The hall of ... whom?

Back in the days before baseball history was subjected to critical scrutiny, various books appeared profiling the members of the Hall of Fame, treating them as a homogeneous group whose contributions of the game were uniformly heroic.

Sure, players like Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson stood out among the crowd for their fabled exploits. But for youngsters trying to learn about Cooperstown, it was hard to differentiate between the somewhat lesser lights, such as Eddie Collins (truly great) and Chick Hafey (perhaps not so).

In recent years, there have been complaints about the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee refusing to select anyone for induction. Perhaps that's because we've reached a point where just about anyone who played before, say, 1980 doesn't really have the qualifications we'd expect of an "immortal."

The counter argument is that plenty of players who aren't in compiled much better numbers than some of the people who are. Take a look at the Big Four of non-HOF pitchers: Tommy John (288 wins), Bert Blyleven (287), Jim Kaat (283) and Jack Morris (254). Every other 20th-century pitcher with at least 250 wins is enshrined in Cooperstown, as are several starters who failed even to make it to 200. As they say, what's up with that?

At any rate, a casual baseball fan who takes a close look at the Hall of Fame membership is likely to ask continuously, "Who's that?" So in that spirit, let's put together an all-"who's that?" Hall of Fame team:

C - Ray "Cracker" Schalk (1912-29). My assumption always has been that Schalk was rewarded because he was a highly visible "clean" member of the 1919 Black Sox, and at one point he held the record for games caught. Schalk was remarkably durable behind the plate for his era, putting in 11 seasons of catching 120 or more games using equipment that wouldn't be allowed on a T-ball field today. That didn't translate into success at the plate, though. Schalk hit .253 for his career, including a seasonal high of .281. His lifetime slugging average was a paltry .316, which comes as no surprise when you see that he hit exactly a dozen home runs in his 18 seasons. Schalk did hit .304 in trying to overcome the bad guys in the '19 Series, but of course, none of them were for extra bases. Supposedly, he was called "Cracker" because that's what his back looked like when he squatted in the catcher's position.

1B - George "Highpockets" Kelly (1915-32). Historian par excellence Bill James wrote that he once was confronted by Kelly's son after James wrote very disparaging remarks about Highpockets' Hall of Fame qualifications. A look at Kelly's record shows some seemingly decent numbers: .297 career batting average, 100 or more runs batted in four consecutive seasons; National League leader in home runs once and RBI twice. Then again, Kelly played the bulk of his career during the '20s, when the ball was livelier and the hitting statistics went through the roof compared with the Dead Ball era. He was a regular for only eight of his 16 seasons, and by his last season of playing full-time had dropped to only five homers. Kelly is in the Hall of Fame pretty much because his former teammate, Frankie Frisch (who definitely belongs in Cooperstown) was very active on the Veterans Committee and saw to it that many of his old friends were enshrined. We'll meet some more of them later.

2B - John "Bid" McPhee (1882-99). Besides the recent Hall of Fame inductees honored for their contributions to the Negro Leagues, McPhee appears to be the last of the old-timers to make it through the vets' panel, back in 2000. He is unique among 19th-century players in spending his entire 18-year career with the same franchise, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, which jumped from the American Association to the National League in 1889. McPhee ends up being, very belatedly, the token AA honoree, and he probably was selected because his superior fielding statistics for the time help his ranking in certain analytical systems that attempt to take a player's overall performance into consideration. Also, accounts of the time noted him as a steady individual of good personal habit, a rarity among ballplayers of his day. For the record, his career average was .271 and he scored 1,678 runs, one of the highest such totals for the 1800s.

SS - Rhoderick "Bobby" Wallace (1894-1918). I own a book that shows photographs for all Hall of Fame inductees to that time, with the exception of Wallace, who is represented by an illustration. I found that to be appropriate. Wallace has been in the Hall of Fame for more than half a century, yet it's rare that I've found any reference to him other than his place in Cooperstown. He did manage to appear in parts of 25 seasons, which is noteworthy, but the last five or so were infrequently as player-coach. He apparently was a much-sought prize when the fledgling American League raided the National League in the first years of the 20th century, with Wallace switching allegiances from the St. Louis Cardinals to the same city's Browns when they started operating in 1902. You'd think that spending 15 years with the St. Louis Browns would relegate anyone to utter obscurity, but apparently some Hall of Fame voters remembered Wallace. He never led the league in an offensive category while posting a .266 lifetime batting average.

