Examining the Credentials of the Current and Future Candidates for the Hall of Fame
Vida Blue, a left-handed pitcher who won 209 games and three World Series championships in 17 seasons in Major League Baseball, passed away on Saturday at the age of 73. Blue tossed a no-hitter as a rookie in 1970 and was just 22 years old when he won the American Cy Young and MVP Awards […]
Today in San Diego, the Hall of Fame’s Eras Committee made it abundantly clear that two of the greatest players in the history of baseball, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, are not going to get into the Hall of Fame anytime soon. Bonds and Clemens were two of the eight candidates of the Contemporary Baseball […]
Rafael Palmeiro, one of the most tragic figures of baseball’s steroid era, is on a Hall of Fame ballot tomorrow for the first time since 2014. Tomorrow in San Diego a 16-member panel, known as the Contemporary Baseball Players Committee, will consider the candidacies of Palmeiro and seven other players for a spot in the Hall […]
Dale Murphy, the long-time outfielder for the Atlanta Braves, was one of baseball’s greatest stars in the early part of the 1980s. He won back-to-back National League MVP trophies and then finished in the top 10 for the two years that followed. Unfortunately, in the years after his seventh and final All-Star Game appearance, his […]
More than at any time in its history, today’s Hall of Fame voting is polarized based on moral issues. No longer are the debates about who deserves a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum based strictly on the merits of each player’s performance on the diamond. Today, the additional question is […]
He was known as “The Hit Man” and “Donnie Baseball.” New York Yankees first baseman Don Mattingly, one of the very best players in baseball in the mid-1980s, is once again a candidate on the Eras Committee Hall of Fame ballot. This ballot (the “Contemporary Baseball Ballot”), which features eight men whose primary contributions occurred […]
Today is the 71st birthday of longtime Boston Red Sox right fielder Dwight Evans. The 8-time Gold Glover, often called “Dewey,” played in more games in a Red Sox uniform than any player in team history except for Carl Yastrzemski. Next week, Evans may once again be a candidate to be enshrined in the National […]
Maury Wills, the former MVP-winning shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers, passed away at his home in Sedona, Arizona, yesterday at the age of 89, just 13 days shy of what would have been his 90th birthday. Wills stole 586 bases in his Major League Baseball career and is often credited with bringing the steal […]
Today, Jim Kaat, 39 years after the end of his 25-year pitching career, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Kaat, now 83 years old, was the lead-off speaker from the Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022. The love of baseball is often passed on from father […]
Today, Gil Hodges was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Hodges, an 8-time All-Star first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, had been a candidate for enshrinement in Cooperstown since 1969 when he managed the New York Mets to the franchise’s first World Series title. Hodges’ widow, […]
In December 2021, a bit more than 96 years after he was born and over six years after his death, Cuban-born outfielder Minnie Minoso was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. He was inducted posthumously today, with his widow Sharon speaking on behalf of her late husband. […]
Today, former Minnesota Twins right fielder Tony Oliva, 46 years after playing his final game in Major League Baseball, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Oliva (who turned 84 on Thursday) was joined on stage today by his longtime Twins teammate, pitcher Jim Kaat. The two […]
Dick Allen, one of baseball’s greatest hitters from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, has now set a record that his legions of fans hope will not be extended: he’s now twice fallen just one vote shy of a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Allen was […]
In an unexpected piece of news for enthusiasts of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, a whopping six new players were elected today to receive plaques in the great shrine in Cooperstown. On the Golden Days Eras Committee ballot, tasked with electing players from 1950-69, four players received at least 75% of the […]
Later today, at baseball’s winter meetings in Orlando, the 2022 Hall of Fame voting season officially begins when the Golden Days and Early Baseball Committees meet. The Early Baseball ballot (which, this year, features seven former Negro League players) considers players from before 1950. The Golden Days ballot considers players whose primary impact was from […]
Danny Murtaugh led the Pittsburgh Pirates to two World Series titles in 15 years as the team’s manager. A former Pirates second baseman who once finished 9th in the National League MVP vote, Murtaugh was beloved in Pittsburgh. Like Billy Martin with the New York Yankees, Murtaugh was hired multiple times (Murtaugh had four stints […]
If a player’s election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum were based strictly on the word “fame,” Roger Maris would have been inducted decades ago. Maris, of course, passed the legendary Babe Ruth to set the all-time single-season home run record when he swatted 61 taters in 1961. Just as the baseball […]
In the 1950s and early ’60s, a 5’10” left-handed pitcher started three All-Star Games, won over 200 games, and pitched a complete game in Game 6 of the 1962 World Series. If I were to play a game of “Who am I” with those clues, the vast majority of respondents would likely guess that the […]
On December 5th, former St. Louis Cardinals’ third baseman Ken Boyer will be considered for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum by the “Golden Days” Eras Committee. Boyer is one of ten candidates on a ballot that evaluates players and others whose primary impact on the game was between 1950 and 1969. Although […]
132 years ago today, on August 22, 1889, Walter Henry Schang was born in South Wales, New York, a farming town about 25 miles from Buffalo. Wally Schang would grow up to become one of the best catchers in all of baseball for the first 60 years of recorded history. While he never got serious […]