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Posted By: warshawlaw

There are two analyses of his career: player and contributor.

O'Doul qualifies as hall-eligible as a player because he meets the 10 season rule. He started as a pitcher who was a really good hitter but was not converted quickly enough to have a long career as an outfielder. He played in 970 games, which is only 30 games short of the 1,000 game mark needed to be on the alltime stats list in fourth place for batting average. He was sent down to the minors as a pitcher. While in the PCL, he finally converted to an outfielder and was brought up in the late 1920's. He had five stellar seasons where he was one of the very best in the majors, then got old fast at 36 and went back to the PCL, where he played a bit and managed a ton, winning a lot of titles. When I say stellar player, I mean really exceptional, not just really good, what we'd call a superstar today. He came the closest of any player to hitting .400 without doing it (.398), won two batting titles, set the NL record for hits in a season which still stands, and has the highest BA of any Hall-eligible player who is not in (.349). Lest you think he was a Chuck Klein or Hack Wilson home stadium advantaged guy, he hit .352 at home and .347 on the road. I have little doubt that if he'd hit .400 he would already be in the hall...

As a goodwill ambassador for the game, manager and coach, he was at the top of his trade for decades. O'Doul was credited by players like Ted Willians and Joe Dimaggio with helping them hone their talents. He advised Gary Cooper in training for Pride of the Yankees (said Cooper threw like an old lady tossing a biscuit). Lefty refused numerous offers to come to the majors and manage because his deal in the PCL was so financially sweet that he would have had to take a massive pay cut to do it. Otherwise, he'd have had a long managerial career in the majors. Lastly, he was the main pioneering influence in organizing Japanese professional baseball. He worked extensively with the architects of the Japanese ML and in fact they named the Tokyo Giants for Lefty's then team. If nothing else, he deserves recognition as a pioneer and contributor to the game.

Now, as far as Joe Torre goes, he has 4 WS and six pennants; that's HOF manager in any book. Tommy LaSorda, who I absolutely agree is a HOFer, has less. Most of the managers in the HOF have fewer. It is asinine to argue that anyone could manage the Yankees with the money Steinbrenner throws around and still win. The facts prove otherwise, as Boss has been tossing around the bucks for 30 years and the Yankees have never had a run like 1996-present during his tenure. The closest they came was 1976-81 when they took four pennants and two WS titles, then did not win squat again until 1996 despite landing a host of top priced free agents.