1915

A first for us. There are no pitchers on the ballot with anywhere near 300 wins, now that Mullane is off the ballot. Only Al Orth broke 200, and that just barely.

This poll ends Friday.

2 Jimmy Barrett
1 Frank Bowerman
1 Jack Chesbro
9 Cupid Childs 10th
10 Jack Clements
3 Lave Cross
1 George Davis
1 Bill Dineen
1 Jiggs Donohue
4 Hugh Duffy 3rd
1 Hobe Ferris
14 Dave Foutz
1 Chick Fraser
3 Buck Freeman
12 Mike Griffin
4 Noodles Hahn
8 Dummy Hoy
1 Frank Isbell
2 Fielder Jones 9th
12 Bill Joyce
2 Joe Kelley 4th
6 Herman Long 8th
1 Carl Lundgren
13 Denny Lyons
4 John McGraw 6th
4 Sam Mertes
12 Billy Nash
1 Al Orth
1 Bob Rhodes
1 Claude Ritchey
4 Kip Selbach
9 Elmer Smith
4 Chick Stahl
11 Mike Tiernan 7th
1 Jake Weimer
1 Jimmy Williams
7 Chief Zimmer

Not that anyone really cares, but Ed McKean dropped off the ballot due to lack of support.

Bob’s ballot:

1. George Davis
2. Joe Kelley
3. Mike Tiernan
4. Fielder Jones
5. Lave Cross
6. Mike Griffin
7. Hugh Duffy
8. Herman Long
9. Jack Chesbro
10. Jimmy Williams

I debated whether to put Childs or Williams in the tenth spot. Childs is going to be on somebody’s ballot; Williams, I’m not so sure. So I put Williams on, just to keep him in the mix. He’s a guy I want to think about a little longer.

Terry’s ballot:

1. George Davis– Might not be more than a solid category C Hall of Famer, but in this group he’s Babe Friggin’ Ruth.
2. Hugh Duffy
3. Mike Tiernan– Maybe he was slightly better than Duffy by the numbers, but he wasn’t ever called one of the Heavenly Twins and he didn’t hit .440; he didn’t play for the good guys against the hated Orioles, and beat their butts. Well, I always call it .438, but I’m old. Isn’t it frustrating sometimes, how the magic numbers of our youth changed with the growth of Retrosheet? Ty Cobb’s 4191 and .367, Duffy’s .438, Walter Johnson’s 113 shutouts and 3508 strikeouts…what others? I used to get really frustrated when they kept changing Honus Wagner’s hit total…
4. John McGraw
5. Joe Kelley
6. Jack Chesbro- I don’t think he’s a GOR guy, but it’s a weak field this year. He was 111-43 with an era+ of 131 from 1901-1904, then age and overuse started dragging him down; though he was still really good in 1905, 133 era+ but a mediocre record. My best comp for him would be someone like Bret Saberhagen, or maybe Orel Herschiser; but he looked more like Jim Kaat based on his picture on BBR.
7. Chief Zimmer– I moved him up, partly because someone else said that they actually care about him, and partly because I can’t put Cupid Childs anywhere near a place where he might accidentally get elected. No offense to Childs, but I’m bitter about Hardy Richardson. Bitter, I tells ya….
8. Cupid Childs
9. Herman Long
10. Kip Selbach

Honorable Mention
Elmer Smith

Some interesting guys:

Carl Lundgren– I’d like to thank my teammates…. .623 w/l pct and 112 era+, but I doubt that he was anything more than a filler pitcher. It’s good to play for the kings.
Al Orth– He was Chesbro’s teammate for a few years, from the middle of Chesbro’s epic 1904 through 1909, though they were both pretty much finished by 1908. From 1905-1907 he was 59-54 with a 2.59 era. Chesbro was 52-42, 2.58. Orth had 83 complete games and 11 shutouts, Chesbro 65 and 8. Chesbro, from 1901-1904, was somewhere between Dizzy Dean and Sandy Koufax. From 1905 until the end of his career, he was Al Orth.
Jake Weimer– Might have been a great pitcher but he came up late, didn’t land with great teams at the right time, and he had a short career. 75th in career era+; where will that rank among non GOR inductees when we are done?
Jimmy Williams- Kind of a Garry Templeton career, led the league in triples three times early, but faded out. His picture on BBR is practically a spitting image of Marshall from How I Met Your Mother. Marshall hasn’t aged well either.

Results:

With 8 ballots, the results:

112 George Davis
68 Hugh Duffy
****************
66 Joe Kelley
40 Mike Tiernan
33 Herman Long
30 John McGraw
23 Cupid Childs
22 Fielder Jones
17 Jack Chesbro
16 Lave Cross
10 Chief Zimmer
9 Jack Clements
7 Mike Griffin
6 Elmer Smith
5 Denny Lyons
5 Billy Nash
4 Dummy Hoy
3 Dave Foutz
3 Bill Joyce
2 Noodles Hahn
2 Al Orht
2 Chick Stahl
1 Sam Mertes
1 Kip Selbach
1 Jimmy Williams