Quick note: ESPNEWS will replay the Jim Rice segment from my appearance at 5:20 pm EST. Enjoy.
I’m not surprised by anything except Raines’ poor showing.
Anyway, here’s a comparison of my final tally to the actual percentages, with the last column representing a straight difference (my % – actual %)
| TOTAL | 120 | Pct | 543 | Actual | Diff |
| Gossage | 108 | 90% | 466 | 86% | 4% |
| Rice | 82 | 68% | 392 | 72% | -4% |
| Blyleven | 79 | 66% | 336 | 62% | 4% |
| Dawson | 79 | 66% | 358 | 66% | 0% |
| Morris | 58 | 48% | 233 | 43% | 5% |
| Smith | 44 | 37% | 235 | 43% | -7% |
| Raines | 42 | 35% | 132 | 24% | 11% |
| McGwire | 29 | 24% | 128 | 24% | 1% |
| Trammell | 29 | 24% | 99 | 18% | 6% |
| John | 22 | 18% | 158 | 29% | -11% |
| Concepcion | 16 | 13% | 88 | 16% | -3% |
| Murphy | 13 | 11% | 75 | 14% | -3% |
| Parker | 11 | 9% | 82 | 15% | -6% |
| Mattingly | 6 | 5% | 86 | 16% | -11% |
| Baines | 4 | 3% | 28 | 5% | -2% |
My tally’s estimates were within five percentage points of the actual figures for five of the top six guys; I’m pleased with that. I ended up a high on the three main stathead favorites (Bly, Rock, Tram), and low on the three guys who really don’t have any business in the Hall (Rice, Morris, Smith). Assuming I do this again next year, I’ll try to identify a few more retired voters, since that’s a good chunk (as many as 200?) of the voter pool.
But seriously, who the fuck voted for Shawon Dunston?
I want to know who voted for Todd Stottlemyre too
Saw you on the four-letter with Joe S., Tim K., and Steve Phillips. I swear I could feel you or Joe dying to leap out of your screen into Phillips’ so you could smack him upside the head, after the fourth time he said, “But Tim Raines doesn’t *feel* like a Hall of Famer to me. Jim Rice does, Andre Dawson does.”
I don’t think he understood about selective data points at all.
I was asking that same question re: Fryman. SRSLY.
Could someone please put the debate on the four-letter on YouTube, so I can enjoy here in Denmark……….?
24% for Raines?!? Un-freakin’-believable. For God’s sake, the man was basically Tony Gwynn with more steals…….
http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/public_v_private_hof_ballots/
Keith, I published the differences between the ballots you have and those you didn’t at the above link. Raines for example, in the 120 ballots you had, got 35% votes. In the 423 ballots you did not have, he got 21% of the votes.
It makes the differences more striking.
I’m curious to know what people think about McGwire. I think he should be in without question.
I think the voters need to get off their moral soapboxes and vote for those who are deserving. The steroids fiasco happened and it’s not going away. There were no rules against performance enhancers (and in most cases no proof that these players used), so I don’t think it should be held against players like McGwire.
If Pete Rose can be banned for “acts that stained the game” McGuire, at the very least should have to endure this. The steroid era has “stained” the game. I am not trying to equate the transgressions of Rose and McGuire, just saying I enjoy seeing him suffer through this annual ” pain in the ass.”
M-C-G-W-I-R-E.
I mean, seriously…how is that so difficult?
Pete Rose was an isolated offender who deliberately lied. Also, Rose’s gambling IS and WAS illegal when he committed his acts.
As a phils fan I would love to see Rose get in, but I don’t think he deserves it. He made his own bed by being an idiot for 20 some years. He should be considered once he’s dead, but I don’t think it’s fair to give him the gratification of being admitted.
McGwire, Clemens, Bonds should all be in.
Can we see the debate footage on espn.com?
If you go to the baseball page and click on the video link for “Rice Falls Short…”, you’ll see part of one segment, and “Hall Says No to Mark McGwire” shows part of another segment. It looks like they clipped the two parts of the hour where Steve Phillips and I had our strongest disagreements.
Great job by the worldwide leader. Do you know if there are any other showings of the full segment? How I could miss both with a work from home job is quite disturbing.
To me, the posturing on McGwire comes from writers who are trying to save face on the whole steroids issue they blundered in covering for roughly 20 years. Statistically, there are few “strong” arguments against his induction.
-A lot of strike outs, low BA (traditonal arguments, but hello, Reggie Jackson?)
-Dismal postseason numbers
-No MVP award
However, the guy flat out crushed the ball, got on base at a ridiculously high rate and made 12 All-Star teams (again, meaningless number, but seems to carry weight with those who think “Opening Day starts” mean something).
If the writers are prepared to take a stand against steroids/McGwire, they better be ready to do it for everyone that played from the 80’s until ’05. That includes Griffey, Thomas, Maddux, Glavine and Jeter.
In re Steve Phillips… well…
I voted for Shawon Dunston. I saw a game in 1986 where he hit a HR, a SB, first to third on a single, and he made a sweet play in the field. He had that Hall of Fame swagger. I pegged him as a definate HOFer for sure.
I didn’t catch the rest of his career, I assume it was more of the same.
Nice work on TV today, Keith. You and Joe Sheehan made Steve Phillips sound like Ralph Wiggum.
When I think of Shawon Dunston, I think HOFer. I just feel in my gut that he’s a HOFer. I don’t need to look at numbers, not that I would know how to interpret them anyway.
