Post 301: HOF TTM from Monte Irvin

Seeing as how Mr. Irvin was honored by the Giants yesterday by having his number retired (hat tip to A Giant Blog), I thought I'd post this card that popped up in the mailbox.

1955 Topps ttm courtesy of the man himself. I'm not sure when it showed up (hey, I've been out of the country) but was pretty stoked to get the SASE from Texas. 

Monford Merrill "Monte" Irvin was a beast at the plate in the Negro, Mexican, and Major Leagues. How much so? According to BB Reference his moniker was "Mr. Murder." Ballplayer nicknames are usually cuddly, like "The Say 'Hey' Kid," "Hammerin' Hank," or "Kung Fu Panda," Irvin's being called something akin to a mafia hit man is pretty surprising. A lifetime OPS+ of .858 in the Majors gets you noticed I guessed. Congrats on having your number retired Mr. Irvin, and thanks for the auto!

I'm back for a while, so the posts will start rolling out beginning today.

Have a good one everybody and goodnight Pumpsie Green, wherever you are!

Stupid Bar Debates: The HOF and Don Larsen

Many years ago a good friend of mine and I were somewhere, doing things we shouldn't have been doing. And we were faced.

At some point he turns to me and says, "Dude, it's an absolute crime Don Larsen's not in the Hall of Fame."

I responded with something like, "Right on! Him and Mark Lemke!" It didn't even occur to me that my friend was serious. Being that we both continue to be obstinate southerners to this day (long story), and that we were both completely faced, the entire conversation quickly devolved into two idiots yelling at each other over a completely moronic topic.

Seeing a few paroxysms of grief over the non-induction of Jack Morris and the potential future induction of Curt Schilling, however, I'd like to pay tribute to my friend by revisiting his argument. And I'm serious.

It begins and ends with this: on the biggest stage and in the biggest situation Don Larsen threw a perfect game. Given that Larsen threw what is arguably the greatest baseball game ever pitched (biggest stage, biggest situation, perfect game), he deserves to be in the HOF. Period.

That, friends, was the argument. Brutal in its simplicity, airtight in its logic, jaw-dropping in its conclusion. None of this means any disrespect to Mr. Larsen, who was a heck of a ballplayer. His overall stats, however, would not make him a prototypical HOFer.

I only bring this up because most of the arguments for the inclusion of Morris and Schilling center on their credentials from particular games, Morris's being game 7 of the 1991 WS and Schilling's being the "Bloody Sock" game 2 of the 2004 WS. While both men have a better body of work, career-wise, than Larsen, their masterpiece games are often used, quite consciously, to gloss over the fact neither reached any of the typical HOF benchmarks in terms of traditional stats.

Non-traditional stats cloud the matter even further for Morris, whose lifetime ERA+ of 105 portrays him as a few shades better than league average. However, ERA+ also places Schilling (127) ahead of Bob Feller (122), which clearly points to the fact that ERA+ isn't a perfect measure.

My argument is not necessarily for/against either Morris or Schilling, but to point to an unsettling lynchpin in most arguments for both men's inclusion. In other words, most of their advocates are advocating for them based not on their overall careers (which were fine), but based on their performances in specific great games. This line of argumentation is fine, but it leads us back to my friend's position: where is all the love for Don Larsen? In the words of my friend, "Dude pitched the greatest game EVER (said at the top of one's lungs). Isn't that enough?"

Have a good one!

Dick Allen for the Hall

One of Daddy D's all-time favorite nicknames is "Choo-choo," as in Choo-choo Coleman. He wants me to post on Coleman so bad he sent me a few Choo-choos to post.

However, there are a few things that need to come before. While looking up some info on Choo-choo I came across one of those abandoned message boards you'll find from time to time: established 2001, a thread from '03, nothing new since '04. At one point folks were exchanging "Choo-choo Coleman was so stupid..." stories when someone stated something to the effect that Coleman, like Dick Allen, came up in the Phillies farm system, positing that Coleman, like Allen, learned to be curt and stand-offish with reporters, managers, and fans alike because of his experience coming up through the minors.

There's even a paper written about it, here. It ain't for the faint of heart.

I got this card from the .50 cent bin at the local, and will admit that until I took a hard look at the stats I had no idea how good he was. Lifetime OPS of .912, OPS+ 156. Dude had power and a good bit of speed. If you check out his Baseball Ref page, towards the bottom you'll see he's a border-line HOFer based on the various Bill James smell tests. In fact, there's a blog dedicated to getting him in: Dick Allen Hall of Fame.

If you look around a bit, there are a lot of stories about Allen and his bad attitude, (see Rice, Jim) and I imagine that has a lot to do with his not being in the HOF, as it did with Rice until this year. Hopefully that will be corrected soon. And I say that as someone who has disliked the Phillies from the 80's to the present, so I'm not pulling for one of "my guys."

Have a great one!