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Hall Of Fame Photo Gallery
Click on any image below to see photos in full size and to start Photo Gallery:
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- Inside the Hall of Fame
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- Babe Ruth batting in HOF Game in 1939
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- Hall of Fame desplay
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- Back row (left to right): Honus Wagner, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie, George Sisler, and Walter Johnson. Front row (l to r): Eddie Collins, Babe Ruth, Connie Mack, and Cy Young.
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- Duke Hall of Fame speech
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- 1950 Hall of Famers Mickey Cochrane, Carl Hubbell, Charlie Gehringer, Tris Speaker, Ed Walsh and Cy Young pose for a photograph.
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- Eddie Mathews at Hall-of-Fame Induction
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- Satchel was imduced to the Hall of Fame in 1971 with Yogi Berra and Rube marquard
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- Bobby Doerr at his Hall of Fame induction
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- Doug Harvey at Hall of Fame induction
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- Hall of Fame induction ceremony, 1939
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- Ernie Lombardi inducted into the Reds Hall of Fame, July 18, 1958: Bucky Walters, Ernie Lombardi, Frank McCormick, Johnny VanderMeer, Paul Derringer
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- The great Latin Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez at Hall of Fame ceremony
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- Ernie Banks Hall-of-Fame induction, August 1977
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- Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Tony Oliva and Red Schoendienst at the 1966 Hall-of-Fame game
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- 1950 Hall of Fame Weekend Lto R: Mickey Cochrane, Carl Hubbell, Charlie Gehringer, Tris Speaker, Ed Walsh, CY Young.
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- Sam Rice and Lefty Grove at Hall of Fame ceremony, July 22, 1968
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- Larry Doby flanked by Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto at New Jersey Hall of Fame night
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- Hall of Famer and World War II vet Monte Irvin,and Lou Brissie with Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed Memorial Hospital at conference in 2008.
We always welcome guest posts from our readers, and today we feature the first from Michael Keedy. In light of the recently-uncovered sign-stealing scandal, he has an interesting take on Hall-of-Fame selection qualifications and wonders if significant change is needed. If I’m reading him correctly, he’s basically saying, “Lets once-and-for-all put aside all the ‘goody-two-shoes’ stuff and evaluate what the player did on the field.”
Even if you don’t agree with Michael, I think he raises some interesting points that merit consideration. Anyway, I think you’ll enjoy what Michael has to say, even if he is perhaps speaking a bit sarcastically. Feel free to leave comments below.
[Editor’s Followup: When Michael sent this to me, I wasn’t exactly sure if he was speaking “tongue-in-cheek,” or if we should take him a face value. I’m a little slow so he had to explain to me he was being totally cynical and the piece is dripping in sarcasm (What’s the old saying if you have to explain it…?). That also clarifies the reference to Johnathan Swift, which went over my head. So before you jump all over Michael, I encourage you to read his response to my question in the comments section below where he explains his real feelings about the Hall of Fame selections! -Gary]
Is It Time To Reevaluate Hall-of-Fame Selection Qualifications?
Now that the Houston Asterisks have been caught, tried, convicted and sentenced by The Lords of major league baseball (thank you Dr. Manfred), more and more writers seem to be softening up to the idea of rationalizing and eventually ignoring the alleged malfeasance of Hall-of-Fame wannabes such as Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and perhaps even the likes of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.
Gee, the apparent thinking goes, if we’re going to cast our votes down the road to induct guys like Carlos Beltran, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and so forth (and we clearly intend to), then how can we justify slamming the door to Cooperstown on the faces of supposed juicers who were never caught stealing the opposing teams’ signs?
The time may have come for The Baseball Writers Association of America simply to acknowledge that cheating in our National Pastime is now and shall forever remain perfectly acceptable—or at least tolerable—and hence a non-issue when it comes to evaluating the lives and careers of eligible inductees going forward. Bending and breaking the rules is so rampant in this so-called technological age that it’s really impossible to stop, and often too daunting a challenge even to detect.
Hall of Fame facade
In the featured photo, we see Babe Ruth delivering his Hall-of-Fame induction speech. Too bad we don’t have a transcript from that speech!
Worse, most writers probably don’t relish having to sift through and distinguish among multiple permutations of cheating, e.g., performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals vs. sign-stealing vs. the next new and sophisticated way to win at all costs. They would rather set aside nagging ethical considerations in favor of concentrating on the length and magnitude of a candidate’s playing history and call it good. After all! Who wants to be an arbiter of character and righteous conduct now that The Hall’s turnstiles are spinning at warp-speed anyway, and we’re all in the intoxicating business of voting guys in rather than calling them out?