At least if you applied the “feared” comment to Dunston it would be correct. It was mainly Grace that feared him and his 90+ mph throws from 75 feet away in the dirt but…
On the parts I saw very nice job by yourself and joe. Remember when Joe went, um, like, you are using the wrong stats to Tim. That was awesome.
So Rice, barring a miracle, goes in next year. If he’s considered a measuring stick for a true Hall of Famer (and I know neither Keith nor anybody else here would make that argument), how many current outfielders would qualify? Twenty-five?
Or even recently retired ones; Bernie Williams certainly (and suddenly) looks like a viable candidate when put next to Jim Rice.
As a Phillies fan, I remember Dave Hollins fielding groundballs at 3B, quadruple pumping, and throwing it 80 mph when he was practically standing right next to Kruk. Good times those were.
Steve Phillips thought that Jaret Wright was the key signing of the 04-05 offseason. (true story) He is merely good hair in a suit (probably there to offest Kruk’s visage).
Just watched the clip on Rice. An exact sentence from Steve Phillips
“When a guy is the most impactful offensive player in a league over a decade period of time, to me that certainly gives him very strong consideration for the numbers.”
Keith, were you thinking “I weep for the English language Part 7” when he made that statement?
Is there any other way to find that debate besides ESPN.com?
Btw, Keith Law is just a fuckin’ beast. That’s all there is to it.
Shawon Dunston was a consummate teammate who was a true professional and played the game the right way.
Beat that.
I think Bernie Williams was already a viable candidate. A 125 OPS+ from a centerfielder is pretty damn good. Throw in the fact that he was an above-average defender for a good part of his career and, of course, his post-season heroics for the Yankees dynasty and he’s got a pretty solid case. But, like you said, comparing him to Jim Rice makes him look even better.
Pettitte and former Yankee Chuck Knoblauch also have been asked to testify along with former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, alleged to have supplied McNamee with performance-enhancing drugs.
How dare they ask the recipient of one HOF vote to testify before Congress and risk tarnishing his future HOF chances.
Keith, you couldn’t carry Jim Rice’s jock strap.
Yeah Keith, that jockstrap would slip out of your hands because of all the fear juice that oozed out of Jim Rice onto said strap.
It’s a travesty that Todd Stottlemyre wasn’t voted in.
In discussing the primary election in his weekly op-ed, George Will described Obama’s voters thus:
“Voters are attracted to him as iron filings are to a magnet. Mind hardly enters into this response to his nimbus of novelty, and it is impossible to reason people out of affiliations they have not been reasoned into.”
Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees, it bears an eerie resemblance to many of the Hall of Fame debates that have gone on in recent days.
I know there has been an inordinate amount of dissection and teeth gnashing over the candidacy of Jim Rice so I suspect someone has the answer to my question. Dan Shaughnessy continues his championing of Rice’s candidacy with the declaration that Rice was so feared he could induce an opposing manager to intentionally walk him with the bases loaded (today he asserts Rice was a better hitter than Boggs). Yet for a player of Rice’s reputation, he has a dearth of intentional walks. Does anyone know if Rice was ever actually walked with the bases loaded or is Shaughnessy’s writing utterly speculative for dramatic effect?
Travis, why would Keith want to carry Jim Rice’s jock strap? Seriously, a grown man’s jock strap? That’s gross. I don’t even like touching my own.
Michael –
http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/event_bat.cgi?n1=riceji01#divisory=1&pitchORbat=bat&n1=riceji01&year_game=career&event=15&out_type=
This is a summary of every IBB of Rice’s career. You’ll see that in the ROB (Runners on Base) category, there is never an instance of 1-2-3, which would mean the bases were loaded. Rice was never walked with the bases loaded. It is also ridiculous for a journalist to be ‘speculative’ about something that would take him a minute or two to look up. Shaughnessy’s comments are misleading at best. Check out Shysterball’s analysis of this here: http://shysterball.blogspot.com/2008/01/standards.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/cs-080109mikedowneyharoldbaineshalloffame,1,7064614.column?ctrack=2&cset=true
Linked and reviewed on FJM but definitely needs to be posted here. Hands-down the worst baseball article ever written. Just has to be.
“This is a summary of every IBB of Rice’s career. You’ll see that in the ROB (Runners on Base) category, there is never an instance of 1-2-3, which would mean the bases were loaded. Rice was never walked with the bases loaded.”
Just as damning, out of 77 IBB, only two came with runners on first. So the *vast* majority of the time first base wasn’t open, managers and pitchers were more than happy to take their chances with Rice.
This is incendiary; I recognize, but I’ve yet to see it anywhere so I’ll go in.
Is one of the reasons Jim Rice was considered to be feared because he was an African-American on a team with a history of having very few?
I am not the only person in the room who has had the experience of being on a predominately white sports team, used to playing other predominately white sports teams, and looking across the field or the court to see a predominately black team, and saying “shit, we’re in trouble.” In fact, I’m guessing it wouldn’t take too many leaps for many of us to recall focusing specifically on the one black player on the other side, within the context of a largely white game, and having him take on mythic proportion.
If it’s 1978 and you were a fan/beat writer covering the historically almost all white Red Sox – doesn’t one’s mind see Jim Rice within the context of everyone else around him, and exaggerate his “ferocity”?
In the same way that his truculence (one assumes) may have been exaggerated to fit the “surly black man” role that athletes of the time were slotted into, why is it not fair game to suggest that the memories of Shaughnessy/Gammons, et al. are particularly imprinted with the label of how much Rice was “feared” at least, in part, due to his race?
And Keith – let me suggest you adopt the moniker of Baseball’s Most Feared Writer. Might get you HOF support one day.