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Ken Boyer... Cardinal great... Should he be in Cooperstown?
coinkat
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I vote yes... outstanding player and his great play was over shadowed by Matthews.
Your thoughts?
And I truly expect some revisionist history as to what others did later to disrupt the argument... or why he has not been selected based on those that followed.
Feel free to write that my view is simply misplaced.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
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Boyer had the misfortune to play at a time with an unprecedented concentration of talent at 3B. Mathews was clearly the greatest of the era, but Santo and Robinson were also HOF-level talents. Which left Boyer as the 4th best 3B of his era. I think that had to hurt him when he first came up on the ballot, and then along came Schmidt and Brett and pushed Boyer further down the list.
As a Cardinal fan, absolutely, I'd love to see Boyer make the HOF. Does he deserve it? I think he's very, very close by historical standards. By current standards, where Rice, Baines, Hodges, etc. are already in the HOF, though, I don't see how to possibly exclude him; I expect he'll get in eventually.
Yes, he was a very good ballplayer. He belongs in the HOF. His best season was in 1964. He was the MVP that year. The Cards beat the Yankees in the World Series that year........And THAT ended the Yankee dominance of baseball that went back to the 1920's. Just for that he should be in the HOF. It was monumental!..The Yankees were never the same until the George Steinbrenner BIG $$$$$ ERA.
Personal Note; He was a Dodger from 1968-69. During pregame one of those years I was sitting in the first row behind the Dodger dugout. Boyer threw a ball to a bunch of kids that were standing around me......I reached up and caught it!......Just natural reflex!...He gave me a dirty look that I will never forget!.... Oh well, I kept the ball. How was I supposed to know who he was throwing it to?......Years later he was the manager of the Cards. 1978-80(?). I took that ball to a Dodger/Cards game and asked him to autograph it. He did......Well, I still have that ball.....He died too young....RIP.
The Cardinals have a great history...... None better in the NL!
I find it peculiar that every year when the MLB HOF inductees are announced that the discussions start about how watered down it's getting, yet here we are discussing the worthiness of good solid players who shouldn't be in the HOF. Boog Powell, Frank Howard, Ken Boyer, etc. etc. etc. may be sentimental favorites who were above average for a few years, but to my way of thinking it takes more than that to earn a bust in the HOF. None of the guys mentioned were near .300 lifetime(OK, Boyer was sort of close), none was able to reach 400 HR's and none were RBI machines.
Those numbers certainly don't mean you should be enshrined if you reach them but they're pretty good bench marks. HOF's should be special places for premier players.
Everyone gets a trophy 🏆
that ship has long since sailed
And Ken Boyer is a special player worthy of being there. Seems we are applying a yard stick to Boyer that is not representative of his time. And perhaps that is why it took Hodges about 40 years to get in. Compare Hodges to anyone that played first base in the decade of the 1950s- and he is on top. Boyer trails Matthews as a hitter, but he did have 5 golden glove awards
The HOF is about recognizing greatness when it happened... not comparing to what happened 30 and 40 yrs later.
And in another thread here, there was an actual suggestion that Duke Snider was average with question whether he was even average... seriously?!?
I really think this is not the forum for MLB history...
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Snider was a below average defensive centerfielder. Two of his seven peers were all-time great defensive centerfielders, so it is hard to measure Snider's true level.
Snider was a no doubt great offensive centerfielder. Over all he was probably on the border of very good and great. If you were making a list of the fifty biggest mistakes in the HoF he wouldn't be on it. Clear?
@daltex
Is there really enough for anyone to write or state Snider was below average defensively?
You write that two of his seven peers were all-time great defensive centerfielders. And I am not disputing Mays and Ashburn were better than Snider defensively. But that does not make Snider below average.
MLB is about the total package and Snider exemplified that as much as any player of his era.
Overall Snider was better than very good and is considered great. Clear?
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Well Powell and Howard aren't even close to the standard, but the problem with Boyer is that he's in a group with some slightly younger third basemen like Nettles, Bell, and Bando, and it's not clear that we should enshrine one and not the others, or that if we did it would be Boyer.
Of course I don't understand what makes Hodges special. I've got to say, though, 120 is a pretty bad OPS+ for a first baseman. Just looking at the players who have played the most first base this year, Hodges career OPS+ would rank 14 of 25. Other years are similar. Hodges may have been very good, or even great, but I don't see it.
