HAROLD BAINES, PAUL KONERKO AND JERMAINE DYE
At 6:00 this evening (Tuesday January 22, 2019) the Hall of Fame will reveal the selections of inductees specially chosen by accredited members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America to grace the Class of 2019.
Mariano Rivera is a lock of course and may be the first candidate ever to garner a unanimous vote.
(If not the question is, can the man who amassed a record 652 career saves and posted a 2.21 ERA over nineteen seasons, better the benchmark tally of 99.3% Ken Griffey, Jr. received in 2016?).
Edgar Martinez (70.4% in 2018), Mike Mussina (63.5%), Curt Schilling (51.2%) and newcomer, the late Roy Halladay have a chance to achieve the required 75 percent of the vote, guaranteeing induction.
Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds with their tainted legacies in tow secured 57.3% and 56.4% respectively in 2018, modest increases from the year before. Omar Vizquel, Larry Walker and Fred McGriff are on the outside — way outside — looking in.
[Sidebar — -Results (425 votes cast) announced @ 6 PM — 1/22/18]:
In:
Rivera-425 votes; 100%; First ballot
Halladay-363 votes; 85.4%; First ballot
Martinez-363 votes; 85.4%; Ten years on ballot
Mussina-326 votes; 76.7%; Six years on ballot
Notable Improvement:
Schilling-259 votes; 60.9% from 51.2%; Six years on ballot
Clemens-253 votes; 59.5% from 57.3%; Seven years on ballot
Bonds-251 votes; 59.1% from 56.4%; Seven years on ballot
Players may remain on the ballot for up to ten years provided they receive at least 5% of the vote. Sixteen players this year — all first-time candidates including Lance Berkman, Miguel Tejada, Roy Oswalt and Kevin Youkilis — failed to make the 5% cut].
In 2018, Chipper Jones, Vlad Guerrero, Jim Thome and Trevor Hoffman were elected by the BWAA and Jack Morris and Alan Trammell were elected by The Modern Baseball Era Committee, selected from a ballot of retired players no longer eligible for election along with non-playing personnel who made their greatest contributions to the sport between 1970 and 1987.
(This committee, also known as the Today’s Game Era Committee, represents one of four subgroups of the old Veterans Committee).
The six were enshrined together at the Hall’s formal induction ceremony in Cooperstown on July 29, 2018.
On December 9, 2018 at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Las Vegas, Harold Baines and Lee Smith were elected by the Modern Baseball Era/Today’s Game Era Committee to the Class of 2019.
They were selected from a 10-person ballot which also included Albert Belle, Joe Carter, Will Clark, Orel Hershiser, Davey Johnson, Charley Manuel, Lou Piniella and George Steinbrenner.
The selection of Baines in particular has stirred more than a little controversy.
Hall-of-Fame scribe Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe inimitably maintains that Baines’ selection “was a bag job from start to finish,” and created for him [Shaughnessy] the “Harold Baines Effect.”
The “HBE” resulted in Shaughnessy opting to vote for a single candidate only — Rivera — on this year’s ballot, eschewing his privileged right to vote for as many as ten.
Says he, “Baines is a fine man and was a very good hitter for 22 major league seasons. But he was not a Hall of Famer. And now he is going to the Hall of Fame thanks to the bullying tactics of White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf at a ‘Today’s Game Era Committee’ meeting in Las Vegas last month.
(These ‘committees’ annually evaluate players who were passed over on the writers’ ballot. Last year, they put Alan Trammell and Jack Morris in the Hall. Swell. Both had stronger cases than Baines)…
Reinsdorf, Tony LaRussa, and Pat Gillick, all former bosses of Baines, strong-armed the committee [which includes] eight Hall of Fame players, five executives, and three media members and got 12 of 16 votes required to whisk Baines into Cooperstown.
Now Baines forever will be the bane of my Hall of Fame voting process.”
Resorting to numbers buttressing his position, Shaughnessy continued.
“Baines was a career .289 hitter who never finished in the top eight in MVP voting. He was a DH for much of his career. He made only six All-Star teams in 22 years. He compiled a lot of numbers but was never a dominant player.
When he appeared on the writers’ Hall of Fame ballot, he never received more than 6.1 percent of the vote… His induction will galvanize fans of Dwight Evans, Dick Allen, Tony Oliva, Dale Murphy, Don Mattingly, and dozens of other players who were better than Baines but never sniffed Cooperstown.”
Interesting.
[Harold Baines’ career #s: 22 years; .289 BA; 384 HR; 1,628 RBI; 2,866 Hits; 488 Doubles; 1,299 Runs]
Globe writer Bob Hohler shared Shaughnessy’s sentiment.
Likening Johnny Damon — the only major leaguer with 2500 hits, 200 homers, 400 steals, 100 triples, 500 doubles and 1500 runs not enshrined in Cooperstown — to Baines, he conceded that while a transformative player particularly for the Red Sox, Damon is not HOF material.
(Others seemed to agree as Damon received only 8 votes or 1.9% in his first year of eligibility, rendering him one and done on the ballot).
Then Baines made it.
The Hohler point?
“The lesson I’m taking from the Baines breach is that maybe the Hall standards should be strengthened, not diluted.”
With the six men deemed to be Hall-of-Fame-worthy and scheduled to be inducted on Sunday July 21, 2019 the number of enshrinees will swell to 329, including 232 former Major League Baseball players; 35 Negro League Baseball players and executives; 22 managers; 10 umpires; and 30 pioneers, executives and organizers.
Today’s selection process, one arm of which belongs to the Veterans Committee’s four subcommittees strives to embrace the Hall’s motto of “Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, [and] Connecting Generations.”
