You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

“Hall adds one…but not the one we thought,” was the title of Rob Neyer’s article about Andre Dawson’s Hall of Fame election on ESPN.com. Now, from my experience as a high school and college “journalist” years ago, I know Mr. Neyer didn’t choose that title. His editors did. But I still have to ask, “who is ‘we,’ Rob?” I love reading the guy because he churns out a lot of thoughtful material. Then again, if I didn’t have a Master’s degree and a full-time job in another field, I could spend all night on baseball-reference.com and turn out four daily blurbs of opinions on the GameTime blog, too. But while I love Neyer for his Dominique Wilkins-like production, I can’t stand his reliance on certain less-obscure-than-they-were-ten-years-ago metrics to prove his point. To paraphrase, “Terry Assbag had a higher VORP and a better UZR than Mo Vaughn in 1995, and therefore deserved the MVP.” He admits he’s a geek on his blog, but still, if a .323 career OBP leads you to write numerous articles about why Andre Dawson doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame, there’s something wrong with you. Especially since we, the fans, voted him to eight All-Star teams during his career. We, the fans, thought he was one of the best players in the game in the 80’s. The Hall of Fame isn’t about “you,” the BBWAA voters, or “you,” the stat geeks. It’s about “we,” the fans. There was a time when “you” were fans, too, before pride, politics and computer programs diluted the memories of your youth as a baseball fan. We think Dawson should be in. Wednesday, he was voted in. About time.

The Hawk will, deservedly, get plenty of ink this week. Meanwhile, Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven were shut out of the Hall this year. Alomar belongs; he was the best second baseman in the game for a number of years, and I’m 100% confident he will get in next year. But I’m troubled by Blyleven. Last year, on this very blog (then known as The Fire Station – the online component to the venerable Fire It Up radio program), I based my own hypothetical Hall of Fame ballot on the classic Nintendo game, RBI Baseball. Since Blyleven had 287 career wins, 60 shutouts, and because Jay always beats me with the Twins and Blyleven in RBI, I counted my vote for Bert. But now I’m not so sure. I know Toucher & Rich on 98.5 The Sports Hub in Boston is a morning-drive comedy show masquerading as a sports show, but this morning they brought up a salient point: could you tell he was a Hall of Famer when he was playing? Dawson, yes. Alomar, yes. Blyleven?

Well, his “counting numbers” show he almost had 300 wins. He’s 5th all-time in strikeouts. The shutouts are phenomenal. Some metrics describe Blyleven as one of the top pitchers out there. But his average season was 14-12. I certainly never felt he was one of the elite pitchers in the league. He was rarely the “star” or even the “ace” of his team. Is that worthy of “fame?” When you look at his career, he often played a support role to superstars or other players that made more of an impact at the time:

Twins (1970-76): Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Bill “Soup” Campbell
Rangers (1976-77): Gaylord Perry
Pirates (1978-80): Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Kent Tekulve
Indians (1981-85): Man, those Cleveland teams were bad.
Twins (1985-88): Kirby Puckett, Frank Viola, Kent Hrbek
Angels (1989-90, 1992): Wally Joyner, Chuck Finley, Mark Langston

I suppose Bert will get in. After all, he’s only five votes away and he was a very good pitcher for a number of years. I just don’t think he was an ace, a legend, or anything that passes the Toucher & Rich litmus test – a test Andre Dawson passes with flying colors. But Neyer is crowing as if Dawson's election is the biggest miscarriage of justice (to quote Gorilla Monsoon) since Andre the Giant pinned Hulk Hogan with the aid of an “evil twin” referee. HOW MUCH FOR THE PLASTIC SURGERY? HOW MUCH, MAN? THEY WERE IDENTICAL! Sorry. Tangent.

Bert Blyleven is not a slam-dunk Hall of Fame pick. In fact, his impending selection is about as troubling as Don Sutton’s, though Sutton won 41 more games and had a lower ERA. Guys like Neyer should stop making themselves try to look like geniuses by praising someone like Blyleven and not Andre Dawson. Who knows what Andre Dawson ever did to Rob Neyer. Happily, this week, justice was served.