Does Baseball Hall of Fame have character requirements for eligibility?

[vision63]

hal wrote:
yes, Ty Cobb is a hall of famer

In the first voting for Baseball's Hall of Fame, a singles hitter beats out the sport's greatest slugger. Ty Cobb, who had 4,191 hits, receives 222 of 226 votes from players and writers. Babe Ruth, who bashed 714 home runs, and Honus Wagner are tied for second in the balloting, with 215 votes each.

Also elected to the Hall in Cooperstown, N.Y., are Christy Mathewson (205) and Walter Johnson (189).

Walter Johnson once pitched an 18 inning shutout in 1918 during a pandemic.

[RgrF]

Ty Cobb was not only a virulent racist, he was the Ted Cruz of baseball. He was such a miserable person and dirty player that he became the most hated player of his day. Despite this he was an almost unanimous pick.

If he can be in the HoF then Schilling, Bonds and Clemons should be as well. Maybe set up a separate wing of great players who were bad people?

[$tevie]

It's a tough call. I think gambling on games is a super serious offense because of the potentially super serious issues that could arise. I think losing any chance to play/coach/get in the HoF is perfectly fair, so as to frighten people off from doing it.

I feel as if it's unfair to pick on steroid use because 1. it's a matter of who got caught and 2. anyone who believes that MBL didn't know it was going on is too naive to live. So although I'm not against public shaming of same, nasty articles and such, I think that a player should be able to get in if his play was of HoF caliber.

We can't make it a character contest because the Hall of Fame will end up with a bunch of lousy players who were wonderful human beings, and that's just silly.

[hal]

vision63 wrote:
[quote=hal]
yes, Ty Cobb is a hall of famer

In the first voting for Baseball's Hall of Fame, a singles hitter beats out the sport's greatest slugger. Ty Cobb, who had 4,191 hits, receives 222 of 226 votes from players and writers. Babe Ruth, who bashed 714 home runs, and Honus Wagner are tied for second in the balloting, with 215 votes each.

Also elected to the Hall in Cooperstown, N.Y., are Christy Mathewson (205) and Walter Johnson (189).

Walter Johnson once pitched an 18 inning shutout in 1918 during a pandemic.
This was my favorite part of the Ken Burns Baseball series - the reading of this quote:

Ty Cobb recalled the first time he saw Walter Johnson:

“On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field. He was a rookie, and we licked our lips as we warmed up for the first game of a doubleheader in Washington. Evidently, manager Pongo Joe Cantillon of the Nats had picked a rube out of the cornfields of the deepest bushes to pitch against us. He was a tall, shambling galoot of about twenty, with arms so long they hung far out of his sleeves, and with a sidearm delivery that looked unimpressive at first glance. One of the Tigers imitated a cow mooing, and we hollered at Cantillon: ‘Get the pitchfork ready, Joe—your hayseed’s on his way back to the barn.’

“The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger.”

“We couldn’t touch him … every one of us knew we’d met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park.”

How good was Johnson? Hard to imagine...

[vision63]

$tevie wrote:
It's a tough call. I think gambling on games is a super serious offense because of the potentially super serious issues that could arise. I think losing any chance to play/coach/get in the HoF is perfectly fair, so as to frighten people off from doing it.

I feel as if it's unfair to pick on steroid use because 1. it's a matter of who got caught and 2. anyone who believes that MBL didn't know it was going on is too naive to live. So although I'm not against public shaming of same, nasty articles and such, I think that a player should be able to get in if his play was of HoF caliber.

We can't make it a character contest because the Hall of Fame will end up with a bunch of lousy players who were wonderful human beings, and that's just silly.

None of them before 2003 were in trouble for steroids. It wasn't against MLB rules. They were in trouble for not saying so in court. Bonds and Clemens broke nary a rule. [I'm sure about Bonds and pretty sure about Clemens]. Dick Allen and my man Steve Garvey should be in there. Dick Allen just died.

[deckeda]

If a player's private life or off-field activity causes them trouble at work, so be it. Everyone has a chance not to be an asshole. Public opinions are gonna vary over time.

In return, I do not think it's unreasonable to expect their on-field performance to come only from natural ability, practice and hard work. Can on-field behavior/performance have ethical concerns that are different from person ones? Of course, every business knows this.

Mandate everyone take drugs. Require it. Otherwise, work hard to ban them and to not reward them.

[bfd]

vision63 wrote:

None of them before 2003 were in trouble for steroids. It wasn't against MLB rules. They were in trouble for not saying so in court. Bonds and Clemens broke nary a rule. [I'm sure about Bonds and pretty sure about Clemens]. Dick Allen and my man Steve Garvey should be in there. Dick Allen just died.

Ritchie "Dick" Allen and "The Father of our Country (or at least Southern California)", Steve Garvey.

Dick Allen would've been at home playing in 2021. But in the 60's and 70's, being Black and noting the discrepancies that separated Black players from White players wasn't ready for prime time. Though it well should've been. No reason for him to just grin and bear it. Even the "Ritchie" and "Dick" monikers were a part of the the way he was treated in the press and by fans. In San Diego, we had (he's still around) a local sports announcer, Ted Leitner, who landed here from Philly (via Bronx, NY), and he always held Dick Allen up as a player with a voice who needed to be listened to and heard rather than shunned. As a result of hearing "the other side" it was always relatively easy to side with Dick Allen's take on things once the inevitable fires started burning around him.

While Steve Garvey made his name in Los Angeles, he also played well here in San Diego, and almost single-handedly helped boost the Padres past the Cubs in an unforgettable '84 NLCS after a horrible start.

And yes, they should both be in the HOF.

[vision63]

deckeda wrote:
If a player's private life or off-field activity causes them trouble at work, so be it. Everyone has a chance not to be an asshole. Public opinions are gonna vary over time.

In return, I do not think it's unreasonable to expect their on-field performance to come only from natural ability, practice and hard work. Can on-field behavior/performance have ethical concerns that are different from person ones? Of course, every business knows this.

Mandate everyone take drugs. Require it. Otherwise, work hard to ban them and to not reward them.

Just make rules that that govern the game as you envision it. Don't apply arbitrary judgements that you just slap on someone creating an unfair qualification situation. Remember, they were "never" in trouble for using PED's. Never. So how is it a problem now? They're scapegoats.

[deckeda]

There’s a fine line between scapegoat and catalyst.

[robfilms]

vision63 wrote:
They're sketchy over many things. I can't stand Curt Schilling but how is he not a Hall of Famer?

For me, Schilling had two decent post seasons. Both of those post seasons were attached to historic series. Thus the heralded praise. That’s about it. As a career starting pitcher, decent to good but definitely not great.

Stay well.

Rob
( a lifelong baseball fan who can still name all the WS winners in order going back 100+ yrs!)