It is against this rising tide of indifference to the spirit and significance of sportsmanship that I offer the following Modest Proposal, with apologies to Jonathan Swift: It is time for the movers and shakers at the Hall of Fame to grab the white-out and eliminate a few key, time-honored but increasingly inconvenient criteria for enshrinement, to wit: Integrity, character, sportsmanship, and contribution to the game. This will leave “record” and “playing ability” as the only legitimate measures of a guy’s entitlement to admission.
In other words, it will clear the way for writers to focus on stats, which is what most of them are doing as it is, and vastly prefer to be doing. As a practical matter, then, the gates to induction can finally swing open to worthies-in-wait such as Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and McGwire; Alex Rodriguez and everybody else who could hit the ball deep and often, play offense into his mid-40s while piling on the numbers perpetually, or light up a radar-gun years after his on-field career should have been over. Then too, maybe it will be time to dial up Pete Rose, Rafael Palmeiro, the long-suffering heirs of Joe Jackson, and hey – the sky is really the only limit here, and statistics are everything.
Let us all now break ground for a new and industrial-sized wing in Cooperstown. Those old halls may not be so hallowed, actually, in years to come, but let us remember what is most important: They will be grander, gaudier, more expansive and more-profitable than The Founders of our National Pastime ever imagined.
Just don’t save me a ticket. I’ll be devoting my precious remaining years to the World Wrestling Federation.
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Michale Needy
Photo Credits: All from Google search
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I know of a HOF voter named Marcos Breton a writer for the Sacramento Bee. He is a former sports writer and now a general columnist. The point is that this jerk openly comments in his newspaper that he will never vote for Curt Schilling because he thinks Schilling is a racist. Breton should be removed from his status as a HOF voter for this open declaration. I do not know what Curt Schillings race views are, but that has no bearing on HOF qualification. Likewise I read many voters did not vote for HOFer Steve Carlton because he was accused of being antisemetic . These things have no bearing and such voter should be removed. Fortunately saner voters prevailed and lefty is a very deserving HOFer. I myself think Pete Rose should be enshrined. If the man who got more hits than any other in baseball history is not so enshrined, then the HOF itself is not valid.
PLEASE READ!
Here’s Michael Keedy’s response when I asked him if he was speaking tongue-in-cheek in this post:
Hi Gary,
Perfect, and your question is perfectly understandable.
I mentioned Jonathan Swift, an 18th-century British satirist/essayist perhaps most remembered for Gulliver’s Travels. He also penned a pamphlet, “A Modest Proposal,” which was a highly satiric, tongue-in-cheek solution for the impoverishment of many children in western Europe at the time, and the supposed burdens they represented to their parents and to society at large. With a straight face/quill he suggested the kids be used for meat, and fed to land barons and other elites in The British Isles. thereby simultaneously culling excess children out of the community and providing welcome nutrients for the upper crust, always seeking new ways to become fatter and more distinguished. He didn’t mean a word of it, of course, but was only trying to make a political point by exposing the absurdity of brutal solutions to sensitive and complex problems.
So it is with my piece here. I happen to love the fact that The Hall’s longstanding criteria for enshrinement include such laudable (and increasingly rare) traits as character, sportsmanship, integrity, and contribution to (the good of) the game. It would be ridiculous, and a travesty actually, if those standards for induction were to be eliminated. But in practice these days and unfortunately, that seems to be what’s happening. (The Great Gil, one of the most ethical, straight, moral and supportive ambassadors of this wonderful game, in addition to being a tremendous ball-player, has been waiting a g-d lifetime for enshrinement, and his exclusion from the Hall is one of the great injustices of the sports world in the 20th (now 21st) century. Meanwhile the writers are suddenly bent on ushering in waves of lesser-lights, in my opinion, swelling the ranks in Cooperstown with scores of pretty-good-but-never-great players, and guys who wouldn’t recognize ethics if it slapped them in the face, while Gil’s body lies molderin’ in the grave. This is — insufferable.)
So what I’m saying, or trying to say in a pathetic echo of the great Jonathan Swift, is let us keep our beloved criteria, not continue to butcher them (along with innocent kids), and in keeping them actually employ them once in a while instead of throwing votes in the direction of every Bert Blyleven, Harold Baines and Ted Simmons that ever came down the pike — and now, worse than that, giving a growing boost of support to guys like Bonds and Clemens, who can never measure up to criteria that seem to have been written with Hodges in mind, and who could never carry his jock-strap frankly.
