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Dahlen stands out on pre-'43 Veterans ballot

Monday, December 8, 2008 | Feedback | Print Entry


Posted by Rob Neyer

Continuing our discussion of Hall of Fame candidates, next we have the 10 players on the pre-1943 Veterans Committee ballot…

Twenty years ago, Bill Dahlen was merely another long-ago baseball player for whom there existed little reputation, even among the cognoscenti. In 1938 he'd been considered by Hall of Fame voters and garnered exactly one vote. He'd spent the prime of his career in the 19th century, and later was sort of lost in the crowd while playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. When the time came, decades later, to honor the game's early stars, Dahlen was hardly mentioned.

A funny thing happened on the way to oblivion, though. A few years ago the Hall of Fame decided to revisit the 19th century, and a committee decided that a shortstop named George Davis belonged in the Hall. Statistically, the most similar player to George Davis is our man Dahlen, which got people talking. Also, our modern methods for evaluating defense are practically unanimous: Dahlen was a brilliant shortstop. And it's not just our modern methods; John McGraw supposedly said, "There were mighty few better than Dahlen."

I don't know why Dahlen was ignored by the Hall of Fame's various voters and committees in the 1930s and '40s, when they were electing players from Dahlen's era. But I believe we're smarter about some things than they were. And I believe Dahlen was among the dozen greatest shortstops who have played the game.

Wes Ferrell is probably the best-hitting pitcher who's played the game, but it's hard to see a pitcher with eight good years and 193 career wins in the Hall of Fame, especially without any postseason juice (he pitched for just one pennant-winning team and didn't see any action in the World Series). Ferrell, a great pitcher for eight years who was basically finished before he turned 30, would have a Sandy Koufax sort of case, except he never had one season as good as Koufax's third best.

I go back and forth about second baseman Joe Gordon. He finished with only 1,530 hits and played in only 11 seasons. But Gordon missed prime two seasons during World War II, and in nine of his 11 seasons he was an All-Star. In those 11 seasons he hit 253 home runs, still good for sixth among second basemen on the all-time list. And he was, by all accounts, a brilliant fielder. Does all that add up to Cooperstown? Ask me next week.

I'll bet a quarter of you have never heard of old Sherry Magee, who starred for the Phillies in the dead ball era. The guy could hit, though. In 10 of his first 11 seasons, Magee finished in the top 10 in the National League in slugging percentage. From 1904 (his rookie season) through 1915, Magee might as well have been the National League's second greatest hitter (trailing only the great Honus Wagner). After a subpar 1916, Magee bounced back with solid numbers in 1917 and '18, then struggled in 1919 because of a serious illness. He was fine in 1920 … but he was fine in the minor leagues. Though still only 35 and with plenty in the tank, Magee never got back to the majors, instead putting together a few more big seasons in the minors. Things were different back then.

Carl Mays' career looks a lot like Wes Ferrell's, except Mays pitched roughly a decade earlier and Ferrell didn't kill somebody. Mays' top qualification for the Hall of Fame is his sparkling .622 winning percentage, but he did benefit from spending most of his career with the Red Sox and Yankees when those teams were winning pennants. It's long been rumored that Mays would have been elected to the Hall if not for the pitch that killed Ray Chapman. It's also been rumored that he didn't give his best effort in an early-1920s World Series game. It's indisputable that he essentially deserted the Red Sox in 1919. Some or all of these things may have kept Mays from being elected a long time ago. Most of today's voters have little or no knowledge of such things, but they do know Mays won only 207 games in his career.

Frankly, Allie Reynolds has little business on this ballot. He won only 182 games in his career, and 40 of those came during World War II when most of the world's best hitters were serving their country. He spent most of his career pitching for the great Yankees teams of the late '40s and early '50s, and was truly dominant in just one of those seasons (1952). If Reynolds hadn't been fortunate enough to pitch for the Yankees, he simply wouldn't be allowed anywhere near this conversation.

Just as Reynolds took advantage of wartime hitters, Vern Stephens took advantage of wartime pitchers; in a relatively brief career, three of his best seasons were 1943 through '45. After the war, Stephens was traded to the Red Sox and, somewhat famously, averaged 147 RBIs per season from 1948 through '50. Oh, and did I mention he was a shortstop? But Stephens was 29 in 1950, and afterward was never able to put in a full season.

Mickey Vernon is an interesting case. He missed two prime years because of the war, but played forever and finished his career with nearly 2,500 hits. If he'd played a key defensive position, he'd have been a superstar. But he was a first baseman who drove in 100 runs just once (in the same season he scored 100 runs for the only time). He did have enjoy a few other big years, but mixed in a few real clinkers, too. If not for the war, Vernon probably would have wound up with a career something like Harold Baines', except with more defensive value.

Occasionally I get a letter about the Hall of Fame from one of Bucky Walters' closest relatives. Granted, Walters had a nice run, particularly in 1939 and '40, when he won 59 games and lost only 21. But he spent the first few years of his career as a third baseman, and some of the middle years padding his record against wartime hitters (sound familiar?). Throw in just 198 wins and a 115 ERA+, and I'm afraid Walters' relatives are in for another disappointment this year.

And finally, the ballot's nod to (almost) prehistoric baseball: Deacon White, who played in the first season (1871) of the first major league (the National Association) and in the first season (1876) of the National League. White began his career as a catcher in a time when catching was nearly impossible, and he spent his entire career playing in a time when teams played significantly shorter schedules than they would later. Nevertheless, White somehow managed to collect more than 2,000 hits, and he routinely finished among his league's leaders in various hitting statistics (not that anybody knew it then). I don't know if there are any more 19th century players who deserve to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. But if there are, Deacon White might be the best choice.