"In fact, [Boggs'] stats are all the more impressive in review, and yet his appearance on the ballot has an impact in other ways.
At least it does for this voter. I've never been able to stretch Don Mattingly's career numbers enough to justify him as a Hall of Famer, even knowing they were curtailed by chronic back pain. Yet, I can't bring myself to vote for Boggs without voting for Mattingly."
That's actually quite an embarrassing admission. John Harper claims that Don Mattingly is not worthy of the HOF ... but now that Harper feels compelled to vote for Wade Boggs ... Mattingly is suddenly worthy of the HOF.What the heck does Wade Boggs have to do with it? Mattingly is either worthy or he is not.
I personally believe Mattingly has received proper recognition. He has his number retired in Monument Park, which is a tribute to the love that Yankee fans have for him. That's a Yankee thang, but it's not a HOF thang. Mattingly simply did not put up Cooperstown numbers. This discussion could continue at length, and it has, believe me. But it's not the issue tonight.
"Boggs at his best was never as good as Mattingly at his best. When Boggs was hitting .368 in 1985, Mattingly was winning the AL MVP award, leading the league with 48 doubles and 145 RBI to go with a .324 batting average and 35 home runs."
1) That may be true, but Boggs was basically an on-base-percentage weapon. I'm personally a fan of the Big Fly, but if Boggs' two best seasons are examined (1987 and 1988, not 1985), Peak Boggs is pretty darn good. In fact, Mattingly never attained a slugging percentage in a single season that matches Boggs' .588 in 1987.
Don't forget the .461 ob%, 108 runs, 89 rbis, 24 hrs, 40 doubles, and 105 walks ... since we're talking about Peak Seasons and stuff.
2) More to the point, "Boggs at his best" might not have been as good as LOTS OF NON-HOF PLAYERS at their best.
Too many to even list, but off the top of my head: Jose Canseco, Albert Belle, Darryl Strawberry, Cecil Fielder, Juan Gonzalez, Carlos Baerga ... maybe even Lenny Dykstra, Brady Anderson, Jay Buhner, Jeff Burroughs, Mo Vaughn ... depending upon how small of a Peak Period we're willing to look at.
"As all of New York knows, Mattingly had a run of four years when he was considered perhaps the best in baseball. His brilliant defense maked him the definition of a complete ballplayer."
Dave Winfield once (in)famously disputed the notion that Mattingly was a complete player. Winfield was polite about the whole topic, but there seems to be little doubt that Winfield disliked Mattingly to some degree, possibly because Winfield felt slighted when the Yankee fans chose their Golden Boy in the batting title race in 1984.Winfield once said that it cracked him up when Mattingly was described as a complete ballplayer. The five tools are hitting for average, hitting for power, fielding, throwing, and running. That is the definition of a complete ballplayer (as all of New York knows).
Mattingly could not run. Though he was a terrific fielder at first base, it's the least important and least difficult defensive position.
Mattingly could rake and he could play a great first base. He was a great ballplayer, an MVP-caliber player for several years, but not a complete ballplayer.
So what is the final decision-making criteria for John Harper? Well, you know, he liked Mattingly more:
"[Mattingly] was everything that was right about the game, from his work ethic to his unselfish style, even to his decision to retire rather than hang on for the sake of hanging on.
Boggs was Boggs - a self-absorbed player determined to leave a mark on the game as a great hitter."
In a nutshell, that's the problem with the Hall of Fame. The voters are not truly interested in voting for the best players or the players who accomplished the most. They just want to vote for their Favorite Players.I mean, I suppose it's admirable that Harper admits to his own biases, but it's such a slippery slope that it demeans the whole process. The voters should not try to amplify their own biases, they should try to eliminate them. If Harper was writing for the Kansas City Star, does he make a case for for Willie Wilson, Hal McRae, and Larry Gura? They seem like righteous dudes.
Mattingly was a popular guy and a great player. It's okay if the "popular guy" part counts for something when voting for the HOF, I suppose. Subjectivity can't be totally eliminated; style ought to get you a few extra points. But you don't just go putting people in Cooperstown because they strike you as "unselfish."
Harper simply doesn't prove his case. It does not depend upon how one defines a Hall of Famer. Any reasonable way you slice it, it's not that difficult to reach the same conclusion: Boggs is a HOF'er and Mattingly is not.
2 comments:
Outside of people who are from New York City, I don't think you're going to find any arguments that Mattingly deserves to be enshrined.
That's why teams can do whatever they want to honor their own players. It's an entirely different thing. Nobody in their right mind thinks that Mattingly played baseball as well as Gehrig, but they're allowed to share space in Monument Park if the Yankees say so.
I'm trying to be realistic about it -- baseball voters are not going to eliminate their biases entirely. But they should at least strive to leave sentimentality out of the Hall of Fame.
As a voter, Harper is obliged to vote for the players who deserve it, not the players he likes. It's not enough for him to merely acknowledge his prejudices if he's just going to go right ahead and allow them to affect his voting.
It's almost as if he's saying, "I know this is the wrong thing to do ... but I'm doing it, anyway."
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