesome taxidermy). I digress...
Red’s father was one of the wealthiest citizens in town (population 762, so he probably, like, had a gold tooth, and smoked those expensive stogies).
Also from Cascade: San Diego Padres pitcher Colin Rea, and Jeremie Miller, who wrote one of the first XML parsers in JavaScript, and invented Jabber/XMPP and the primary developer of jabberd 1.0.
Red was making 2 bucks a game to pitch Sundays for a local baseball team in Dubuque. In 1904, avg number of pitches per game was ~138, so the starter probably got in at least 6-7 innings then (blind conjecture) so somewhere about 92 pitches/per game, so $0.021 a pitch.
He played for Class B Dubuque Miners of the Triple-I league, then moved up to Pueblo and Des Moines (OK, maybe sideways) - perfect game against the Davenport Prodigals in 1910.
Made the bigs in 1914 with 19 starts winning 10 with Chicago Pale Hosers, with whom he played his entire career.
Faber holds the American League record for wins (4) in the 1917 World Series against the New York Giants. He missed the Black Sox scandal as he was out due to WWI injuries and flu – conjecture is that there would not have been a scandal with Red on the mound.
Pitched 20 consecutive season for the White Sox, 254-213 career record, 3.15 ERA, and 1471 strikeouts. He was the last legal spitballer in the American League, and was inducted into the HOF in 1964.
Faber also formed a charitable orgn that assisted former baseball players who had run into financial or physical problems (Baseball Anonymous).
Urban Shocker
“That broken finger may not be pretty to look at,” said Shockcor, “but it has been very useful to me. It hooks over a baseball just right so that I can get a break on my slow ball and that’s one of the best balls I throw. If the finger was perfectly straight, I couldn’t do this. As it is, I can get a slow ball to drop just like a spitter. Perhaps if I broke one of my other fingers, I could get the ball to roll over sideways or maybe jump in the air, but I am too easy-going to make the experiment.”
Urbain Shockor was an integral part of the Browns early success, winning 20 games four times, leading the team in WAR in 1921 and almost leading them to a pennant in 1922, finishing just one game behind the Yankees. Of course, he'd join the Yankees later and helped them take the pennant in 26 and 27. During his final season on one of the best teams of all-time, he went 18-6 with a 2.84 ERA. His peripherals weren't as good and he was in obvious decline. No doubt because of his heart condition.
"I’ve had a bum heart for some time. You’ve seen me sitting up late at night in my Pullman berth. I couldn’t lie down. Choked when I did.”
He was left off the 27 World Series rotation and only played in 2 innings in 1928 as he couldn't get himself into shape. He lost almost 70 pounds. He tried to pitch for a semi-pro team in Denver that summer, but was eventually hospitalized and died from heart disease and pneumonia in September.
Known by himself and rest of the league for being a cerebral pitcher, Shocker walked very few batters and twice led the league in BB/9 and SO/BB ratio. He was cited as having more control over the spitball than any pitcher ever. One year he led the league in strikeouts. His 3.85 strikeouts per nine was fourth in the league that year. His stats put him squarely in the borderline hall-of-fame territory. Of course, no other pitcher in the Hall has such an awesome name.
Reminds me of Muralitharan, who's arm, bent congenitally, enabled him to throw the doosra (not uncontroversially).
Travis Calvin Jackson
Position/Team: Shortstop and Third Baseman for the New York Baseball Giants (1922-36)
Hall of Fame? Yes
Nickname: Stonewall, or Stoney, for his ability to stop balls from going through the infield, in much the same manner as General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson held Union troops at bay during the Civil War.
creative, eh?
Notoriety: Casey Stengel called him “the greatest bunter I ever saw.”
