Big Mistake!

Most wins in the 1980's.

Many of these yahoos with their BBWA badges, that get to vote on the Hall of Fame ballots, need to have their electing rights taken away when someone like Jack Morris does not make the Hall of Fame.

I really thought this might be the year for Morris. Overall, he pitched half of his games at home in a hitter-friendly ballpark, during an era where pitching ERA's were starting to go up, he also pitched many complete games, and refused to come out in some situations that may have increased those ERA's.

The thing is this, Morris won the most games in the 1980's, 5-time All-Star, 4-time World Champion, 1991 World Series MVP, a career no-hitter & 2-time Babe Ruth Award Winner (for best Post-season, in 1984 & 1991). So what more does he need to do, to get in? Is this the writers or media's way to get back at Morris, who wasn't too fond of interviews after a game? There is really no explanation why Morris is not in the Hall.

He had 254 wins & a career 3.90 ERA, the ERA is what some of the voters have stated that they feel he doesn't belong, but if you take out the fact that he had basically four seasons that destroyed his career ERA (89'-90' & 93'-94' were rough areas -- not to mention this time was the actual birth of the steroid era for sluggers like McGwire & Canseco). Now I know some people will argue, well that's his fault and he should have pitched better -- my argument is that he is even more dominant than his career numbers suggest!

It's about the era, who stands out?!

But look there are hitters in the Hall of Fame that really only flashed for 8 seasons, two come straight to mind -- both have deserved their place in the Hall, one died prematurely (but who's to say how the rest of his career would have went?) and the other was a Yankee (of course, this helped a bit). The two players are Joe Gordon (Yankees) & Ross Youngs (N.Y. Giants), who died of Bright's Disease at age 30! My point I guess is that Morris had a stretch from 79' to 88' that was consistently good, and shows that he was indeed a dominant ace in the game of baseball and in his era. That's what it should be about, how you did in your era. I'm glad Jim Rice finally made it a few years back, it was ludicrous that he was out as long as he was, he was one of the most feared sluggers in his era!

Just from some brief research here is a bit of my argument, I'm going to post Jack Morris's career up against two Hall of Fame pitchers that come straight to mind, one is Bob Lemon's who, I have a baseball card that compares the two players similar numbers, and also Red Ruffing's 3.80 ERA came straight to mind as well.

• Jack Morris (254 Wins, 186 Losses / .577 winning pct): Morris pitched half of his career games basically at Tiger Stadium, notorious for offensive numbers, he had a career 3.90 ERA, 175 Complete Games, while collecting 2,478 K's in 3,824 innings.

Pitched for a great run by the Indians.

• Bob Lemon (207 Wins, 128 Losses / .618 winning pct): Bob Lemon missed the beginning of his career from 1943-1945 due to Military service, but didn't do much in MLB until his breakthrough 1948 Season, so it's safe to say that he really didn't lose any years there, so his career numbers are what they are. He has a better winning percentage than Morris, but even though Morris played on a few winning teams of the Tigers, most notably seasons like 1984 & 1987 -- he wasn't with a consistent winning team like the Indians were for Lemon, nor did Morris have pitchers like Bob Feller and Early Wynn constantly to take the pressure off him. Jack Morris had Dan Petry! Petry was good, but Feller & Wynn are Hall of Fame pitchers!  Lemon wins convincingly in ERA (3.23 ERA), but also note the era that Lemon played and having the constant pleasure to play for a winner. Morris was definitely a better strike-out artist, nearly doubling Lemon's 1,277 K's; and all though Lemon still has 13 more complete games (188), it's once again about the era, where there was only 3 relievers tops, and they aren't used the same way as today.

Ruffing's similar 3.80 ERA to that of Morris.

• Red Ruffing (273 Wins, 225 Losses / .548 winning pct): At first glance, I was going to slam on Ruffing for only having a career winning pct of .548 when most of his career he pitched for the Yankees, and having those lineups supporting him; In all fairness he played for some lousy Red Sox teams in the late 20's (ones that played the Yankees many times through the years) in which he led the league back-to-back in losses with 22 & 25! Then again there are two ways of looking at this, he may not even came close to 273 wins if it wasn't for playing for the Yankees; he had a career record of 231-111 with New York (.675 winning pct! -- the equivalent of a baseball team going 109-53 for the season). He had 1,987 K's in 4,344 innings, the strikeout rate per 9 innings, quite lower than Morris. The only area I can't debate against Ruffing, is his ridiculous 335 complete games -- sure pitchers completed their games much more then, but still impressive!

Now to make things clear, I am not saying that either Bob Lemon and Red Ruffing don't deserve to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, because they totally do -- I'm just bringing up two similar careers to that of Jack Morris. A player that deserves to be in the Hall, and I feel the fact he has played for Detroit does play a part in that (for being an unattractive market), if he wore pinstripes (a Yankees jersey), he would already be in there --- the same goes for his two teammates shortstop Alan Trammell and second baseman Lou Whitaker (Major League Baseball's longest running double-play combination in history!), not to mention they were far superior to that of Joe Tinker and Johnny Evers (who basically got in for a famous poem and the 1906 Chicago Cubs historic season)! Those two players On Base Percentage + Slugging (OPS) barely eclipses that of utility/journeyman Aaron Miles! But this is the thing, Tinker and Evers were from the "deadball era" and so they are a reflection of their era, meaning so is Morris in his era -- so with that Tinker and Evers are Hall of Famers.

