hall of fame, next vote...

Why would you, at 9-7 he didn't know how to win.

most memorable game involving one of these electees:

i remember seeing the white sox against the boston red sox in '91 at comiskey park during frank thomas' first full season. it was pretty clear how good he was at that point, even halfway through that season. he hit two massive home runs off mike gardiner and came up against dennis lamp later. thomas was working the count and you could see lamp pacing off the mound and muttering to himself because he had no idea how to pitch to him, it looked like in the context of the situation that he didn't want to get back on the mound. there were at least two visits to the mound by the catcher. anyway, he eventually struck him out somehow but i just remember everyone watching thomas and knowing he was this new, unstoppable force.

also the game had a few future HOFers: thomas, boggs, fisk, raines (fingers crossed), sosa (ok maybe not...) plus ventura, burks, greenwell, jack clark, mo vaughn. lots of old school dudes on the way out and new school guys on the way in.

Any Toronto fan who witnessed Dave Stieb's 1985 season was not hung up on W-L record. (xpost)

I saw Thomas somewhere in there too, but I don't recall that he did anything memorable. When we travelled to Detroit to see Griffey, he (literally) didn't get the ball out of the infield. Probably this game:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/SEA/SEA199406270.shtml

‏@richardjustice
BBWAA hot about LeBatard shining light on an issue. Apparently okay with dozens of idiots still voting.

@richardjustice
What about spts editors and columnists and Olympic writers who spend 3 minutes on their ballots? We should not give anyone a lifetime vote.

@richardjustice
We had a guy in Houston ask for fan help in filling out his HOF ballot. He still votes.

@richardjustice
We had a guy in Houston who voted for Jim Deshaies so he could write a column about it. He still votes.

@richardjustice
Houston BBWAA voted to give one guy the "Nice Guy" award. Only later did someone point out the voters hadn't actually been in the clubhouse

i remember this game crystal clear - http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ATL/ATL199709300.shtml

it was my birthday, i was home on leave, first time at turner field. two hours fifteen minutes.

But when my dad and I went to Montreal in '95 or '96 to catch Maddux, he was great. He won 3-2, I think--pitched a shutout for six or seven innings, got charged with a run or two after he'd left the game. He worked so fast. I remember watching him in bafflement as to how he made it look so easy.

Yeah, I saw Maddux pitch a complete-game shutout for the Cubs in 2004 and marveled at his command on the mound. Game was just a shade over two hours:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN200407170.shtml

@LeBatardShow 29m

Max penalty: BBWAA just lifetime banned me from Hall of Fame vote and won't allow me to attend a game as credentialed media for a year.

oh noes

The anti-Le Betard/Deadspin hysteria is a who's who of who sucks

Yep

Sorry, more Maddux.

I was curious if I had the right game. No ticket stub, but I wrote a long Maddux piece for my fanzine at the time, and it turns out the boxscore linked to above is correct. Relevant excerpt:

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/maddux_zps44278e11.jpg

I can't believe it. Saw Maddux at the peak of his peak, starting against a 23-year-old Pedro. Didn't mention Martinez then, remained completely oblivious to his involvement until I looked at the boxscore today.

I was at this game, it was Maddux's only time pitching in Toronto:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR199706170.shtml

The Jays managed to score three runs off of him, but he still left with the lead and threw only 76 pitches through six. Time of the game: 2:45, but when was the last time you saw an 8-7 game with 24 hits get finished in less than three hours?

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/88163/hotsportstakes-in-a-world-of-wrong-the-hall-always-gets-it-right

also from grantland, I just xp'd this in the PED thread, very good read:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10261642/mlb-hall-fame-voting-steroid-era

xpost it has an uncanny resemblance to a Bill Plaschke column ... well I guess that settles the argument about who is the worst writer on earth.

The second Grantland article is a must-read, even if you remember reading some or most of the articles it covers.

My most memorable game ever involving anyone but Frank Thomas was playing :)

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200610060.shtml

Just so Morbius can get an early start:

http://www.sbnation.com/2014/1/9/5290468/hall-of-fame-mlb-2015-ballot-pedro-martinez-randy-johnson-john-smoltz

http://mlb.si.com/2014/01/09/jaws-and-the-2014-hall-of-fame-ballot-an-early-look-at-the-new-names-for-2015/

one of my favorite things about yesterday was smoltz taking part in the Maddux/glavine interviews and everyone was talking about how he'd be going in next year and smoltz just sat there stonefaced bc I think the writing is on the wall. I don't really see him making it on the first try, even though I think he'll do a lot better than schilling and mussina. normally he would i think but there are just too many guys down ballot who writers will want to vote just to keep under consideration.

maddux faced 20421 batters in his career. guess how many batters saw 3-0 counts?