Old fangled Stats:
.291 Batting Average
1768 Hits
929 RBI
Stats my dad doesn’t understand:
.770 OPS
102 OPS+
44 WAR
Fun Facts:
By 1979, the Giants infield of the 1920s was represented in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame at every position – except shortstop. In 1973, Jackson’s former teammate Bill Terry was selected to serve on the Hall’s Veterans Committee. Terry felt defensive contributions to the game were not duly recognized and his influence was such that, by ’82, Jackson was inducted in the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.
Edward Stack, president of the Hall of Fame, said that the meeting at which Jackson had been selected “included considerable discussion about middle infielders.” Stack said he hoped with Jackson’s selection that more middle infielders such as Pee Wee Reese and Phil Rizzuto would be considered. Jackson’s election did pave the way in breaking precedent. Reese and Rizzuto were later admitted, as well as players like Ozzie Smith and Roberto Alomar who while capable with the bat, influenced the game more through their defensive skills.
-Details courtesy of SABR
Personality Quirks/Character Flaws: Nothing much here.
Cool Name Bro: Nope
Does he mean, "60th place in Career Offensive WAR" Roberto Alomar, "four time Silver Slugger" Roberto Alomar, or "lifetime .300 hitter" Roberto Alomar? I always get those three confused with "great glove, weak bat" Roberto Alomar.*
* Yes, I know that Alomar was known for his glove, but I never got the impression that he was known as anything but a complete player. Certainly not one who had to rely on his glove to get into the Hall. Neither Fangraphs, nor bbref is particularly keen on his fielding prowess, for what it's worth. His OPS ended up about 130 points north of Vizquel's.
To be honest, I didn't realize his offensive numbers were anywhere near that solid, but yeah, that's what Jackson's SABR bio says about Alomar...
Yeah, I made sure that it was SABR's revisionist history before getting overly snarky about it. 😉
I did not know Matt Lawton was one of the pieces of the Alomar to NYM trade in '01.
Also, that '93 Jays team was pretty stacked - Alomar was 3rd on the team* in BA (.326) SLG (.408) and OPS (.900) and 2nd in OBP (.408).
*Behind John Olerud (.363/.473/.599/1.072)!!! & Minnesota's Own Paul Molitor (.332/.402/.509/.911)
I'm interested in debating Olerud. At present, I think he's borderline, and could go either way on him.
We'll get there ... sometime in 20?? err, a few years.
Olerud is one of the players I'm quite excited to discuss as well.
Don't forget Jack Morris, winningest pitcher of the 1980s & dominant postseason pitcher.
I'll get a blurb in ASAP
By ASAP, I apparently mean hopefully by Sunday night.
Off the top of my head, the things I can tell you about Bill Terry are:
1. He replaced John McGraw as Giants manager?
2. He's the guy who famously asked, "Is Brooklyn still in the league?" in 1934 only to have his team lose to Brooklyn in the final two games of the season causing it to narrowly miss a World Series spot.
3. I think he's the last NL player to hit .400*.
4. He was the first baseman for me in my historical Diamond Mind reenactment league for awhile.
5. His Major League career was relatively short for a HOFer.
*May not be accurate
Bill Terry
First basemen for the New York Giants from dickety-four to thirty-six. Player-manager for a few years, and then stayed on the helm them through the 30's.
Hall of Fame: Yes, elected by the writers
Baseball Card Stats:
.341 Batting Average (last NL player to hit .400 in 1930)
2,193 Hits (led NL in 1930)
1,120 Runs (led NL in 1931)
Also led NL with 20 triples in 1931
HR totals from 1930 to 1932: 23, 9, 28. I think he laid of the sheep testosterone in 1931.
Baseball Reference Stats
136 career OPS+
54.2 WAR
Other Interesting Stuff To Perhaps Only Me
Terry quit the minors in 1918 to take a clerking job with Standard Oil to make more money once his wife became pregnant. A couple of years later, he started playing in the minors again. When John McGraw first met him, Terry rebuffed an offer to join the Giants because he didn't want to hurt his family by taking a paycut and moving to New York. McGraw finally lured him to the Giants a few months later with an $800 signing bonus.
