EIGHT MEN OUT: HALL OF FAME PLAYERS WE’VE FORGOTTEN - July 26, 2014 · by Zack Murphy ·
So it’s 1936 and you can vote for anyone, the best of the best, from any season prior, including current players. There was not yet the five-year retirement rule – Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, and Mickey Cochrane got pre-retirement votes.
Ballots were sent to 226 writers with a list of roughly 45 suggested candidates to help them with the concept, but voters could vote for any players they felt were deserved it. The list of names was revised and lengthened at least once as the writers worked through the voting process to finalize their ranks, and write-ins were encouraged.
One could say that the 45+ suggested players on the original ballot were the best of all time, up to that moment. When you start with a blank chalkboard, as they did in 1936, you can just list your 10 best or 20 best with no regard for anything but who was simply great. As you would imagine, the vast majority who missed the cut in the first year of voting were elected in subsequent years, since they were the most obvious, deserving nominees in 35 years of great baseball. Nap Lajoie, who came in 6th, wasn’t going to have to wait long.
Even some of those who missed the cut by a lot were highly deserving. Ed Delahanty, who batted .346 for his career and was an offensive marvel with speed and a great arm, came in just 21st in the first election. Delahanty also came in fourth in the 19th century Veterans Committee vote, since most of his career was pre-1900. He was elected to the HOF in 1945. Point is, it took some years to process the old greats.
But eight of the players who got initial votes were never elected. That is, they were good enough to be on the very first list of nominees, the elite of the elite, but later were not worthy at all, even by the lower standards of the Veterans Committee. That’s amazing to me.
Who were these eight? Some are fascinating, some are illuminating of how the game was played (which we’ve forgotten and for which we penalize those players), and some were just odd ducks to even be on the ballot. They are:
Kid Elberfeld, 1 vote
Kid Elberfeld, The Tabasco Kid
Elberfeld, also known as The Tabasco Kid, was fierce before they invented Ty Cobb. A ferocious man prone to assaulting anyone in the vicinity, Elberfeld also played great shortstop and was a very good hitter. Elberfeld was second only to Honus Wagner at the time as a top-hitter at the position.
Elberfeld also may have been the reason Ty Cobb stopped sliding head-first, after Elberfeld met Cobb at second base with a knee on Cobb’s neck.
I liked this: “[Elberfeld was] the dirtiest, scrappiest, most pestiferous, most cantankerous, most rambunctious ball player that ever stood on spikes.”
Elberfeld was said to pour whiskey on his lower legs to help his spike wounds heal. It seems like a terrible mis-use of whiskey, but there’s whiskey I’d rather not drink, too.
In the hit-and-run early 1900s, Elberfeld was a great one. By 1936, we had different ideas of what shortstop was, and Elberfeld never received more than a few HOF votes.
Ballots were sent to 226 writers with a list of roughly 45 suggested candidates to help them with the concept, but voters could vote for any players they felt were deserved it. The list of names was revised and lengthened at least once as the writers worked through the voting process to finalize their ranks, and write-ins were encouraged.
One could say that the 45+ suggested players on the original ballot were the best of all time, up to that moment. When you start with a blank chalkboard, as they did in 1936, you can just list your 10 best or 20 best with no regard for anything but who was simply great. As you would imagine, the vast majority who missed the cut in the first year of voting were elected in subsequent years, since they were the most obvious, deserving nominees in 35 years of great baseball. Nap Lajoie, who came in 6th, wasn’t going to have to wait long.
Even some of those who missed the cut by a lot were highly deserving. Ed Delahanty, who batted .346 for his career and was an offensive marvel with speed and a great arm, came in just 21st in the first election. Delahanty also came in fourth in the 19th century Veterans Committee vote, since most of his career was pre-1900. He was elected to the HOF in 1945. Point is, it took some years to process the old greats.
But eight of the players who got initial votes were never elected. That is, they were good enough to be on the very first list of nominees, the elite of the elite, but later were not worthy at all, even by the lower standards of the Veterans Committee. That’s amazing to me.
Who were these eight? Some are fascinating, some are illuminating of how the game was played (which we’ve forgotten and for which we penalize those players), and some were just odd ducks to even be on the ballot. They are:
Kid Elberfeld, 1 vote
Kid Elberfeld, The Tabasco Kid
Elberfeld, also known as The Tabasco Kid, was fierce before they invented Ty Cobb. A ferocious man prone to assaulting anyone in the vicinity, Elberfeld also played great shortstop and was a very good hitter. Elberfeld was second only to Honus Wagner at the time as a top-hitter at the position.
Elberfeld also may have been the reason Ty Cobb stopped sliding head-first, after Elberfeld met Cobb at second base with a knee on Cobb’s neck.
I liked this: “[Elberfeld was] the dirtiest, scrappiest, most pestiferous, most cantankerous, most rambunctious ball player that ever stood on spikes.”
Elberfeld was said to pour whiskey on his lower legs to help his spike wounds heal. It seems like a terrible mis-use of whiskey, but there’s whiskey I’d rather not drink, too.
In the hit-and-run early 1900s, Elberfeld was a great one. By 1936, we had different ideas of what shortstop was, and Elberfeld never received more than a few HOF votes.