Trammell and Whitaker tipping their hats off to each other.

These arguments can go on and on.

We shouldn't be measuring up players to other players overall totals, if this is the case, no one before 1987 has a chance to make the Hall. It all should be a reflection of it's era. Plus once you open the door to a player, it does open up about other similar players that played in that era. Andre Dawson was held out for awhile, due to a relatively low career On-Base Percentage (.323) for a slugger in his day, where OBP was a thing in it's day -- he eventually got inducted in 2010. Since the door opened for Dawson though... now comes new debates. For example, Harold Baines...

• Andre Dawson - 2,744 hits, .279 Avg, 438 HR & 1,591 RBI (.806 OPS / .323 OBP): Dawson was also a 8-time All-Star selection, 8 Gold Gloves, as well as the 1977 N.L. Rookie-of-the-Year for the Montreal Expos & 1987 Most Valuable Player for the Chicago Cubs. He had 4 seasons of at-least 100 RBI's! Dawson also had 314 stolen bases.

Baines & a very underrated baseball career.

• Harold Baines - 2,866 hits, .289 Avg, 384 HR & 1,628 RBI (.820 OPS / .356 OBP): Baines was also a 6-time All-Star selection, who would get a World Championship ring as a coach for the Chicago White Sox in 2005. He didn't have as many awards or trophies as Dawson, and he didn't have the speed (only 34 career steals), but he only had 54 fewer HR's, while beating Dawson across the board in everything else. Plus even though, Baines played plenty of DH later in his career, let's not forget that Baines was actually a pretty good fielder with an excellent arm during peak form. It's also seems to me, that the American League during both of these guys' careers (that happened during the same period) had far more superior outfielders, so this also means that Baines may have gotten more All-Star nods if he played in the National League. Baines had 3 seasons of 100 or more RBI's.

Carter: Always a class act, always smiling.

Once again, Dawson in my book is a legit Hall of Famer, letting him in, has opened this debate -- Same goes with Gary Carter, he opens the door for other hitters' careers. Carter, for a catcher he should be in the Hall, but as a straight-up hitter? That's another answer. His career numbers read nothing special when you think Hall of Famer -- .262 Batting Avg, 324 HR's (great for a catcher) & 1,225 RBI's; go deeper with a decent .335 OBP & an average to pretty-good star's .775 OPS. Some may say, hey that's an OPS just .031 lower than slugger Andre Dawson! Sure, but Dawson compared to other outfielders in the Hall of Fame is really low in comparison. Plus Carter has only 2,092 hits.

Now back to Trammell, he batted .285, 185 HR &1,003 RBI's, he had more hits (2,365 hits) and a higher On-Base Percentage of .352 than Carter; plus a similar OPS of .767 to him as well. It seems to many that Carter would have had more Gold Gloves than three, he really stood out as his position -- Trammell? He had four Gold Gloves sharing a league with Cal Ripken and Tony Fernandez! Some can argue that comparing catchers to shortstops, is like comparing Oranges to Apples. Yes, both positions were not known for their power then -- but if you want to see one more comparison, than let's compare Trammell to the "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" -- Ozzie Smith!

Ozzie batted .262, 28 HRs & 793 RBI, with 2,460 hits in 9,396 at-bats -- which is only 95 hits more than Trammell, with 1,108 more at-bats and opportunities! His .262 career average and .666 OPS pales in comparison to that of Trammell's .285 Avg & .767 OPS. Oh, what's that? Ozzie was a better fielder than Trammell? He certainly had more Gold Gloves with 13, and also was selected to the All-Star Game (which is a bit of a popularity contest) 15 times! Trammell with more competition made only 6 selections. But when it came to fielding they were almost exactly the same in fielding percentages (Smith .978 to Tram's .977), double-plays (Smith 1,590 to Tram's 1,307) , and assists (Smith 8,375 to Tram's 6,172); it's also safe to note that Ozzie played in 3,500 more innings, and could do many more acrobatic back-flips!

McGriff gets a lot of grief for playing with so many teams.

It's all interesting and very fascinating when it comes to debating, who should be in and who should not? The way I look at it, why not put more people in, instead of having the grasp too tight! We need to see a bigger perspective of the Hall of Fame, so that players like Morris, Trammell, Whitaker, Tim Raines, Fred McGriff, and Albert Belle (oh yes, I said it!) are not forgotten about. The game of Baseball's Hall of Fame should be more of a time capsule, so that 200 years from now, people can get an idea about the time and it's era, how can you reflect the 80's without Jack Morris?

Not to beat a dead horse, but it's all about the reflection of the era that these players come from.