Nine Of The Worst Baseball Hall Of Fame Selections Ever

The logjam of Hall of Fame-worthy players on this year’s ballot has turned the spotlight — again — on the handful of current Cooperstown residents who have, shall we say, less-than-stellar qualifications.

Sporting News

Rick Ferrell

Hall of Fame catcher Rick Ferrell (1905-1995) caught in the American League for eighteen years (1929-45,’47) during two of America’s most challenging periods: the Great Depression and World War II.

The Baseball Biography Project

The Path To Cooperstown: The Catchers

For my fourth annual THT column on position players and the Hall of Fame, I’m taking an in-depth look at a group not represented on this year’s BBWAA ballot and with only one post-1920 representative on the Veterans’ Committee ballot (Joe Torre, who got just 29.7 percent of the vote, well short of the 75 percent of required): the catchers. This column, Part 1 of 2, will focus on the catchers with primes of eight years or more—the core of any Hall of Fame discussion—and Part 2 will deal with the rest.

The Hardball Times

BL, TR (Part 3: The Best Left-Handed Hitting Third Basemen In MLB History)

In Part 1, we introduced the concept of the rarity of right-handed throwers who bat left handed, identifying how rare it's been over the past half-century for players at the defensive positions that nearly universally demand right-handed throwers (catcher, third base, second base and shortstop) to be left-handed hitters. We're not talking about switch-hitters (though they're rare too), but straight, full-on left-handed hitters, batting lefty even against southpaws.

In Part 2 we examined the best of these rare birds at the position of catcher. This time we'll turn our attention to The Hot Corner.

The Hardball Times

Prospectus Today: The Old You're In, You're Out

Just 23 names dot the 2008 Hall of Fame ballot, the smallest number in history. That's mostly a fluke owing to the vagaries of when careers begin and end, which players come back for an extra season or an extra few weeks, and which don't. Rickey Henderson, the only first-time-eligible player with a snowball's chance in hell of being elected—and who will be this year—would still be playing if he had a choice. We've also seen a lot of players slip off of the ballot quickly in recent years, as the five percent rule for staying on becomes a tougher barrier to clear as the electorate grows. That rule will claim most of this year's new entries as well.

Baseball Prospectus

Does Ted Simmons Belong In The Hall Of Fame

The San Diego Padres recently hired Ted Simmons as their bench coach for 2009. Over at Ducksnorts, I quipped that if they could turn the clock back 30 years, the Padres would have their catching problem solved as well. One of my readers took it a step further and wondered why Simmons never got more serious consideration for the Hall of Fame.

The Hardball Times