Terry usurped first base during the 1925 season from George Kelly. To keep Kelly's bat in the lineup, McGraw moved him to second base. Can you imagine a starting first basement moving to second base now?
He was very serious causing him to rub both his manager, John McGraw, and the media the wrong way on occasion because of his blunt personality. He also refused to follow tradition at the time and provide the media with his home phone number to allow reporters to get a quote as they finished up their stories that evening after the day game. He discouraged his players from speaking to the press and would frequently close the clubhouse after games.
After leaving baseball, he owned a Buick dealership and turned down an offer to manage the hated Dodgers in 1953 because it would have been a paycut.
I have no idea how this got auto-corrected to this or whatever happened, but I'm tempted to replace all references to "24" with it.
I assume it's that the Kaiser had taken the word "Twenty"
Zack Wheat
Position/Team: Leftfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers (1909-26) and Philadelphia A's (1927)
Hall of Fame? Yes.
(Veteran's Committee voted him in twice - the first time it turned out he was ineligible. 15 BBWAA Ballots, high of 23%)
Old fangled Stats:
Exactly 10,000 career Plate Appearances
.317 Batting Average (won one batting title - 1918)
2884 Hits
1248 RBI
172 Triples (23rd all time)
Stats my dad doesn’t understand:
.817 OPS
129 OPS+
60.2 WAR
Fun Facts:
Dodgers all-time franchise leader in hits, doubles, triples, RBI, and total bases.
Was apparently coached by Dick Bremer in the minors -
Owned a farm in Missouri that did well enough that he could afford to hold out for a new contract almost every year.
Personality Quirks/Character Flaws: He married his second cousin, who then became his agent.
Shortly before his death he was asked if he had any advice for youngsters with ballplaying aspirations. "Yes," he said. "Tell them to learn to chew tobacco."
Almost all of this information from the SABR project.
Cool Name Bro: First name is WGOM-approved Zack with a K. Otherwise, meh.
I think I'm voting for him based on the fact that he got exactly 10,000 plate appearances.
That is a pretty neat quirk.
I think I'll vote for him for deciding Dick's coaching was dumb.
It makes rate stats so much easier to calculate.
"General" Alvin Floyd Crowder
11 seasons, 29.6 WAR
Got his nickname from General Enoch Crowder, the man who designed and implemented the WWI draft lottery in 1917. Though he was not actually a General, Crowder the ballplayer did serve in the war, most notably with the AEF Siberia (an interesting internet rabbit hole for an amateur WWI historian).
If General Crowder is going to earn respect from HBH voters, it will be due to his other nickname: "Yankee Killer". Apparently he was known for his performance against the league's best team (Babe Ruth in particular). In 58 games against the Yankees, he was 21-16 with a 4.42 ERA, allowing a 106 OPS+, so he may have slowed them compared with the rest of the league, but there is no evidence of killing.
Maybe it was meant to be tongue firmly in cheek?
As I mentioned on the stats page, I misread his last name as "Chowder" and was prepared to vote for him, but alas...
Enoch + Crowder
Huh. I'm familiar with AEF Siberia*. I wrote my undergrad Soviet history capstone paper on the Polar Bear Expedition, which ensnared a sizable number of young men from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. There are tons of interesting primary source documents on the Polar Bears in our archives. What a miserable debacle.
* AEF Siberia & the Polar Bear Expedition were the answers to one of my favorite questions to my military history students: "Who can tell me about the American invasions of Soviet Russia?"
Apparently also an interesting rabbit hole for a more seasoned historian. That's pretty cool.
The trail from AEF Siberia did lead to the Polar Bear Expedition as well. Interesting stuff and I had never heard of either before.
Which one was it where they spent most of their time stuck on their train?
I was supposed to do Coveleski by yesterday, but I was camping until last night.
Tomorrow seems more promising.
I've got my research printed out.
Joe Sewell
Joe Sewell played mostly SS For the Indians and Yankees from 1920-33. He was elected to the HOF by the Veterans Committee in 1977. He was on two World Series winning teams.
