Forkballs to Cooperstown
Congratulations to relief pitcher Bruce Sutter on his election today to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
A deserving choice, and an interesting one, as the first pitcher elected to the Hall who never started a game in his major league career. Sutter skated in with 76.9% of the vote, just a shade over the 75% required for election.
Sutter was best known — aside from his 300 career saves, six All-Star Game appearances, 1979 National League Cy Young Award, and lumberjack beard — for his mastery of the forkball. In Sutter's time (the late '70s through the mid-'80s), not many other hurlers used the unusual grip, which requires both a large hand (you have to be able to fit a baseball between your index and middle fingers) and a resilient arm to be successful. Today it's the money pitch for many top pitchers, though most now refer to the pitch as a split-finger fastball rather than as a forkball.
Longtime Boston Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice missed the Cooperstown cut for the 12th year in a row with just under 68%, although that's a better showing than he made last year. With three years of eligibility left, that upswing is a good sign that Rice might yet get elected before he comes off the ballot. I've long been on record as saying that Jim Rice deserves to be in the Hall, especially since the primary reason he isn't in already is that a lot of sportswriters didn't like him personally. That's just stupid to me. If Ty Cobb — as reprehensible a human being as ever walked the planet, much less played major league baseball — can be elected to the Hall of Fame based on his accomplishments on the field, then certainly Jim Rice — by all accounts an unpleasant and prickly fellow, but certainly no criminal — ought to be elected based on his.
As I am every year, I'm more baffled by some of the guys who accumulated votes than I am by the players who didn't get elected. Seriously — Rick Aguilera picked up three votes? Doug Jones and Gregg Jefferies got two votes each? Some professional baseball journalist actually thought Walt Weiss ought to be in the Hall of Fame? What's up with that? I mean, I used to work with John Wetteland's mother, who's a very sweet lady, and for whom I wish all the best, but the four writers who thought John belonged in the Hall of Fame were smoking herb. Great guy, good pitcher, but not Hall of Fame caliber. Hal Morris got five votes? Please.
For the record, if I'd had a Hall of Fame ballot this year, there would have been five names marked on it: Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice, Andre "The Hawk" Dawson, Lee Smith, and Jack Morris. Morris was consistently the American League's best starting pitcher throughout the decade of the 1980s. That he doesn't get more votes at Hall of Fame election time always baffles me. (Morris garnered 214 votes — 41.2% — in this year's balloting.) Interestingly, Jack Morris, like Sutter, was a pioneering forkball specialist.
A deserving choice, and an interesting one, as the first pitcher elected to the Hall who never started a game in his major league career. Sutter skated in with 76.9% of the vote, just a shade over the 75% required for election.
Sutter was best known — aside from his 300 career saves, six All-Star Game appearances, 1979 National League Cy Young Award, and lumberjack beard — for his mastery of the forkball. In Sutter's time (the late '70s through the mid-'80s), not many other hurlers used the unusual grip, which requires both a large hand (you have to be able to fit a baseball between your index and middle fingers) and a resilient arm to be successful. Today it's the money pitch for many top pitchers, though most now refer to the pitch as a split-finger fastball rather than as a forkball.
Longtime Boston Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice missed the Cooperstown cut for the 12th year in a row with just under 68%, although that's a better showing than he made last year. With three years of eligibility left, that upswing is a good sign that Rice might yet get elected before he comes off the ballot. I've long been on record as saying that Jim Rice deserves to be in the Hall, especially since the primary reason he isn't in already is that a lot of sportswriters didn't like him personally. That's just stupid to me. If Ty Cobb — as reprehensible a human being as ever walked the planet, much less played major league baseball — can be elected to the Hall of Fame based on his accomplishments on the field, then certainly Jim Rice — by all accounts an unpleasant and prickly fellow, but certainly no criminal — ought to be elected based on his.
As I am every year, I'm more baffled by some of the guys who accumulated votes than I am by the players who didn't get elected. Seriously — Rick Aguilera picked up three votes? Doug Jones and Gregg Jefferies got two votes each? Some professional baseball journalist actually thought Walt Weiss ought to be in the Hall of Fame? What's up with that? I mean, I used to work with John Wetteland's mother, who's a very sweet lady, and for whom I wish all the best, but the four writers who thought John belonged in the Hall of Fame were smoking herb. Great guy, good pitcher, but not Hall of Fame caliber. Hal Morris got five votes? Please.
For the record, if I'd had a Hall of Fame ballot this year, there would have been five names marked on it: Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice, Andre "The Hawk" Dawson, Lee Smith, and Jack Morris. Morris was consistently the American League's best starting pitcher throughout the decade of the 1980s. That he doesn't get more votes at Hall of Fame election time always baffles me. (Morris garnered 214 votes — 41.2% — in this year's balloting.) Interestingly, Jack Morris, like Sutter, was a pioneering forkball specialist.
Labels: Sports Bar
SwanShadow was randomly pounding the keyboard at 3:18 PM
1 insisted on sticking two cents in:
Agree on Rice, Dawson, and Morris. But next year has Ripkin and Gwynn as shoe-ins so I wouldn't count on the others making it in. The really interesting bit next year is that McGwire also is up for the first time...which might actually help Rice in terms of writers thinking about his performance in the pre-steroid era.
Post a Comment
<< Home