1 - tony gwynn

that poophead

133. think about that

no fair, he used pitches that moved

I don't know if that's right:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=maddugr01&year=Career&t=p#count

I read that as 644 3-0 counts ("After 3-0"). What does seem intuitively impressive is that, while the subsequent OBP is of course very high (.726), the BA (.275) and SLG (.375) are very low. I would think you'd expect hitters to do much better than that when putting the ball in play.

They have to induct Mussina before he loses his looks.

That's why they only made Yogi wait a year.

For a quick comparison, some other career "after 3-0" slash lines:

Clemens: .226/.707/.385
Pedro: .279/.714/.532
Johnson: .280/.778/.479
Schilling: .313/.705/.497
Mussina: .245/.657/.344
Glavine: .255/.713/.421
Halladay: .275/.668/.425

Can't look up anybody before that, no data before '88. Clemens was easily the best, then Mussina; Pedro was the worst. Anyway, measured only against his peers, Maddux was better than most.

how is clemens easily the best when mussina's OPS is like 90 pts lower?

it's a meaningless sample anyway

Zach's right, didn't look closely enough--I thought Clemens took the first and last.

I guess it's a relatively small sample, but Clemens and Maddux both had the equivalent of a full season, Mussina slightly less so. I wouldn't say meaningless--with 1100 PA between them, I'd feel confident saying that Mussina and Clemens had a knack for fighting back from 3-0 counts. Palmer's famous thing of not giving up a grand slam is a much smaller sample, 213 PA. (Something that surprises me. Knowing Palmer never gave up a grand slam, I always assumed that being extra careful to the point of paranoia, he probably walked a higher-than-usual number of guys in such situations. No--in those 213 bases-loaded PA, he walked 13...and only gave up five doubles and a triple. His line: .196/.230/.234.)

Palmer pitched to the basepaths (sorta not kidding).

Maybe--I'll have to check if he had any errant pickoff throws.

Sorry bad joke. I meant that he pitched based on how many people were on (which obviously in some sense all pitchers do). It was a play on Morris "pitch to the score" thing.

I got the joke, and it was good. I was trying to return serve...

I'm slow on the uptake at 7am apparently haha.

Always loved the little-kid aspect to Thomas.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/si/dam/assets/140109153134-frank-thomas-ap2-single-image-cut.jpg

Lawrence Rocca
Honorary
Morris Nomo Raines Trammell

Finding old videos of Thomas, Glavine and Maddux is really difficult.

even on mlb.com? don't they have an archive page?

they do, but it's incredibly user-unfriendly. they have a lot of cool stuff, too! it's a shame they can't figure out how to organize it and make it more easily searchable.

I refuse to vote for a guy who cheats, as Biggio did with all that armor on his arm, so he could get hit with pitches and trot to first base as a result. He made no attempt to avoid getting hit and actually stuck that arm out further, inducing the ball to smack him.

That, my friends, is against the rules and umpires should be calling that shit a ball, but they don’t. I once asked umpire John McSherry about that, and he skirted around the question, never answering it.

http://www.kenstewartphoto.net/dowling_drivel_blog/?p=4208

That's a pretty schizophrenic ballot.

lol

that isn't biggio cheating, it's biggio taking advantage of umpires who don't care. legit concern! i wish the rule was enforced. but i also don't think a dude willingly getting hit by 90+mph baseballs is ever selfish

also palmer DID allow a grand slam once (as people like to remind him) -- but the game was rained out

sry for the dumb bump was gone all weekend

nomo to the japanese hof

Hall of Fame announces cap selections for 2014 inductees:

Cox & Glavine: Braves
Thomas: White Sox
Torre: Yankees
La Russa & Maddux: No logo

is this purely the hall's decision or do the players get to choose?

They used to get to choose but then it turned into this weird courting ritual between the teams so the league stepped in.

I was totally in suspense over whether that choker Glavine wd have a Mets cap