Some interesting articles have come out since it was announced that Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice would be the 2009 Baseball Hall of Fame class. I wanted to touch on two topics I found interesting.
First, why is it that Dale Murphy has not gotten a lot of Hall of Fame support? Joe Posnaski makes a pretty good case that Murphy as at least as valuable as Rice, and probably more Hall worthy than his AL contemporary. Now let me admit one thing -- I was (and am) a huge Dale Murphy fan. I loved watching him as a player, and he's one of the greatest Mormon athletes of all-time (which means something to me as a Mormon).
I'm not sure if he belongs in the hall or not. To me he's borderline, but he's a better candidate than Jim Rice. Over the course of his career, Murphy was probably slightly less valuable as a hitter than rice, but he's superior fielding ability pushes his value way past Rice. Posnaski details the numbers in the link above.
But why isn't he being mentioned in the discussion? Murphy received less than 12% of the vote, well shy of the 75% required, or Rice's 76.4%. Similar players, same era. Could it be the loud Boston media making Rice, 'the most feared hitter in the AL', more than he really was?
Don't misunderstand me. Murphy and Rice are both two of my favorite players of all-time. I grew up watching both of them, and rooting for both of them. But that's not a reason to put someone in the Hall of Fame. If Rice belongs (which I don't think he does), than so does Murphy.
The second topic is Mark McGwire. I find his exclusion from the Hall of Fame stupid. I won't go through all the numbers, but he led the league in adjusted OPS+ (a hitting stat that corrects for park effects and era effects) 4 times. And outside of his awful 1991 season, he was extremely valuable every other year until his final season in St. Louis. His career value vs. Jim Rice isn't even close.
Ah, but he's been tied to steroid era, probably only second to Barry Bonds as its poster boy. How could we allow a cheater like that into the Hall of Fame?
Easy. Because it's likely most of the players of his era (including many pitchers) were 'cheating' as he was. Does that make it OK or correct? No, but it sure changes the discussion for me.
So there's the problem with baseball's steroids era. We don't know who was using and who wasn't. And it's clear that so many were using I don't believe we can excuse the best of the era if they fall under that cloud.
Plus this all smells of hypocrisy. I believe sportswriters are as much to blame for baseball's steroid problems as anybody. If this many players were using, and it was so widespread in MLB clubhouses, why didn't these 'investigative journalists' figure it out? They had clubhouse access none of us have. And I remember in 1989 when the Boston fans chanted 'steroids' at Jose Canseco during a playoff series. We knew players were juicing then. Why couldn't these sportswriters figure it our?
The answer isn't an easy one, but let me offer up one explanation: the sportswriters, like the owners and fans, really didn't want to know. The game was going so well, and home run chases were a lot of fun. Why spoil that?
Please, voters, put McGwire into the Hall of Fame. That is, unless, we want to exclude every player from his era who is under any suspicion of performance enhancer use.
Also, there are a few other players who need to get voted in, including Tim Raines. Keith Law does a good job of making a case for him, and I couldn't agree more.
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