Gossage headed to the Hall
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Jan 08, 2008 
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
By now you’ve heard that Goose Gossage was elected to the Hall of Fame and Jim Rice missed by 16 votes.
Good for Gossage. But here’s my question: What were the people thinking who gave votes to Travis Fryman (2) Robb Nen (2) Shawon Dunston, Chuck Finley, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch and Todd Stottlemyre?
I realize this is all objective. But how can you justify such votes?
Pete, you might want to be asking that question to certain republicans in Iowa…
Knobloch got his vote just for the fun of saying his name.
testing….
Pete,
Don’t forget there were 3 blank ballots submitted. What’s with that? I find it hard to believe that there was not one HOF worthy person in the minds of 3 writers.
good for Gossage.Can’t believe Rice just missed it.Guess it will be Rickey and Rice next year.
Pete, if you find out who those voters were, please out them for us.
Pete,
Why do you askthat? Because Justice and Knoblauch “used”? Or because they were marginal players?
I assume you mean “subjective.”
Yanksrule57:
I heard some stubborn voters wrote-in Pete Rose (memo to them: get over it). If it was the only name they submitted, then their vote would be categorized as a blank ballot.
So I don’t know if they were completely blank, or if they were Rose protest votes.
The 3 blank cards submitted means that those 3 voters didn’t deem anyone worthy of induction. I’d rather the standards be higher than letting borderline candidates in there. Keep it exclusive and make induction mean something.
sometimes a writer will throw a vote to a player they were friendly with knowing that they have absolutely no chance of staying on the ballot.
i don’t think it’s that big a deal.
those writers don’t actually think Todd Stottlemeyer is a Hall of Famer. it’s a token gesture.
also, i am not sure why you included Justice and Finley in that list. it’s not laughable that those guys got a few votes.
Justice – .279/.378/.500 OPS+ 127
Rice – .298/.352/.502 OPS+ 128
Justice is by no means a Hall of Famer, but the gap between him and Rice is not large. not large at all. at least not large enough where one guy is 14 votes shy of the hall of fame and the other guy gets mocked for drawing a single vote.
Totally agree hmmm on the Rice/Justice point. Yet another reason the Rice vote completely perplexes me.
Too bad about Dawson but yippeee for GOOOOOOOOOSE!
Has there been any audio from Goose yet anywhere? ESPN kept saying it was coming up, but then there was a l-o-n-g press conference with the Redskins coach who is retiring.
Pete:
Hypothetically, if you had a vote this year. Who would you have voted for? (If this was in a previous post, I apologize, could you point it out if it was
).
Different time, different era. Especially when in that era, 32 HR (Nettles 1976) can lead the league.
Doreen: There are quotes from Goose, but I haven’t seen any audio. Of course, I’m not really looking that hard.
Phil, do you have a link to that stat about Goose? That is an awesome stat (from last thread)
Congrats to GOOSE!!
Hey all well I didn’t get picked, but I was summoned to a court room. It was a civil case (a bogus one that could have been settled in my eyes). They already had 5 seated, needed 3 more. It took all morning and 30 minutes after lunch. They kept throwing people off, finally they had everyone seated and we had to go back to the jurior room. I expected to find an empty room. Well it was full!! I spoke to someone and they said they only called 2 groups. Thankfully they let us leave at 2:30 YIPPE!!! So I’m off for the next 3 years.
Interesting Neyer chat going on. People are blaming him for influencing the vote against Rice. He’s having to defend himself a little. Mentioning the higher numbers at Fenway and the Green Monster. Someone said that they’ll have the same argument when David Ortiz is up for voting. Interesting…
Goose was deserving but a class act like Andre Dawson missing shows how political the voting can be.
Jeter-related:
Michael (Austin, TX): Rob, do HOF voters who are stat heads consider GIDPs? In all the talk about Jim Rice I never hear this mentioned but remember him as being atrocious in that regard.
Rob Neyer: (3:55 PM ET ) He led his league in GIDPs more times than he led his league in home runs or RBIs or slugging percentage. But no, I don’t recall anybody mentioning this lately.
Good job Jennifer – and thanks for showing up! As a litigator, I can tell you that I really appreciate it when people actually come to court and take their civic duty seriously. One of the reasons for some of the crazy verdicts that get reported in the news is the caliber of jurors!
