Best Baseball Player Depicted in T206 Not in the Hall of Fame

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

Kling was good. Really good. And he was good at pool, too, as
he won a championship during the year he was a hold out from
the Cubs.

Kling ranks up there... But golly, Donlin was a ballplayer. And
Ed Reulbach was a great pitcher.

To echo a bit, Leever isn't in T206 and Rose should not be in the Hall.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

"...not for throwing games but for fixing them."

what is the difference between the two?

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Posted By: sean

The deal with Chase though is that he wasn't corrup form the get go. It may have been brought on due to low salary or his fights with Kid Elberfield to be yankees manager, who knows? No, he doesn't deserve to be in the hall due to his throwing games. However, there is no doubt in my mind he'd be in the hall otherwise. some examples why: The people whom went after him (charles comiskey and John Mcgraw for starters) just to have him on their team. The few seasons where he showed his most potential (1906 and 07) and the later years (1916. stastically, we'll never be able to tell how good he was at first because we'll never know if it was due to him throwing games or due to someone trying harder than most and being credited with an error for trying to make an impossible play. In Hal's case this is probably 50/50. Such is the argument with a lot of hofers as to whether they deserve to be in the hall, no one today can make that call. These players were elected by people whom actually saw them play. The hofers with the low averages (maranville, tinker, bresnahan, etc.) had more to them than just whats written in a statistics book. Whether is was leadership skills, clutch hitting, circus catches, etc, they were elected to the hall by people who SAW them play. It says a lot for Hal that even after his reputation he STILL got votes for the hall.

The big thing about Kling is that when he left the cubs, the cubs didnt make it to the pennant. When he returned, they did. Nuff said. regarding his hitting, he was no Cobb but few were. In comparison to other deadball era catchers (and even most non deadball catchers) he was a very good hitter. I honestly think the only reason he isn't in the hall is due to his holdouts (which were mostly Murphy's fault), which made him look bad in the press and made him the the cubs 1909 patsy. i'm still keeping up hope

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Posted By: Misunderestimated

Actually my understanding is that Chase was dirty virtually from the moment he arrived in the majors. He did not merely throw games he enticed his teammates to throw games. This was hardly common knowledge and at least with respect to Chase's conduct the early voters knew a lot less than we do now.

Bill James pointed out the most glaring statistic about Chase. When he joined a team it almost uniformly lost more games than the year before. Conversely, when he left a team it almost always did better the next season. No matter how flashy he could be in the field that means he was not a particularly good player. Would you want that kind of a player on your team?

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Posted By: sean

well Im going off the 2 bios I read on him that could have left out information but In neither book do they have any proof of early corruption and to me it seems he slowly progressed into it. Regardless, when he wasnt being corrupt, he was a brilliant first baseman. its too bad we'll never know what he could have accomplished. Makes for great reading though!

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Posted By: Rob D.

If a stock broker (or financial planner, banker, etc.) has a great eye for investments, knows the markets inside and out and is basically a financial genius, yet he instead chooses to steal his clients' life savings and head to South America, I doubt you'd find many people singing his praises based on all of the potential good he could have accomplished.

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Posted By: sean

but the question isnt does chase belong in the hall the question is was he a good firstbaseman? Answer- yes
Ironically he wasnt very good with funds so he'd a made a terrible banker

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Posted By: sean

oops, posted twice

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Posted By: Cy

You can check any stats that you want about Chase and make up your mind. But if you get any accounts of his playing ability from his contemporary players, he was considered the best, right up there with Wagner and Cobb (among his contemporaries' opinions). Many players have praised him in written articles and a few players stated that he was the best, in their own words, on the Glory of Their Times CD.

So he threw a game here and there. Let's get serious here. Many, many players cheated in that day. I just finished the book "Crazy 08" and there are a lot of references about cheaters across the board pre-1920. If you want to eliminate players from the Hall or even from consideration of being great because of cheating, then you need to toss Cobb and Speaker for sure. Joe Wood's first-hand testimony on the Glory of Their Times CD states without a doubt that they bet on games and it was not on the up-and-up. And the way Wood talked on the CD, this was common practice. So I would bet (Can I do this in this type of argument?) that Cobb and Speaker, and Joe Wood for that matter, bet on fixed games more than people want to believe. So should we disregard Cobb and Speaker from consideration of the best players in the game?

Having said this, I feel that Chase was probably the best of the non-HOFers in the T206 set and probably better than many of the HOFers. And if you are going to check his fielding stats, just think how good they would have been if he didn't throw any plays on purpose?

Cy

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Posted By: Rob D.

Well, my financial guy has me knee deep in Hal Chase Starting Lineups.

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Posted By: sean

awesome! tell your financial guy Ill trade em my mattingly's

Craxy '08 is a great book. My fave is more than merkle. Gotta love the library!

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Cy is right. Chase was bad, but he was bad in a time when many players were bad (granted he was about the worst). As for his skills, all you need to know is what his contemporaries said about him and he was thought of as one of the best players in the game. Years after he was out of baseball, when all the revelations about him had come out, he still received more HOF votes than many future HOFers. Enough said.

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

glad to see the the Prince (Hal Chase) stirring up as much debate today as he likely did during his playing days.

Hal Chase lives on.

martyOgelvie
New York Yankee cards

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

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Posted By: Mike

George Mullin won 228 games with a 2.82 era. He had 5-20 game win seasons. He pitched a No- Hitter in 1912. He won 3 World Series Games ( one being a shutout). I'm still looking for his auto. Any leads let me know.

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Posted By: Marty Ogelvie

Found this Chase on eBay, looks like an angry fan took it out on his T206 perhaps after he blew a game for the Highlanders!

http://tinyurl.com/6qgdgt

 

martyOgelvie
New York Yankee cards

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Posted By: Peter Spaeth

His .291 average didn't get him very far.

Black Ink: Batting - 12 (191) (Average HOFer ¡Ö 27)
Gray Ink: Batting - 118 (165) (Average HOFer ¡Ö 144)
HOF Standards: Batting - 18.3 (715) (Average HOFer ¡Ö 50)
HOF Monitor: Batting - 26.0 (643) (Likely HOFer > 100)