The Ins and Outs of a Tradition

Willie Stargell was. Jim Bunning wasn’t. Tony Oliva should be. Orlando Cepeda shouldn’t be. Pete Rose will be. Reggie Jackson probably will be. Steve Carlton might be. Steve Garvey might not be. Dave Kingman won’t be.

Arguments rage on, over who deserves to be voted into baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Much fuss was made last week about how nine voters returned their ballots without marking an X next to a single name. None of the 45 players on this year’s ballot was found worthy of Hall of Fame consideration by any of these nine, a couple of whom later acknowledged their belief that the Hall is in desperate need of higher standards.

Well, I happen to agree, up to a point.

What the Hall of Fame needs is a higher standard, all right--of voters.

Say, here’s a novel idea: How about if we get rid of the baseball writers and let the baseball players do the voting? Or, if not that, how about if we let Stargell, Bunning, Oliva and Cepeda get together and judge next year’s Pulitzer Prizes?

Where this tradition began of having selected veteran members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America determining the fates of the game’s greatest players, I neither know nor care. All I do know is that this is a pretty important decision to be left up to a bunch of guys who never spent an inning in the majors.

Although I am a long-standing member of the august body that is the BBWAA, I was not one of the 427 individuals who recently elected to invite Mr. Stargell up to that little upstate New York museum to have his face bronzed, but, for the time being, no one else.

When the votes were counted, 352 guys thought Pops of the Pirates deserved to be in the same room with the Babe and the Georgia Peach and Hammerin’ Hank and Joltin’ Joe and everybody, so the gentleman was welcomed to the club. Bunning, though, received 317 votes and fell short by 4. Oliva got 202 votes. Cepeda got 199.

And 56 voters thought Sparky Lyle belonged in the Hall of Fame.

Just think about that for a minute--56 seasoned, supposedly sensible baseball writers actually believed that a bust of Sparky Lyle should be placed in a shrine alongside Ruth’s, Cobb’s, Aaron’s and DiMaggio’s.

All I can say is, Sparky Lyle was a nice little pitcher who wrote a nice little book, but anybody who thinks he belongs in the Hall of Fame must watch baseball games wearing 3-D glasses or something.

You can understand why the nine guys made a form of mild protest, with regard to the selection process, by leaving their ballots blank. You might not, however, agree with their method, nor even with their conclusion.

The trouble with Hall of Fame voting is, a “no” vote or an abstention can be construed as unnecessarily cruel. To say Roger Maris does not belong in the Hall of Fame is, to some, the same as saying he was not much of a baseball player, when, in fact, he was quite a fine ballplayer, and one who had one accomplishment that set him apart from any other.

An acquaintance of mine from Los Angeles, a native son, is aghast that Maury Wills once again was barred from the Hall. Wills drew 127 votes, less than eight others on the ballot, including, somewhat remarkably, Luis Tiant.

To my friend, Wills was a shortstop who made all the plays, swung a pretty decent stick, and revolutionized baserunning to the point that the stolen base became a lethal weapon. My friend is outraged that Maury Wills is not in the Hall of Fame . . . especially considering who’s already in there.

Exactly.

When Luis Aparicio was voted in, I was very pleased, because Aparicio was the shortstop of my boyhood. I watched him all the time. I saw him make all the plays, hard and easy. He could hit a bit, too, and so it made perfect sense to me that he merited the everlasting fame provided by the Hall of same.

Upon less biased reflection, though, I cannot honestly say Aparicio could play the game any better than Wills. I only saw him more often, just as my friend saw the Dodger more often. And, at our age, what do we know whether either of these two guys rate up there with, say, Marty Marion, or Honus Wagner? How do we know how Christy Mathewson compares to Catfish Hunter?

If Maury Wills’ biggest claim to fame is his base-stealing, does that mean that we also will have to induct Rickey Henderson? If fielding alone is enough, shouldn’t Mark Belanger’s plaque be right next to Little Looie’s? If Billy Williams can make it, why can’t Tony Oliva, or Harvey Kuenn?

In a matter that is very subjective, we are counting on baseball writers to be very objective and very selective. And yet, 56 of them want Sparky Lyle in the Hall. And that’s just of the guys who get to vote.

One of the guys who left his ballot blank made a valid point: That he never saw Babe Ruth fail. He only saw film of the sultan swatting homers. For a couple of decades now, though, he and I have seen somebody like Reggie Jackson strike out hundreds of times, bungle balls in the outfield, and shovel fertilizer in the clubhouse.

Does Reggie belong in the Hall of Fame?

Hell, yes.

Yet, I am not all that knowledgeable, nor am I entirely objective. I am perfectly willing to admit that, although he hit close to 500 home runs, I wouldn’t elect Dave Kingman dogcatcher in a town full of poodles. I was happy his career ended when it did, because no man who ever hit 500 homers has been excluded from the Hall. If Kingman’s a Hall of Famer, I’m Ernest Hemingway.

My instincts whisper: Rose, yes. Bunning, no. Oliva, yes. Maris, no. Jackson, yes. Cepeda, no. Yastrzemski, yes. Wills, no. Seaver? Carlton? Niekro? I don’t know. Where do you draw the line? At Don Sutton? Are all of these pitchers better than Bunning, equal to Catfish, almost as good as Sparky? Should we elect Tug McGraw?

The way things are going, they’ll have to open a Hall of Fame on the other coast, like Disneyland.