I can’t imagine how long the Nixmary case will take to seat, if a simple civil case took the better part of 2 days.
Had a civil case in CA take almost 3 weeks to get the jury selected. Then, after the jury was sworn in, one of the jurors dropped out and they had to spend more time on filling in that spot (some controversy over how the judge handled it, but all over now). The trial, course, then took 5 months to try.
WOW for civil!! He told us would take 3 days. There were only 3 witnesses!!
You’re the halfwit who thought the Yankees should trade Alex Rodriguez, Peter, so why don’t you tell us what kind of person would put them on their ballots?
Trade Alex? Um you are wrong on that.
Travis Fryman? honestly…that’s as good as submitting a blank ballot.
Pete,
I wonder if the writer who voted for Shawon Dunston is the same guy who didn’t give A Rod his first place vote for MVP this year.
I’m still surprised that Jim Rice didn’t make it. Rice finished in the top 5 for MVP six times in a 10 year stretch. If that’s not dominance, I don’t know what is. I know he scared the heck out of Goose Gossage.
Unfortunately, too many folks pay too much attention to the Rob Neyer/Bill James school of baseball. I read Bill James’ books,but don’t take them too seriously. To them baseball is all about a numbers game. They give a higher on base percentage player like a David Eckstein more respect than a slugger like Jim Rice. Neyer mentions in a column today that Bill James belongs in the HOF!
When Bill James has a year approaching Jim Rice in 1978, then he can talk.
jennifer,
I did my jury service last month. I’ve been a registered voter since ’72 and it was the first time I was ever called! That doesn’t sit too well with my wife because she gets her notification in the mail every couple of years lol.
They released all the jurors the day that I went. I was actually disappointed. I wanted to participate in the process. Maybe I was feeling guilty about going all those years without being called. lol
The writers who voted for one of those players for the Hall must be the same guys who thought A-Rod didn’t deserve the MVP last year.
Great point Pete. Was just about to ask you the same. How do these guys get to vote next year? Travis Fryman? He wasn’t even starting most of his years in the league.
It’s a popularity contest and a shame. It also depends heavily on who else is eligible that year. It’s the same as the MVP/Cy Young votes. How does Carlos Marmol get a 10th place MVP vote?
Was anyone listening to 1050 ESPN when Pettitte’s lawyer was on? What sort of things did he say?
“They give a higher on base percentage player like a David Eckstein more respect than a slugger like Jim Rice.”
i’m calling BS on this strawman.
It’s all SUBJECTIVE not objective.
Did you ever ask your fellow sportswriters if they cast a vote for Finley, Dunston, Deshaises, etc and if so, why? I think that would be a better place than a chat forum to ask such questions.
I don’t mind it and I find it kind of touching to at least remember someone. So far it hasn’t gotten out of hand.
What I’d like to now is who else the guys who cast votes for the “scrubs” voted for? Did the guys that voted for Robb Nen and Rod Beck also vote for Goose and Lee Arthur Smith? Did Chuck Finley’s supporter vote for Bert Blyleven?
You’d have to think so, but hey they voted for the “scrub” so who knows?
http://www.boogiedownbaseball.mlblogs.com
I don’t think it’s ridiculous to vote for Justice, I think he’s as good as Jim Rice or Andre Dawson- not to mention better than a good number of guys who are in because of the Veterans’ Committee. The other guys, though, I agree.
I honestly don’t think Goose deserved it either, just as I didn’t think Sutter deserved it. I think there was only one player on this ballot that deserved to go in, and that’s Big Mac.
Robb Nen won a World Series ring with the Marlins in ’97, pitched with a shredded rotator cuff in an attempt to win another with the Giants in 2002, and finished his career with over 300 saves and a better ERA+ than Sutter, Gossage, or for that matter Lee Smith.
I don’t have a problem with a couple writers throwing him some HOF votes. Personally, I’m a bit surprised he didn’t get a few more.
Congrats to Goose on his Hall of Fame induction.
Now what was disturbing was what was the reason for voting Shawon Dunston, Todd Stottlemyre, and Chuck Knoblauch. I know there are politics behind certain reasons why people do not get in the Hall but this is ridiclous.