3B - Fred Lindstrom (1924-36). Another of Frankie Frisch's friends, Lindstrom is best known for having a couple of ground balls hit pebbles and bounce over his head in the final game of the 1924 World Series, costing his Giants and giving the Washington Senators their one-and-only title. According to the latest records, he was only 18 at the time, and apparently the earnestness of youth didn't let the situation bother him that much. He went on to post a .311 lifetime batting average, including two separate seasons in which he racked up 231 hits. But again, he was playing in a prime era for hitters; his 231 hits in 1930 ranked only fourth in the league. As a matter of fact, he never led the league in an offensive category. His career was relatively short, the equivalent of fewer than 10 full seasons, and he was done in the majors by age 30.

OF - Earle "The Kentucky Colonel" Combs (1924-35). The 1927 Yankees are generally acknowledged as "the greatest team of all time," and Hall of Fame selectors over the years have made sure that members of that squad are amply represented. (For comparison purposes, think of the '70s-era Steelers.) Combs was a good hitter and apparently was quick on the basepaths, leading the American League in triples three times. But with the legendary Murderers' Row lineup around him, he probably was pitched to a whole lot more than, say, guys named Ruth, Gehrig and Lazzeri.

OF - Royce "Ross" Youngs (1917-26). Probably a sentimental favorite of Frankie Frisch, who watched Youngs waste away from Bright's disease when they were teammates on the New York Giants. Youngs, who died at 30, also apparently was lauded heavily by legendary manager John McGraw, but I don't know if that's before or after his demise. Youngs is another player whose numbers benefit from the heavier hitting of the '20s, but he actually was hitting over .300 already in the waning years of the Dead Ball era. He was a primary contributor on McGraw's final string of pennant winners (1921-24), and the Giants started to fade about the same time Youngs became seriously ill. His is a sad story that probably has escaped the attention of most baseball fans.

OF - Tommy McCarthy (1884-96). Before the early 1950s, not much was done as far as an all-inclusive listing of baseball statistics. If one had been consulted in 1946, the year of McCarthy's Hall of Fame election, he probably would be outside of Cooperstown, languishing in even greater obscurity alongside the likes of Duff Cooley, Dan McGann and Silent John Titus. McCarthy's career numbers are similar to all those players, yet the voters in '46 apparently remembered him as one of the so-called "Heavenly Twins" in the outfield of the old Boston Beaneaters, along with the far, far superior Hugh Duffy. Even as a 10-year-old kid reading about McCarthy, I wondered why the heck he was in the Hall of Fame, and the mystery never has been solved. His batting record shows three seasons of hitting over .340, but in one of them (1890) most of the better athletes were performing in the Players League, and the two others (1893-94) were right after the pitching mound was moved back 10 feet, and everyone was hitting a ton. Perhaps no future Hall of Famer has gotten off to as rough a start as McCarthy. He debuted in the Union Association, as marginal a "major league" as ever existed, and in fact is the only UA alumnus in Cooperstown. In parts of three subsequent National League seasons, his batting average ranged from .182 to .186. Finally, he won a starting job with the St. Louis Browns in the American Association, but only after that team's penurious owner, Chris Von der Ahe, cleared away most of the higher-salaried players. McCarthy wound up in Boston after the AA's demise and hit .242 in 1892, while the mound still was 50 feet from the plate. Apparently, he and Duffy were "heavenly" for only three seasons, and McCarthy quickly faded away after being sold to Brooklyn prior to 1896.

P - "Happy" Jack Chesbro (1899-1909). The record books show Chesbro (and will 'til the end of time) as the all-time leader for victories in a season, with 41 for the 1904 New York Highlanders. Actually, that honor should go to Charles "Ol' Hoss" Radbourne, but when he won 59 or 60 games in 1884, the pitching mound was too close to the plate. Chesbro might have won all those games in '04, but he also threw a wild pitch that lost the pennant-deciding game for the future Yankees; rumor always had it that he was acting on orders from his team's owners, who had bet against their boys. Chesbro's arm never was the same after logging 454 innings that year. For his final five seasons, he posted a 66-67 record, including 0-5 in his final year. He couldn't have been too happy about that.

