In the Hall addendum
In my posting on the Hall of Fame, I forgot to share the single most egregious example of debased standards brought about by sportswriters' and fans' obsession with meaningless career numbers. I actually heard Joe Buck refer to Craig Biggio's inexorable march to the Hall of Fame. Craig Biggio! That this career mediocrity should be mentioned in the same sentence as the Hall without the mediation of a negative is itself a disgrace. That he should be perceived as on a march to the Hall that does not involve some physical pilgrimage for charity is sheer lunacy. But that the march should be understood as inexorable is a thoroughly demoralizing insult to the institution itself and to whatever level of excellence it can still claim to represent.
Of course the sentiment was expressed by the very avatar of generational degeneration, a man who secured his job on the considerable virtues of his father's broadcasting career and then proceeded to gild those virtues by contrast with his own self-satisfied mastery of conventional wisdom, of all things that are simultaneous obvious, orthodox and incorrect. Of course if Peter Gammons can worm his way into the Hall on the basis of sycophancy posing as analysis, I'm sure Joe Buck too is on an inexorable, if intolerable, march of his own.
Of course the sentiment was expressed by the very avatar of generational degeneration, a man who secured his job on the considerable virtues of his father's broadcasting career and then proceeded to gild those virtues by contrast with his own self-satisfied mastery of conventional wisdom, of all things that are simultaneous obvious, orthodox and incorrect. Of course if Peter Gammons can worm his way into the Hall on the basis of sycophancy posing as analysis, I'm sure Joe Buck too is on an inexorable, if intolerable, march of his own.
posted by joe valente | 1:16 AM
5 Comments:
How about Gary Sheffield? In the Hall?
Career numbers (parts of 18 seasons--13.5 162-game-seasons):
.297 AVG
2355 hits
452 HR
1485 RBI
That's getting pretty close to Hall of Fame numbers, I think. He'll get to 480 or 490 HR this year, if he stays healthy. One more year and he's over the "magic number" 500 HR. Now, that number has been debased clearly, in the steroid era, but Shef backs in up with, by the end of his career, over 2500 hits.
What do you think?
I would never put Gary Sheffield in the Hall because he has 500 homers or even because he also has 2500 hits. I do, however, think he has been one of the dominant offensive forces in the game for a number of years, and if he remains so for this year and another, I would think he would be relatively deserving. He certainly will deserve admission more than Orlando Cepeda, Bill Mazeroski, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Luis Aparichio, Phil Rizzuto, Don Sutton, Phil Niekro, Waite Hoyt, Rabbit Maranville, or Tony Perez. Damn, there are a lot of players in the Hall that shouldn't be. I can see why Skip Bayless calls it the Hall of Very Good.
Oh and I forgot Kirby Puckett and Eddie Murray, two other guys Sheffield puts in the shade.
Kirby had a .318 AVG, good for 51st on the all-time list.
Yeah, I'm not all that impressed with the 318 batting average. He didn't draw alot of walks, so his obp is quite low for someone wioth that batting average. His slugging percentage is also not that high, so that his ops, while good, is hardly great. On the other hand, I was surprised to see that he topped 100 rbis on three occasions and virtually reached that mark on a couple of more. And while I don't think he deserved those six gold gloves, any more than Williams deserved his, he did win them and one has to factor that into his claim on the Hall. All in all, I would have to concede that he belongs there and I will withdraw him from the list of the undeserving.
That list does not grow any shorter, however, as there is always some overrated "star" that snuck in on the low stadnards of the nation's baseball writers. I hereby replace Kirby with Gary Carter, who was only about a click or two above mediocrity.
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