But both the actions and composition of the Veterans Committee have historically been called into question due to occasional selections of contemporaries and/or committee members’ teammates at the possible expense of more viable candidates.
Moreover, in 2001 when the Veterans Committee was recomposed to include living HOFers and other honorees and not one individual made the cut in three elections (2003 and 2007 for players and non-players and 2005 for players only) Committee members were accused of holding back so as to enhance the value of their own selection(s).
Further reorganization was necessary and various permutations, groupings and dispositions resulted.
All of this was thankfully ‘sorted out’ in July 2016 when the Hall announced a restructuring of the timeframes to be considered.
Four new committees were established: Today’s Game (1988-present); Modern Baseball (1970–1987); Golden Days (1950–1969); and Early Baseball (1871–1949).
All committees’ ballots include 10 candidates. At least one committee convenes each December as part of the election process for the following calendar year’s induction ceremony.
The Early Baseball committee convenes only in years ending in 0 (2020, 2030). The Golden Days committee convenes only in years ending in 0 and 5 (2020, 2025). The remaining two committees convene twice every 5 years, skipping years in which the Early Baseball and Golden Days bodies have met.
Confusing? Certainly.
A petri dish for the “dilution” hypothesis espoused by Hohler? More than likely.
I am no proponent of diminishing the greatness of any HOF candidate, or tarnishing their luster in any way. Joe Jackson, Rose, Clemens, Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, ARod…are all saddled with allegations of egregious cheating, the infamy weighing heavily.
Mike Piazza, Tim Raines, Jeff Bagwell and Ivan Rodriguez, all inductees, breathe freely.
Somehow they were able to shed and rid themselves of this very same albatross choking the life out of the aforementioned.
David Ortiz will be a first ballot free-breather in 2022.
Exalted baseball authority Peter Gammons has said, “I judge players by their eras and who they played against. I finally just decided, you know what, they’re so great that they should be in the Hall of Fame because it’s a museum of baseball history.”
Yet another powerful reason for the asterisk (*) or (**) or (***).
Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye made baseball history together. On April 13, 2009 they connected back-to-back off Detroit Tigers pitcher Zach Miner for the 300th. home run of each player’s respective career.
Two players hitting a century milestone homer in one game had never happened in Major League history.
Teammates and back-to-back no less?
Fuggedaboutit!!!
Konerko, a native of Providence, Rhode Island played eighteen big league seasons the bulk of which were spent with the Chicago White Sox whom he led to the 2005 WS title — the franchise’s first since 1917 — and for whom he served as team captain.
The six-time All-Star and 2005 ALCS MVP put up some pretty heady career numbers: .279 BA; 439 HRs; 1,412 RBI; 2,340 Hits; 410 Doubles and 1,162 Runs among them.
He was a first round draft pick (13th overall) of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1994 MLB Draft and made Eddie Bane, then the Special Assistant to Dodgers GM Fred Claire look like a genius.
Konerko had been on Bane’s radar since he was 13 years old and although things didn’t work out for the Dodgers (or the Reds) it was clear that he was a special talent.
In Game 2 of the ’05 Series Konerko hit the first grand slam in White Sox World Series history to give the Sox a 6–4 lead. His granny was also the first in postseason history to give a team the lead when trailing in the seventh inning or later. Although these were Konerko’s only RBI in the Series they were critical in establishing the momentum for the Sox to complete a four-game sweep of the Astros.
Perhaps not as compelling but spellbinding still was that Konerko caught the final out for every one of the series-clinching games throughout the playoffs.
On May 23, 2015 he became the tenth White Sox player to have his number (#14) retired.
In May 2016 the White Sox celebrated the 25th anniversary of U.S. Cellular Field by introducing the 25 most memorable moments in the ball park’s history. Konerko’s WS slam won hands down as it was deemed the iconic moment instrumental in ending the franchise’s 88-year championship drought.
Dye played fourteen big league seasons for four clubs including the White Sox (2005–2009).
Selected by the Braves in the 17th round of the 1993 amateur draft, he hit a home run in his first Major League at-bat.
He was a two-time All-Star, won both a Gold Glove (2000) and Silver Slugger (2006) Award and was the MVP of the 2005 World Series, batting .438 with one home run and 3 RBI.
It was Dye’s RBI single off Houston closer Brad Lidge which provided the deciding run in Chicago’s 1–0 Game 4 victory, clinching the Series sweep.
His career numbers were impressive enough: .274 BA; 325 HRs; 1,072 RBI; 1,779 Hits; 363 Doubles; and 984 Runs.
He was solid as a rock.
Healthy debate is a good thing.
Nothing is perfect or fits perfectly in our world.
Yarn is spun and so are arguments.
Gammons is right; the hallowed Hall is “a museum of baseball history.”
Konerko and Dye will go to the Hall of Fame as visitors only, and rightfully so.
Baines is in.
Whether or not he deserves it is purely subjective of course. He played by the rules.
The Hall’s entrance standards have been worked, reworked, relaxed and perhaps “diluted,” respect to Hohler and incidentally, through no fault of Baines.
With younger voters growing in number replacing their elder brethren, ‘questionable’ candidates will be ushered in amid the same pomp and circumstance.
It will be sooner rather than later.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in January 2019.]
ADDENDUM: The Hall of Fame Class of 2020 consisting of Derek Jeter, Marvin Miller, Ted Simmons and Larry Walker will be inducted on Sunday July 25, 2021 in Cooperstown, alongside any new members elected as part of the HOF Class of 2021.
Jeter with 99.7% of the vote — the second-highest all time and the highest for a position player — fell a single vote short of joining his teammate Rivera as a unanimous selection.