P - William "Candy" Cummings (1872-77). Jokes could be made about his nickname fitting a certain film genre, but I'm not going to do that. I will present Cummings' National League statistics: two seasons with a 21-22 record. Yawn. He did much better in baseball's first professional league, the National Association, averaging more than 30 wins over four seasons against competition of very questionable talent. Cummings, who's listed as weighing all of 120 pounds, is in the Hall of Fame for one reason: In 1939, someone cited him as the guy who invented the curve ball, no doubt using some yellowed newspaper clips as evidence. That was good enough in the days when apocryphal stories meant more than cold, hard statistics.

P - Jesse "Pop" Haines (1918-37). See comments for Kelly, Lindstrom and Youngs. Haines was a decent enough pitcher, lasting with the Cardinals until he was well into his 40s, but was never what anyone would call a star. He did hang in long enough to collect 210 victories, which, as far as Frankie Frisch teammates went, was good enough for Cooperstown.

P - Richard "Rube" Marquard (1908-25). When Ty Cobb died in 1961, an aspiring author named Lawrence Ritter noticed that not too many ballplayers from the Dead Ball era still were around to talk about their experiences. So he traveled the country, having some of the surviving ones do just that. The result was "The Glory of Their Times," which still serves as the standard for baseball's oral history. Each of the players who were profiled had fascinating stories to tell, including Marquard, a city boy who wondered, "How come I'm called Rube." The quick answer is that he was a lefthanded pitcher at a time when the game's top southpaw was Rube Waddell. Hall of Fame voters loved "The Glory of Their Times" and ended up bringing some former players aboard who might not have otherwise received consideration. In Marquard's case, he did win 201 games and set a record that still stands by scoring 19 straight victories for the New York Giants at the start of 1912. (He argues to Ritter that it really should have been 20). He also got off to a rough start as a highly touted phenom, earning the nickname "The $10,000 Lemon" before most fans knew him as "Rube." Two years after his record streak, he lost 22 games to help drive the Giants out of contention, and he bounced around for National League for several more years with middling success. Eighty-five years at the time of his HOF induction, Marquard must have been glad that he'd agreed to talk with Ritter.

Manager - Stanley "Bucky" Harris (1924-56). The Washington Senators appointed the 27-year-old Harris as manager prior to the 1924 season, and the team responded by winning its one and only World Series. And the Senators narrowly missed repeating the feat in '25. Harris was the "Boy Wonder" among managers, and he continued to guide major-league teams intermittently for the next three decades. As he aged, though, he must have lost some of his acumen; he returned to the Series only once more, and that was when the Yankees hired him in 1947 (and canned him after '48, to bring aboard the even older Casey Stengel). For his managerial career, Harris is credited with 2,157 victories, but also lost more games than he won. As a player, primarily a second baseman, Harris hit .274 during the juiced-ball '20s with negligible power.

Executive - Morgan "Moneybags" Bulkeley (1876). The year listed is the inaugural season of the National League, and Bulkeley, owner of the team in Hartford, served as the league's president. That's because the founder and true leader of the league, William Hulbert, decided to stay in the background until he saw how the new ventured panned out. Apparently it did OK, and Hulbert served as president from 1877 until his death in 1882. One hundred and thirteen years later, they finally put a plaque for him in Cooperstown. That also was 58 years after Bulkeley was honored. How did that happen? The consensus is that someone in 1937 saw him listed as the league's first president and figured he must have been instrumental in its founding, rather than a figurehead in every sense of the word. He belongs in the Hall of Fame about as much as Abner Doubleday (who, by the way, is not).

As for Doubleday, modern historians agree that he had absolutely nothing to do with "inventing" baseball, in Cooperstown or elsewhere, and very well could have never seen a game in his life. But that doesn't mean the Hall of Fame is about to change venues anytime soon.