Ken Boyer's 1955 baseball card
The last post here detailed the list of people on the 2011 Veteran’s Committee ballot for the Hall of Fame. I promised I’d give a thought to the ballot and comment. Here’s the first of three sets of comments.
I’m going to start with the infielders Ken Boyer, Gil Hodges, Ron Santo. There’s a reason these guys, and the rest of the players on the ballot, are still around 25 years after their retirement for the Veteran’s Committee to assess. All have serious flaws in their career that makes it difficult for some people to put them in the Hall of Fame. For these three it’s a combination of things.
Hodges was arguably the finest first baseman in the 1950s. Johnny Mize was aging, Willie McCovey was just coming up, others just weren’t as good. And that’s part of Hodges’ problem. He’s the best of a weak era. It’s an era dominated by outfielders and catchers, not first basemen (compare it, in reverse, to today). The other part of his problem is that he was never the best player on his team. At best he was third to fifth depending on the year. Campanlla and Snider were almost always better, Robinson was better in the first few years of Hodges’ career, and sporadically Carl Furillo was better. It’s kind of tough to argue that a team goes four or five deep Hall of Fame-wise (and I left out Reese on purpose). In Hodges favor he was a good first baseman, a decent hitter, a member of a truly great team, and his experience managing the Mets and becoming the apostle of the five-man pitching rotation are probably being overlooked by most fans.
Boyer and Santo were both third basemen whose careers seriously overlap, so direct comparisons can be made. They are, beginning with Boyer in the late 1950s and ending with Santo in the early 1970s, the best National League third basemen of their era. OK, maybe Dick Allen was better, but he was a terrible teammate and made Albert Belle look like a wonderful man you’d want to pal around with. Boyer won both a ring and an MVP award (both in 1964), Santo won neither. Santo was probably the better player. Boyer’s good years were shorter, Santo was more likely to be overlooked on his own team because of Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins (and fan favorite, but no longer great player, Ernie Banks). Another problem they have is that the truly finest third baseman of the era, Brooks Robinson, played in the other league and outshone both.
So do I vote for them? Well, yes and no. I would cast a vote for Hodges and for Santo and set Boyer aside. I’ll go so far as to say that I think Santo is probably the best player eligible and not in the Hall of Fame. And in a final point, let me note that all three men are dead. With Cooperstown’s emphasis on Hall of Fame Weekend that may change how the committee votes. If it does, it’s a great shame.
Nest time I’ll look at the outfielders, or maybe I’ll take the pitchers.
Tags: Albert Belle, Billy Williams, Carl Furillo, Dick Allen, Duke Snider, Ernie Banks, Fergie Jenkins, Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson, Ken Boyer, Ron Santo, Roy Campanella
Verdun2's Blog 
November 4, 2011 at 8:58 am
By the early 50s, Johnny Mize was mainly a pinch hitter and sometimes platoon first basemen for the Yankees. You had some pretty decent first basemen besides Hodges. Until he had the bad back that just about ended his career, Ted Kluszewski put up Mize like numbers with power, average and low strike outs. Joe Adcock had the disadvantage of being platooned much of the time. Mickey Vernon was in the final stages of a long career and even won a batting title. Bill Skowron and Vic Wertz were giving some all star quality first base to their clubs and Orlando Cepeda was the toast of SF just before McCovey was brought up.
In defense of Boyer, we might add that he was as good a fielder as Santo, a faster runner and talented enough to have played a full season in center field. While there are differences, both are close enough that a strong case can be made for two less than strong choices.