Free Baseball's Hall of Fame or Hall of Shame by Robert Cohen

of him. Thus, what we have is someone who was a very solid and dependable player, but not someone who truly stood out among his peers. It should be mentioned that Schoendist may well have been elected to the Hall partly because of the success he had as the Cardinals manager after his playing career was over. However, the feeling here is that a man should be elected on the strength of either his playing career or his managerial career, but not both. When selections are made using both as the basis, the Hall of Fame standards will invariably suffer.
    Nellie Fox was the best second baseman in the American League for a decade. From 1951 to 1960, there was no better second sacker in the league and, in at least three or four of those seasons, he was the best player at his position in baseball. He led the league in hits four times, batted over .300 six times, scored more than 100 runs four times, and was an outstanding fielder, leading the league six times. He was selected to the All-Star team 12 times, won the league MVP Award in 1959, and finished in the top ten in the voting five other times. A look at his numbers reveals that Fox was actually quite comparable to Schoendist offensively:

     
    Why, then, does his resume seem to be so much more impressive than that of Schoendist? The reason lies in the fact that the two men played during an era in which the National League (Schoendist’s) was becoming the more dominant of the two. Due to the senior circuit’s greater willingness to adapt to the changing times and accept into its ranks the top black and Hispanic talent that was available, the N.L. became the stronger of the two leagues during the 1950s. Therefore, Schoendist had a more difficult time finishing among the league leaders in the various hitting categories and receiving support in the MVP voting. But, in actuality, both players were very similar.
    So, what does all this mean? How should these players be viewed, and which, if any of the six belong in Cooperstown?
    The feeling here is that the answer lies in the standards one sets for legitimate Hall of Famers. None of the six men—Lazzeri, Herman, Doerr, Gordon, Schoendist, or Fox—was a truly great player who should be thought of as an obvious Hall of Famer. But all six were very good players whose presence in Cooperstown is not an embarrassment to the Hall.
    Johnny Evers
    We saw earlier that Frank Chance was not truly deserving of a spot in Cooperstown. The same could be said for his infield mate Johnny Evers. A look at his career numbers makes one search for a plausible explanation for his election:

     
    In spite of the fact that Evers played during the Deadball Era, 12 home runs, 538 runs batted in, 919 runs scored, a .270 career batting average, and a slugging percentage of .334 are not very impressive numbers. He never led the league in any major offensive category, coming the closest by finishing second in stolen bases in 1907, and second in on-base percentage in both 1908 and 1912. Evers did manage to hit .300 twice, but never knocked in more than 63 runs or scored more than 88 runs in any season. Somehow, he managed to win the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1914 despite hitting just one home run, driving in only 40 runs, batting only .279, accumulating just 137 hits, and stealing only 12 bases for the pennant-winning Boston Braves.
    One would think that the explanation for Evers’ election must be rooted in the fact that he was such a great defensive player. Yet, during his career, he led National League second basemen in fielding just once, and the “great” double-play combination of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance led the league in double-plays just once. It is quite apparent, then, that just as his teammate Frank Chance made it in on the heals of the effusive praise doled out by that frustrated New York sportswriter, Evers’ election too was based more on rhetoric than on performance.
    Bill Mazeroski
    In a letter to The Sporting News , which