Thus my cynicism. I detest what the Hall and the writers have been doing to our beloved pastime over the last decade or so. It has to stop, or we may as well abandon our standards of fairness, righteousness, decency and authentic sportsmanship altogether. We’re doing a pretty good job of that already, apparently in the interest of including anybody and everybody in Cooperstown at the expense of our lofty ideals and self-respect.
Thanks for your good question, and sorry for this windy response. If you print this thing as is (more or less), and it sparks the reaction I’m hoping for, I shall be more than happy to “consider doing more.” You can count on it!
Best regards,
Michael
Kudos, Michael.
May I echo every one of the sentiments you expressed in your reply to Gary’s comment. You said everything I think, especially about Gil Hodges, but could never have said nearly as well as you did.
I would like to add, unless you have straight shooters playing the game you have nothing. There can be no winner if there is no true contest. Cheaters debase the game and render it nothing.
I honestly think turning baseball into big business (read MONEY) was the beginning of baseball’s loss of innocence. The more wins, the more money. The better a player’s stats, the more money. Tomorrow, Thursday night, Jan. 23, TCM is playing “Body and Soul.” It’s about the life and career of a boxer, a true metaphore for our time. In one scene, the fighter’s best friend is explaining to the fighter’s girlfriend what is happening to the decent young man she fell in love with. “He’s not just a kid who can fight. He’s money and people want money so bad they make it stink and they make you stink.”
As long as the biggest producers earn more money in a year than many third world countries have to finance their economies for a year, looking for other ways to win are going to continue to tempt some people. Only the insistence of honesty at every level can make and keep baseball the gem of a game it was made to be.
Thanks Joan…very well said.
Hi Dennis:
I ‘ve thought a bit on this since my earlier post. I feel to show the players, the owners, coaching staffs, anyone and everyone, that cheating will not be tolerated and baseball is truly serious about it, the guilty team’s season should default to 0 – 162. Each opponent should be granted a win for every game played against the offending team for the season. This is in addition to the already stated punishments.
Coming up with a fair formula for post season play is a little harder. Anyone have any other ideas?
Regards
Joan
Thanks Joan, some very interesting thoughts. By the way, I’m always looking for guest posts. Would you be interested in doing an essay on the cheating scandal and your recommended punishments? I think you’ve articulated your thoughts on the subject very well. Would make for an interesting essay. If you’re interested, just let me know and I’ll give you more particulars.
Best. Gary
Many thanks to Joan for her welcome contribution to this little dialogue. Her points are thought-provoking and, to me, quite persuasive.
I happened to catch a byline this morning by Mr. Gabe Lacques, USA Today, in which he tries to draw connections between baseball’s steroid scandal of twenty years ago and the Astros’ more-current electronic sign–stealing caper. He closes his article with this: “When millions of dollars, livelihoods and championships are on the line, it’s almost certain not everyone will do the right thing when nobody is watching.”
Your point exactly, Joan, and mine as well.
Best regards,
Michael
Michael H. Keedy
Alamogordo, NM
Hello Everyone.
I read your remarks citing Mr. Lacques’ byline, Michael. I’m afraid it’s worse than he admits. Everybody IS looking. These games are played in front of millions of people. Not only do cheats cheat openly, they expect to get away with it, because no one is looking for it. We trust that what we see is what we get. Unfortunately, that is no longer true.
Integrity is being bred out of our DNA. I’ve stood in the background and heard kids congratulate jeach other on getting away with something shady. In my day we congratulated each other for excellence. What the hell is going on? Why is this happening? I may seem to be going far-a-field with this, but I’m really not. The way I see it, Baseball is the world in microcosm. It’s been many years now I’ve resented what money has done to my game.
One of your latest posts, Gary, is about the golden age of baseball in New York. That was MY time , 1947 – 1957. That’s when I found baseball and fell in love with it and Gil Hodges on the same day. After the Dodgers went west, my broken heart didn’t heal until the Mets arrived to make me smile again. 1969 was similar to 1955,each marvelous and unique, the height of happiness. I was content until the late 70’s to mid 80’s. That was when I realized I wasn’t watching a baseball team on the field anymore, I was watching 9 bank accounts, each one out for itself.
I think that’s why I appreciate this space and all of you sharing your stories about an important time in my life. It brings back a love I’d thought I’d lost. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
My kindest regards to you all.
Joan
Hi again Joan,
At the risk of overplaying our mutual mission to see Gil Hodges inducted one fine and belated day, I must say that your notes remind me of the time when Charlie Dressen offered Gil 50 bucks to bait an umpire. Gil’s reply: “I’ve already got fifty dollars, Charlie.”
Of course we know that no amount of $$ would have tempted Mr. Hodges to sully the game. The man was a pillar, and a far cry from what we see in our beloved game today. The Hall of Fame is poorer for his absence.