Don't you hate strikeouts when your favorite team is at bat? Well Joe Sewell took that hatred of strikeouts to the extreme. Dude hated to strike out. Sewell holds the record for the lowest strikeout rate in major league history, striking out on average only once every 63 at-bats, and the most consecutive games without a strikeout, at 115. He also holds the single-season record for fewest strikeouts over a full season, with 3, set in 1932 as well as three other full seasons (1925, 1929, 1933) with 4 strikeouts. For his 1925–1933 seasons, Sewell struck out 4, 6, 7, 9, 4, 3, 8, 3, and 4 times. To Sewell striking out was for losers. And Joe Sewell was no loser.
Patrick Reusse Stats:
Hits: 2,226
Avg: .312
RBIs: 1,054
HRs: 68
Phil Mackey Stats:
OPS: .804
OPS+: 108
WAR: 53.7
Interesting story:
Sewell became the starting SS in Cleveland after Ray Chapman was killed by a beanball to the head in 1920.
Quirk:
According to his obituary published in the New York Times, he played his entire Major League career using only one bat, which he kept in shape by rubbing with a Coke bottle and seasoning with chewing tobacco.
Cool Name Bro:
Nope.
There has to be a name (or we need to come up with one) when you don't even get a Golden Sombrero over an entire season. I just can't comprehend.
Brian Dozier has struck out more (121 v. 114) this season than Sewell did in 14 years,
If "Old Fangled Stats" are "Patrick Reusse Stats" and "Stats My Dad Doesn't Understand" are "Phil Mackey Stats," what are "Jim Souhan Stats"? Column inches of quotes / Days on the DL?
Ratio of real injuries to made-up injuries (RIMI) and poultry references per paragraph (PRP).
Precious:
Jim Souhan @SouhanStrib: Breaking: The weighted ball Manziel has been throwing to strengthen his elbow is a Magic 8 ball
Frederick Charles Lindstrom
Freddie Lindstrom played third base for the New York Giants, debuting at the age of 18 in 1924 and becoming a regular for the next seven years. He turned into an All-Star in his age 22-24 seasons, coming in second in the NL MVP voting in 1928, when he led the league in hits with 231 and played 153 games at third.
His decline after that 1930 season in New York was rapid, though. He was moved to the outfield in 1931 after a broken leg and chronic back issues limited his defense at third, then traded to Pittsburgh in 1932, when he was 26. He experienced a slight resurgence as a centerfielder for that year, hitting .310 and posting a 127 OPS+, but after one more year in Pittsburgh, he was traded to the Cubs, where he helped them win the NL championship but they lost in the World Series to the Detroit Tigers. Released after that season and signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers, he retired at the age of 30 after colliding with an infielder chasing after a pop-up.
He went on to manage minor league teams and coach the Northwestern University baseball team for 13 seasons.
Standard Stats-
Hits: 1,747
Avg: .311
RBIs: 779
HRs: 103
Should-be Standard Stats-
OPS: .800
OPS+: 110
WAR: 28.3
Reason to vote for him-
In 1930, Giants manager John McGraw ranked Lindstrom ninth among the top 20 players of the previous quarter century.
Reason to not vote for him-
In 2001, baseball writer Bill James ranked Lindstrom as the worst third baseman in the Hall of Fame (eek).
there are 13 third basemen in the hall. JAWS has Freddie as 69th best (eek)
Heh. Well, I researched him and at least it should be an easy decision for everyone 😉
George Uhle
513 Games, 3119 2/3 Innings
ERA+ 106
WAR 44.3
Once intentially walked Mark Koenig to face Babe Ruth, who he struck out. Ruth faced Uhle more than any other pitcher (110 At bats) Ruth batted .336 with 25 strikeouts against Uhle but Ruth said he was the toughest pitcher he ever faced.
