Re: Is George Foster worthy of the Hall of Fame?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
George Anderson
What was Frisch's connection to the Veterans Committee? I have often seen his named ranked with the many who do not deserve induction to the HOF but was he also on the Veterans Committee and partially responsible for so many bad inductions to the HOF?
Frisch was a great player, perhaps one of the top ten secondbasemen ever--he deserved HOF induction himself. The problem was that during his service in the 1970s on the Veterans Committee, which was much smaller than now, Frisch was able to get a large number of his former teammates inducted. Those selections included Jim Bottomley, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Dave Bancroft, Pop Haines and Ross Youngs; while they had all been "good" players, none of them had been "great" players.
As a player Frisch was roughly comparable to Roberto Alomar, Jr., who should be inducted into the Hall of Fame next year (he probably won't be, but that's another story).
What Frisch did on the Veterans Committee would be similar to Alomar making the HOF and then a few years later being allowed to dominate a re-constituted Veterans Committee, with Alomar then engineering the selection for the HOF of Dave Stewart, John Olerud, Omar Vizquel, Bartolo Colon, Joe Carter, and Benito Santiago. All of those guys are former teammates of Alomar; all of those guys were "good" players, comparable to Bottomley, Kelly, Lindstrom, Bancroft, Haines and Youngs; and probably none of them belong in Cooperstown.
Re: Is George Foster worthy of the Hall of Fame?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
RedsBaron
Frisch was a great player, perhaps one of the top ten secondbasemen ever--he deserved HOF induction himself. The problem was that during his service in the 1970s on the Veterans Committee, which was much smaller than now, Frisch was able to get a large number of his former teammates inducted. Those selections included Jim Bottomley, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom, Dave Bancroft, Pop Haines and Ross Youngs; while they had all been "good" players, none of them had been "great" players.
As a player Frisch was roughly comparable to Roberto Alomar, Jr., who should be inducted into the Hall of Fame next year (he probably won't be, but that's another story).
What Frisch did on the Veterans Committee would be similar to Alomar making the HOF and then a few years later being allowed to dominate a re-constituted Veterans Committee, with Alomar then engineering the selection for the HOF of Dave Stewart, John Olerud, Omar Vizquel, Bartolo Colon, Joe Carter, and Benito Santiago. All of those guys are former teammates of Alomar; all of those guys were "good" players, comparable to Bottomley, Kelly, Lindstrom, Bancroft, Haines and Youngs; and probably none of them belong in Cooperstown.
Thanks for the info Red Baron and WOY. I read alot last night about the Frisch situation and its really sad that he used the HOF to get his buddies inducted. George Kelly, Jim Bottomley and Harry Hooper being inducted in the HOF is really embarrasing. Baseball reference.com compared Jim Bottomly to Bob Watson of all people.
You both are right that Frisch deserved induction. A while back I thought many on another site I lurk on said he didn't deserve induction. However I guess I was confused because I looked at his career and he seemed to no doubt be worthy of induction . I think instead they were criticizing his committee and I took it to be his induction.
Re: Is George Foster worthy of the Hall of Fame?
I think it's safe to say that with four Hall of Famers already associated with the Big Red Machine (Bench, Morgan, Perez and Sparky) there will be at most two others eventually inducted - Dave Concepcion, who seems to have a legitimate shot at election by the veterans committee, and Pete Rose, whose only chance at the Hall will probably come posthumously, if then.
Since that era ended (with the Perez trade after the '76 season, I guess) we've likely only seen other three or four future Hall of Famers in Reds uniforms - Seaver, who's in, and Larkin and Griffey Jr. , who will be.
And maybe Lee Smith.
ADDITION: Texasdave notes I missed another Red from the 80s who will receive strong consideration for the Hall, John Franco, with 424 career saves.