@daltex
Why are you comparing Hodges who enjoyed his peak seasons from about 1949-1959 to a first baseman today?
If you don't understand what makes Hodges special, there really is no point in continuing the discussion.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Yes, there really is.
As much as Musial, Mays, Aaron, Mathews? Not to mention some AL players. That's just silly. As far as the very good vs. great discussion, I suppose we need to define our terms. I consider Mays, Cobb, Speaker, and Mantle great centerfielders, with Trout very likely to join that group, and Griffey would certainly belong if his career hadn't taken a nosedive once he left Seattle. Snider is a lot closer to Lofton and Carlos Beltran than he is to the "big four". It all depends where we draw the boundary of great.
Similarly, I can conceive of a Hall of Fame with room for Jim Kaat and Catfish Hunter. I can also conceive of one without Rick Reuschel or Kevin Brown. I just can't believe that they are the same Hall. There is no place for Jack Morris at a level of excellence that doesn't include Dave Stieb.
I'm not sure what any of this means. To whom are we supposed to compare Gil Hodges? We could go backward and compare him to Gehrig, Foxx, and Greenberg and he'd look even worse than he does compared to later first basemen. So I'm guessing you want to confine comparisons to only his contemporaries. Hodges "peak", such as it was, runs from 1950 to 1957. Now, I'm not going to attempt any kind of statistical proof of this, but the 1950's appear to be, by far, the weakest decade in baseball history for first basemen. You've got Hodges, Kluszewski, and Vernon all playing at more or less the same level. And that level is the same level at which you'll also find Mark Grace, Dolph Camilli, and Cecil Cooper. Plus, Mickey Vernon was playing in those years but his best season was back in 1946 and he lost two of what would probably have been his peak years to the war. Overall, clearly I think, Vernon was better than Hodges, but confined just to Hodges' years they were about equals.
As to your second statement, there is nothing that makes Hodges special. The team he was on was special, and afforded him many more RBI opportunities than Vernon or Klu, but that's all there is. Had Vernon played for the Dodgers and Hodges played for the Senators you'd be scrambling to look up Hodges right now instead of Vernon, and you'd think Vernon was "special".
On a different sub-topic, I do think it goes a bit too far to refer to Duke Snider as below average defensively. He was clearly no Mays or Ashburn (or Piersall, or overlapping at the front and back of his career, any of the DiMaggios or Bill Virdon), but I do think he was pretty good. Snider gets the same benefit as Hodges for playing on a great team, and another bump for that "Willie, Mickey, and the Duke" song that elevates him well past his station into the Willie/Mickey realm. But, by all accounts, he was a pretty good, though not great, fielder.
I like to read biographies of great players. Have read books on Mays, Mantle, Aaron, Musial, and MANY more. Hodges gets mentioned every so often and the players he played with and against all say Gil was HOF worthy.
That's good enough for me.
I'd put Garvey in before Boyer but I am a Dodger homer I admit.
Seems the Hodges HOF debate is nothing new to the forum. Hodges is rightfully in. The real take away from this thread is referencing Mickey Vernon, Ted Klu as other capable first baseman of the 1950s..one could add Walt Dropo. While I like these guys, I see them was short of what Hodges produced, including golden glove awards. One can assert the 1950s may have not produced the most memorable first basemen but Hodges should not be penalized for that. And yes, he was part of a special team that was special in part because of his contributions.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
It is not "penalizing" Hodges to recognize his place among an historically weak group of contemporaries, in fact his place among his contemporaries is merely interesting trivia. Where Hodges gets penalized is when it is recognized that he wasn't all that good, and his "numbers" are nothing more than the result of playing in a hitters park surrounded by teammates better than he was.
The Dodgers were a special team, and it was the contributions of Snider, Robinson, and Campy, mostly, that made it so. Not that far behind were the contributions of Reese, Drysdale, and Newcombe. There's a lot of deserving HOFers, and they were all in a different talent universe than Gil Hodges. First basemen whose hitting is indistinguishable from Cecil Cooper's do not belong in the HOF. Hodges is in the HOF because of his teammates, and absolutely no other reason. The end.
They’re going to eventually rebuild it under Niagara Falls, and name it the watered down hof.