Thanks so much to Gary and you,
Michael
I think it is time to re-evaluate the qualifications of the HOF voters!
Hey Guys-
I don’t want to argue with you Dennis, but I don’t think you want to change the qualifications for the voters, I think you want to change the qualifications for the inductees. As it stands now, contributing to the good of baseball as a whole is one of those conditions. Pete Rose bet on sports. I don’t remember if it was proved he bet on baseball, but if he hadn’t yet, it was only a matter of time. In the natural progression, he would have eventually. To extrapolate further, missing that close play, not getting the hit he always got before, any anomaly in his play to influence the outcome of a game ? How could he be trusted not to try to cheat when he has money on a game.
I, too, thought as you do when the question of his eligibility was questioned. The guy has more hits uthan anyone else. How can he be kept out? But I really started to ponder what it would mean down the line. When you open the door just a shade, compromise standards the tiniest bit, you open the floodgates to allow greater and greater ethical flaws. I’m not saying this as well I should, but it boils down to this: When a person knows the rules and chooses to break them, he has already disqualified himself for enshrinement.
The game deserves nothing but the best.
Kind regards,
Joan
Good argument Joan, but I absolutely want to re-evaluate the values of the voters. As in the case of the Sacramento voter I previously noted that brags that he will never vote for Curt Schilling because this voter thinks Schilling is a racist. Or in the past some voters declined to vote for Steve Carlton because he was thought to be anti semetic . The HOF is not for personal or political views, but rather on the field accomplishments. If you bas HOF on racial views, you would have to eliminate Ty Cobb. I respect the views of others but I reserve the right to disagree. I will never respect the HOF until Pete Rose, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are enshrined. Bonds and Clemens were the very best of their era and did nothing against the rules at that time.
Hi Dennis:
I guess it’s pretty clear we’re on opposite sides of the fence on this matter, but I, too, respect your right to disagree.
Kindest regards,
Joan
Hi Guys:
Look where we are. Could anyone have had an inkling that our conversation of a few weeks ago regarding the consequences of cheating would explode into the baseball headlines we are seeing today? What a can of worms!!!
Does anyone think the punishment fit the crime?
Aside from deleting the entire post season play especially the world series outcome from the record books, is there any way to fix this. I can’t think of one.
You know, even that’s not fair. How long was the cheating going on? Every game the Astros played in the whole regular season is tainted, too. What a mess. What a shame. Their poor fans. How betrayed they must feel.
I can only hope the people entrusted with upholding the integrity of our game will do what they must to keep it clean.
Regards,
Joan
Thanks Joan…well said.
I feel the Astros should be stripped of their 2017 title.
Hi Gary:
Are you sure you want me to do this? I’m just a very opinionated, old lady. I have nowhere near the credentials you and your other guest posters have. But, if you want me to, I’ll give it a shot.
Kindly,
Joan
Sure Joan, give it a shot. None of us have any real credentials (except Bill Gutman). I usually do the final editing anyway. So take your time…no hurry. Pick any angle you want. I usually recommend 600-800 words, but not hard and fast. If you decide on a final topic, run it by me first before you start and I’ll give you my input on the topic. Hope you decide to do it. We have a lot of fun around here!
Hi Joan, you express yourself much better than I. It seems that the Astro players are getting off without any punishment and what they did is worse than the steroids scandal. It goes to the integrity of the game and appears this Baseball Commissioner is all but useless. I heard Yu Darvish say that if you are got cheating after winning a gold medal, your medal is taken away. The Astros should be stripped of their 2017 title. I have to add I as a Dodger fan since 1951 and being cheated in 2017 hurts. I live in Arizona and am going to the Dodger spring camp daily in hopes of meeting Tommy Lasorda. He has been one of the best ambassadors for baseball for a lifetime. Tommy is in his 72 year with the Dodgers, a record for one person. It would be nice to hear his take on this cheating scandal and what should be done. Obviously I am enraged that Gil Hodges is not in the HOF and lost a little respect for Ted Williams as he kept Roy Campanella’s vote for being counted by the veterans committee as he could not attend. Also as for all the rules changes proposed, I like baseball exactly like it is.
Hi Dennis:
I’m glad to see we’re on the same side on these two issues. I, too, feel any team that cheats its’ way to a title deserves to lose everything the team got as a result of the cheating.
Regarding “the Great Gil,” as Michael refers to him, is not a member, it’s no Hall of Fame to me. The one man I know who exemplifies every requisite for membership has not been admitted. That’s more than a shame. That’s a disgrace.
Kind regards,
Joan