1940

There doesn’t appear to be any “gotta have” candidates, but there must be at least 30 who might get at least one vote. Carey and Roush would have to be the favorites, as they finished 3rd and 4th in ’39, but this looks like one of those years when someone unexpected might sneak in.

Only Grant Johnson drops from the rolls, his 15-year window closing. This election will end Tuesday night.

8 Babe Adams
1 Sparky Adams
2 Dale Alexander
5 Dave Bancroft
2 Lu Blue
10 George Burns
6 Max Carey 3rd
1 Tank Carr
8 Wilbur Cooper
5 Bingo DeMoss 10th
2 Red Faber 6th
1 Milt Gaston
1 George Grantham
1 Burleigh Grimes
8 Heinie Groh
9 Pete Hill 5th
1 Andy High
9 Harry Hooper
1 Joe Judge
2 Ray Kremer
1 Dave Malacher
1 Oliver Marcelle
6 Carl Mays 8th
1 Marty McManus
8 Dobie Moore
1 Lefty O’Doul
1 Herb Pennock
1 Cy Perkins
2 Jack Quinn
1 Sam Rice
2 Eppa Rixey
3 Eddie Rommel
4 Edd Roush 4th
1 Muddy Ruel
2 Joe Sewell 7th
7 Urban Shocker
4 Chino Smith
1 Riggs Stephenson
14 Hippo Vaughn
2 Earl Webb
5 Cy Williams
6 Ken Williams
1 Hack Wilson
10 Ross Youngs

Bob’s ballot:

1. Carey
2. Hill
3. Sewell
4. Grimes
5. Faber
6. Bancroft
7. Rice
8. Groh
9. Roush
10. Wilson

Terry’s ballot:

1: Max Carey
2: Dave Bancroft
3: Joe Sewell
4: Edd Roush
5: Harry Hooper
6: Pete Hill
7: Sam Rice- 112 ops+ is hard to get past for an outfielder, even one as accomplished as Rice.
8: Herb Pennock– The Andy Pettite of his time, he did by far his best pitching for the Yankees. His era+ from 1923-1928 was 132; for the other 16 years of his career it was 92. He had a large share in building the Whiz Kids, but he died before he got to see them play.
9: Chino Smith
10: Heinie Groh

Honorable Mention
Red Faber
Eppa Rixey

Other Stuff

Milt Gaston– Bob will appreciate this: Gaston passed away (at a hundred years old, by the way) in the town of Barnstable, Massachusetts. Barnstable is on Cape Cod, and it’s the hometown of Siobhan Magnus.

George Grantham– He played 286 games with the Cubs, 1158 for other teams. He stole 66 bases for the Cubs, 66 for other teams. I’m scanning my noodle for a good recent comp…. a rich man’s Mark Bellhorn would be close. Maybe a poor man’s Frank Malzone, but that’s not exactly recent. For some reason I want to call it for Juan Samuel.

Andy High– By 1931 he was just a bench player, but he had 3 hits in the seventh game of the 1931 Series, scoring 2 of the Cardinals’ four runs in the victory. There is a nice biography of him on the SABR Bioproject site. If you ask me, David Eckstein would be a reasonable comp.

Joe Judge– It’s hard to find much about Joe Judge (the player, anyway) that can’t be said about Mark Grace. After he retired he coached the Georgetown baseball team for a couple of decades, with a break in 1945-46 when he was a coach for the Senators. The Joe Hardy character in “Damm Yankees” was reputedly modeled after Judge, whose daughter dated the author.

Dave Malarcher– Somewhere between Aurelio Rodriguez and Ken Reitz offensively, but of course he was the best defensive player ever according to the old men who were asked about it, not that they would exaggerate about their childhood buddies or anything.

Oliver Marcelle– Missed my top ten by a nose. Sorry… too soon?

Marty McManus– Managed in the All American Girls Baseball League from 1944-1948, but he didn’t look anything like Tom Hanks. Hell, neither did Jimmy Foxx…

Lefty O’Doul– He is known for so many different things that I kind of think our need to sort everyone into categories is keeping him out of the real Hall of Fame. His hitting numbers were inflated by the time and place, of course, but let’s not get too carried away about it. His career ops+ outside of the Baker Bowl was over 140, and he was in his thirties before he got going. He was 35 when he won the batting title for Brooklyn in 1932.

Muddy Ruel– He finished 25th in the 1956 Hall of Fame voting, with 8.3% of the vote. The next six below him in the voting are in the Hall of Fame, and twenty future Hall of Famers finished below him in the 1956 vote (five of whom were former teammates of Frankie Frisch).

Riggs Stephenson– His throwing arm was so bad that it took him several years to get regular playing time, despite obvious talent as a hitter. His college injury, plus the fact that he didn’t join organized baseball until he was 23 because of his college football career, pretty much cost him half his career. He was 29 when he first played full time. He ain’t a Hall of Famer, but I think he’s one of those what-if guys. With a full career he would have been likely to get over 3000 hits.

Burleigh Grimes– I’m a little fenc-y about him, at least for his first year. He has an awful lot in common with guys like Jack Morris and Pud Galvin, who aren’t slam dunk Hall types, more than the truly great pitchers. He was durable, and of course he had a trick nobody else had, but honestly he was more of an innings eater than a stud pitcher. He was a poor man’s Gaylord Perry. How much poorer than Perry can you get before your case starts to be questionable?

Hack Wilson– If Gavy Cravvath can’t get close, why are we talking about Hack Wilson?

Results:

Maybe I should head to Atlantic City this weekend. I thought that there were 30 guys who might get votes on this ballot, and we ended up with exactly 30.

13 ballots, the results:

107 Max Carey
104 Pete Hill
*************
65 Joe Sewell
61 Edd Roush
59 Sam Rice
44 Red Faber
41 Heinie Groh
34 Carl Mays
30 Burleigh Grimes
27 Dave Bancroft
27 Chino Smith
27 Hack Wilson
26 Bingo DeMoss
26 Urban Shocker
20 Hippo Vaughn
17 Ollie Marcelle
12 Cy Williams
11 Herb Pennock
10 Babe Adams
7 George Burns
7 Ross Youngs
6 Harry Hooper
6 Edie Rommel
5 Lefty O’Doul
4 Tank Carr
3 Dobie Moore
3 Eppa Rixey
2 Dave Malacher
1 Wilbur Cooper
1 Riggs Stephenson