Folks that participate here are entitled to their own opinions... even if they are misplaced. Suggesting that Hodges and Cooper are indistinguishable in terms of hitting simply fails the straight face test to the point of embarrassment. And not to recognize the contributions of Hodges in the success that the Dodgers achieved is just shameful.
THE END
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Just to kick a dead horse, because putting players like Gil Hodges in the HOF can't be condemned too harshly or too frequently, here's another perspective.
Gil Hodges was on a great team that won 2 World Series. He had 4 HOF teammates other than pitchers: the #8 CF (using JAWS), the #17 catcher, the #10 2B, and the #16 SS. He's not in the HOF, but they also had the #37 2B, and I'm leaving out two HOF pitchers who showed up late in Hodges career. Hodges was the #41 1B.
The A's also had a great team in the early 1970's. They had one HOF player, the #8 RF, the #19 relief pitcher, and one starting pitcher (#183) who clearly had incriminating photos of someone on the selection committee. Was Reggie better than Snider, Campy, Robinson, and Reese? No, he wasn't. Were the contributions made by the other A's more "special" than the contributions made by Hodges and the other Dodger bystanders? Yes, they were. Compare Hodges (#41 1B) to Tenace (#13 C), Bando (#16 3B), and Campaneris (#20 SS). Why is Hodges in the HOF, and not Tenace, Bando, and Campaneris? There is no good answer to that question. And the same question can be asked about George Foster (#32 LF) from the Reds, and again, there is no good answer.
Yes, the Brooklyn Dodgers were a special team, but that does not mean every single player on that team belongs in the HOF. What made the Dodgers more special than the A's or the Reds? Jackie Robinson, mostly, and that they played in NYC. They were not a better team than the A's or the Reds, and Hodges was not a better player than Tenace, Bando, Campaneris, or Foster.
I think the dead horse really needs to rest in peace
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
So here's the thing: by all accounts, people are terrible at understanding good fielding just by watching. Cf Omar Vizquel. Most gold gloves are awarded on some mixture of speed, previous gold gloves, and hitting. Kirby Puckett was a really good defensive centerfielder his first two seasons, then he bulked up, became a power hitter (4 home runs his first two years, averaged over 20 the last ten) and became a poor fielder, and won six gold gloves in seven years. Bret Boone is another example of a guy who won his gold gloves with his bat, but there are too many examples to count of players who won gold gloves with seasons that were just bad, culminating, of course, with Palmeiro in 1999.
Bottom line is that anecdotal evidence is pretty good when it comes to hitting and pitching, but terrible when it comes to defense.
No argument, but E, A, and PO - which is all we have - aren't much better. Snider did have a fielding % considerably better than league average (about 1/3 fewer errors per play), and Ebbets Field - the ballpark that convinced people Gil Hodges was a great hitter - had a very small outfield which we would expect would keep the OFers range factors low. But even so, Snider's RFs were both about average (RF/9 slightly higher, RF/G slightly lower). If I'm looking at an outfielder that I never saw play, and I know (1) the people who did see him play said he was very good, and (2) there's nothing in the statistical record to contradict them, then I'm going to assume that he was anywhere from good to great.
All that said, you may very well be right about Snider but you seem to be making a much stronger argument that we can't know how good he was than that he was below average. What evidence I see - weak as it may be - says he was a little better than average. But I don't see any evidence that he was worse than that.
Kirby Puckett was a really good defensive centerfielder his first two seasons, then he bulked up, became a power hitter (4 home runs his first two years, averaged over 20 the last ten) and became a poor fielder, and won six gold gloves in seven years.
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Puckett was never a poor fielder. His first two seasons were awesome, after that people rarely ran on him, so his assist totals dropped. Even when he got bigger, he still could go get the ball, often robbing batters of home runs with a very surprising leaping ability that you would never expect from a guy that short and muscular. Didn't have a tremendous arm like Clemente, but it was strong and very accurate.
He won his final GG in 1992 making only 3 errors in 407 chances and still had 9 assists. I would say he should have gotten a couple more GG when (as you point out) he was an even better fielder his first two years and other guys were getting them on their reputations. Dwayne Murphy in 1984? Gary Pettis in 1985? I would give Kirby the GG in 1990 as well over Burks.
I have been watching baseball and especially the Twins since the mid 1960's and Puckett was a great defensive player, very deserving of at least 6 GG.
Bill James has Puckett at 6 GG, too.