From Cleveland Ohio where he played Semipro ball before being picked up by the Indians. From his SABR profile:
Uhle was also a great hitter for a pitcher .289 9hr and 187 RBIs (11.6 WAR)
Basically, Uhle had a few great years and quite a few average ones. He doesn't really make the cut for me, but he had an impressive career nontheless.
His last game was in 1936 for the Indians. He pinch hit for Italo Chelini and hit a single. The game appears to have ended in a tie after 12 innings. Huh.
Dang it, ran out of time while trying to shrink it to something more...manageable.
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This is great.
Tom Zachary had a long, fairly uneventful career. His best seasons were with the Senators, and his main claim to fame was as the pitching hero of the Senators' lone World Series championship. He went 2-0 and threw one complete game and one almost complete game. A couple of years later, he was starting the back half of his career, one where he bounced around from team to team, rarely making an impression.
In 1926, he received an MVP vote, despite coming in with a 14-15 record in a season where he walked almost twice as many batters as he struck out.
He ended up walking more batters than he struck out over the course of his career, and managed to get precisely one vote in both of his Hall of Fame ballots.
I meant to do a bigger write-up on Mr. Firpo Marberry, but... this will have to do.
Firpo's case for the hall largely comes down to how you feel about groundbreaking players and relief pitchers. Because Firpo (and that's an awesome name, let us observe) was groundbreaking in that he was a relief pitcher. He was also a starter, but he really became known as a reliever, and if he'd done that exclusively, he would probably have gained the kind of numbers that would put him in the hall via veteran's vote or somesuch. In 14 seasons he put together a career WAR of 31.7, which is low for both Starters and Relievers, but he was instrumental in the Washington Senator's only World Series victory, including a 9th inning performance in game 2, then starting the next day (and losing, but because of errors), and then coming back for a key performances in games 4 and 7. Walter Johnson lost twice that series. Firpo was the real pitching stud, despite what Nibs is trying to sell you on Mr. Zachary. Indeed, that "almost complete game" is the one where Mr. Zachary allowed the Giants to tie it in the 9th, and Firpo came in, shut them down, and then the Senators scored. Old-timey statistics gave Zachary the win still, which is weird.
Despite also being a starter, he led the league in saves in 1924, '25, '26, '29, '31, and '32. Years he didn't, he was primarily a starter. I'm not sure what to do with that. Also, the number of saves was really quite low, relative to today, because relievers came in in very different situations back then. Comparing a reliever then to a reliever now is... challenging.
Anyway, I'm voting for him, because he's the kind of hidden, interesting gem that should be acknowledged in some sort of historical way. It's probably not quite enough, for enshrinement, but I'll be darned if this isn't exactly the kind of player I wanted to learn more about through this process.
With you on all of this, I think. I had planned to put a 'maybe' on him, but with this, I think I can change that to a 'yes', because I like groundbreaking players (relief pitchers...eh...we'll see how I feel about those).
The really fun part for me was being able to learn more about Zachary too, while researching Firpo. That Senators championship seems like it must have been a messy, fun, series.
Yeah, it's getting fun to read up on some of these folks as we get into the so-called "golden age". Lots of fun storylines, even if the stats themselves are rarely compelling (especially with the pitchers).
for a reliever, 31.7 WAR is actually quite high. Of course, that wasn't all accumulated as a reliever.
Right. I was... not clear about what I wrote above. A good chunk of his career value came from starting, which put his relief value somewhat lower relative to other great relievers. He's really hard to fit into a neat box for comparisons. Which is kind of what I like about him.
Okay, ballots sent! Sheesh.
Scot, Rowsdower, I believe I got the ballots sent out to your alternate e-mail addresses. If you didn't get a ballot, let me know.
For those who didn't do a write-up (see: AMR), you still can if you like.
There was a mistake on the stats sheet. Uhle was listed as having 44.3 career WAR, which included his hitting stats. It actually didn't. I added his hitting WAR and thus his number jumped to 55.9 WAR