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

to the final two first basemen in the Hall of Fame: Frank Chance and George “High-Pockets” Kelly.
    Frank Chance played first base for the Chicago Cubs from 1898 to 1914. He also managed the team for several of those seasons. Chance was fortunate enough to have played on the great Cubs teams that dominated the National League for much of the first decade of the 20th century. Playing mostly during the dead-ball era, one would not expect Chance’s offensive numbers to be on a par with some of the other great first basemen who have been elected to Cooperstown. However, one would have to look long and hard to be able to justify his selection.
    During Chance’s career, he led the National League in stolen bases and on-base percentage twice each, and in runs scored once. However, he was never a league-leader in any other offensive category. A look at the statistics compiled by Chance over the course of his 17 major league seasons indicates that he neither had a sufficient number of plate appearances nor the necessary numbers to be deemed a worthy Hall of Famer. Let’s take a look at his numbers alongside those of Jake Beckley, whose career overlapped with Chance’s:

     
    Certainly, a large part of the discrepancy in the numbers posted by the two men can be attributed to the fact that Beckley had more than twice as many plate appearances as Chance. However, Beckly was also the far more productive hitter of the two. He had a huge edge over Chance in every statistical category except stolen bases and on-base percentage. Beckley, already described here as a somewhat marginal Hall of Famer, had three times as many triples, more than four times as many homers, and almost three times as many runs batted in as Chance. Regardless of the era in which he played, 20 career home runs, 596 runs batted in, and 797 runs scored should not be enough to get a player elected into the Hall of Fame.
    The only reasonable explanation as to why Chance was elected comes from a poem that was written by a New York sportswriter during the first decade of the 20th century. Frustrated that his beloved Giants were repeatedly victimized by the powerful Cubs teams of those years, this writer composed a poem extolling the virtues of Chicago’s double-play combination of shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers, and first baseman Chance. The poem became quite famous and ended up immortalizing the trio, and the phrase “Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance.” As a result, the three men were elected en masse to the Hall of Fame by the Old-Timers Committee in 1946, in one of the many blunders it committed during this period. None of the three players truly deserved to be admitted to Cooperstown.
    George Kelly was the regular first baseman for the New York Giants for much of the 1920s, prior to being displaced by Bill Terry. During his career, he surpassed the 100-RBI mark five times and led the N.L. in home runs once and in runs batted in twice. He never led the league in any other offensive category, and he never scored as many 100 runs in a season. Let’s take a look at his numbers alongside those of Jim Bottomley, who we have categorized as a legitimate Hall of Famer, and Dolph Camilli, the slugging first baseman for the Phillies and Dodgers from 1933 to 1945, who never made it into the Hall:

     
    Clearly, Kelly’s numbers fall far short of those compiled by Bottomley, who played during the same period. Meanwhile, Camilli, playing in an era less dominated by hitting, posted numbers that compare quite favorably to Kelly’s. In approximately 600 fewer at-bats than Kelly, he hit almost 100 more home runs, knocked in only 70 fewer runs, accumulated more triples, scored more runs, and posted much higher on-base and slugging percentages. The logical question then is this: Why is Kelly in the Hall of Fame while Camilli is not? The answer is a simple one: Frankie Frisch. As we saw earlier, Frisch’s strong personality and leadership skills enabled him to exert a