Baseball's Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame by Robert Cohen Read Free Book Online

or more than, 100 runs. As was mentioned earlier, he was selected to the N.L. All-Star team six times. Cepeda, however, actually had nine All-Star type seasons, even though he was selected to the team only seven times. In nine different seasons, he hit close to, or more than, 30 home runs, drove in approximately 100 runs, and batted over .300. Perez was perhaps the most consistent RBI-man in the game from 1967 to 1977. In each of those 11 seasons he knocked in more than 90 runs while hitting more than 20 homers and batting above .280 on most occasions. Perez was also selected to the All-Star team seven times.
    Let’s take a look at how both Cepeda and Perez stack up when evaluating their careers based on the selection criteria we are using to define a Hall of Famer:
    Neither Cepeda nor Perez was ever the best player in the game at any point during his career. Nor was either man among the five or six best players in baseball for an extended period of time, or one of the greatest first basemen in the history of the game. However, it could be argued that each man was the top player at his position for an extended period of time. From 1959 to 1962, then again in 1967, Cepeda was arguably the best first baseman in baseball. From 1959 to 1962, he averaged 33 home runs and 114 runs batted in, while batting near or above .300 each season. In 1961, he led the N.L. with 46 home runs and 142 RBIs, while batting .311 for the San Francisco Giants. In 1967, he was named the league’s Most Valuable Player when he helped lead the St. Louis Cardinals to the pennant and world championship by hitting 25 homers, leading the league with 111 runs batted in, and batting .325.
    Perez vied with Ron Santo of the Cubs for the honor of being the best National League third baseman from 1967 to 1970. After being shifted to first base at the conclusion of the 1971 campaign, he was the league’s top first baseman in both 1972 and 1973.
    In the MVP voting, both players received a reasonable amount of support. As we saw earlier, Cepeda won the award in 1967. He also finished second once (in 1961), and in the top 10 one other time. Perez finished in the top 10 in the balloting four times. Both players were selected to the All-Star team seven times. Cepeda was a league-leader in a major statistical category only three times, topping the N.L. in home runs once, and in runs batted in twice. Despite knocking in more than 100 runs seven times, Perez never led the league in any offensive category.
    Neither player was particularly strong defensively, but it would appear that Perez had some intangible qualities that Cepeda may have lacked. In 1961, when Cepeda led the National League in home runs and runs batted in, Giants manager Alvin Dark was quoted as saying, “I’m sick and tired of players on this team leading the league in home runs and RBIs and not doing anything to help us win!” It is true that Dark’s opinion of Cepeda may have been somewhat jaded since, later in his managerial career, he was quoted as having made some racist remarks. Nevertheless, the big first baseman—at least in Dark’s eyes—did not do the little things to help his team win. Perez, on the other hand, was a great team leader who helped lead the Cincinnati Reds to four pennants and two world championships. His manager with the Reds, Sparky Anderson, once said that all the other leaders on the Big Red Machine (i.e. Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Pete Rose) deferred to the Big Dawg, as Perez was known to his teammates. He was the leader on that team.
    In evaluating the credentials of Cepeda and Perez, we discover that we have two very good players who meet about half of our Hall of Fame criteria. The feeling here is that both men should be viewed as borderline candidates who were not the greatest of choices, but who were far from the worst. They were both much better players than many of the other men who have been elected to Cooperstown.
    Frank Chance/George Kelly
    This brings us