The Greatest of People who are not Presently in the Baseball Hall of Fame

I write a lot about Expos stuff...because I miss them. I don't want to be bias though so I'm going to write a baseball piece about non-Expo related matters for a change.

I don't follow much baseball any longer (after 2004) but if it was from 1986 until 2004 then I know a lot about that era. Also, with internet these days it's becoming easier and easier to look into past eras (data logs, video logs, newspaper articles, etc.)

Alright, so other than Timmy Raines, here's a quick look at some other great mans that are not in the Hall of Legendary Fame.

Alan Trammell

I was more into the National League back int the day but I followed AL too. Two guys that were fixtures in the AL back in my day were a tandem of middle infielders in Detroit. The second baseman was Sweet Lou Whitaker and the shortstop was Alan Trammell.

Aside from Cal Ripken Jr., Trammell was the premier shortstop in the AL during the eighties and into the nineties. Over in the NL the main guy was Ozzie Smith. Let's look at these players career stat lines, even though Gold Gloves are an arbitrary judge-voted stat I will still include them. First look at the stat lines without the bias of knowing who's name is next to the stats:


Player A: .767 OPS, 1231 Runs Scored, 1003 RBI, 236/345 Stolen Bases, 4 Golden Gloves (in 9376 plate appearances)

Player B: .788 OPS, 1645 Runs Scored, 1695 RBI, 36/75 Stolen Bases, 2 Golden Gloves (in 12883 plate appearances)


Player C: .666 OPS, 1257 Runs Scored, 793 RBI, 580/728 Stolen Bases, 13 Golden Gloves (in 9396 plate appearances)


Players B and C are in the Hall of Fame, yet player A is not. The stats denote the following:

A: Trammell
B: Ripken
C: Smith

Now, I think defense is a huge part of the game and I think Ozzie Smith was a great player...(but, let me finish)...there's no way anyone can say that Ozzie Smith was a better player than Alan Trammell under any circumstances. I love Ozzie, but, he was a gimmicky guy, he'd take the field by doing a series of acrobatic flips and tumbles...

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6-BgGHQt24)

I admit this was a fan favorite gimmick and totally awesome but doing parlor tricks doesn't make you win more games. If people were voting for the Barnum and Bailey Circus Hall of Fame then I could understand why Ozzie Smith would be a first balloter while Alan Trammell is left out, but this is not the circus Hall of Fame, it's the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Smith and Trammell have similar plate appearances and played in the exact same era (albeit in opposite leagues), there is no conceivable way that Ozzie Smith is a first ballot inductee while Trammell  doesn't even get in. This is kind of absurd.

I dunno, maybe Trammell should have done a magic show or a couple of card tricks prior to taking the field to ensure the voters liked him better. Having an OPS over 100 points higher won't make you better than the Wizard of Oz, you needed a gimmick dude.


Mike Marshall

This one is cheating a bit because Mike Marshall did pitch for the Expos but either way Mike should be in.

Marshall pitched for 9 different teams in his career. He started with the Tigers then quickly went to Seattle, Houston, and then to Montreal...he pitched for 4 different teams in his first 3 years in the bigs. Why? Mike earned the label of "non-conformist" early on in his career and was not the type of guy coaches and management wanted around.

Mike Marshall has an interesting back story. He was a Man of the Science and he took a strange approach to pitching that most would not have considered. He took a fully full-on scientific approach to pitching. The physics and kinetics or the movements the arm makes while trying to achieve the right speed/movement/break on pitches are understandable to the human brain that wishes to observe them. Knowing the biology of the human arm will also help you understand how to manipulate it and operate it in a way that will not cause excessive damage to the arm.

Marshall perfected the pitch called the "Screw Ball" with his scientific approach to pitching. The pitch is basically a breaking ball that breaks the OPPOSITE direction of the throwing arm (a right handed pitcher would throw a pitch that broke away to the right of his arm instead of to the left).

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7DcddkBtos)

I respect Men of The Science

His early coaches in Detroit, Seattle, and Houston told Mike not to throw this crazy ass science pitch because they viewed it as being retarded. Umpires and opposing coaches accused him of cheating or using a substance (spit, vassaline, root cream oil, etc.) to break the ball like that.

Marshall didn't want to stop throwing the pitch which he believed wasn't retarded and he knew wasn't cheating. This refusal won him the label of "non-conformist" throughout the league and almost got him blackballed by baseball.

The fourth team Marshall wound up with in his first 3 major league years was the recently added Montreal Expos franchise. Still in the expansion years and losing game after game, coach Gene Mauch told Marshall that he didn't give a shit what kind of pitch Marshall wanted to throw because the team wasn't going to be in contention in 1970 anyway.

Mike freely developed his scientific take on the screw ball and by 1972 was pitching over 100 innings out of the bullpen for the Expos while putting up ERAs of 1.78 (not bad). He went on to put up similar stats out of the pen for the Dodgers and even won the Cy Young award in 1974.

People who watch baseball now a days have to understand that pitcher use was different in these bygone years. Now a days a starter does 5 innings, then a middle man comes in to do 2 innings, then a set up guy comes in for the 8th, and finally a closer in the 9th. Even in a low scoring game of 2-1...we see a team use up to 5 pitchers.

Back in the day it was 4-man starting rotations, you had one or two good pitchers in the pen, and a bunch of bums to pitch in blowouts and meaningless/nothing-on-the-line games. Healthy starters used to get close to 400 innings pitched per year and some relievers used to get well over 100 innings per year.

The "best" relievers now a days are judged by the Saves stat...yet it is probably the most gimmicky and pointless stat ever. How many games are won and lost in the eight innings prior to the ninth? Is the ninth inning some sort of magic inning where if you keep the opposing team to a goose-egg in that inning you automatically win the game? No. There's nothing more special about shutting a team's hitters down in the 9th inning than the 4th inning or any other inning.

People fawn over 50 saves in a season from guys like Hoffman or Gagné...but some pitchers who achieved that only pitched fucking 55 innings all season long. What's next? The left handed specialist who pitches to 50 batters all year but has a 1.50 ERA is an all-star? I don't think so.

Marshall would work in close to 100 games a year, finish out 75 of them, get 12-15 wins, and rack up 20 to 30 saves. Mike pitched over 200 innings out of the bullpen the year he won the Cy Young. The year reliever Eric Gagné won the Cy Young out of the pen he pitched in only 82 innings and won only 2 games. Trevor Hoffman saved 53 games one year...but only pitched in 73 innings all season.

Can a reliever from that era make the Hall? Yes, Goose Gossage did...and truth be told Goose's career stats are pretty similar to Mike Marshall's and Goose never won a Cy Young in his career. Plus Mike Marshall was a Man of the Science too.

Goose is in, but Mike only received 1.5% of the vote when his name came up. Odd, in a way.


Dick Allen

Mike Marshall was labelled and stigmatized as being a "non-conformist" and trouble maker, another player, Dick Allen, was perceived under much worse labels. Dick's name around the league was never in good standing and it really hurt him when Hall of Fame voting came up.

His back story is interesting too and his label as a trouble maker was undeserved as well. Dick came up through the Phillies system at a time where Frank Thomas (no not THAT one, this Frank Thomas was an ugly white guy) was a fan favorite and recently added to Phillies organization. Frank was an old veteran guy of 35 years old and he was pretty old school. He'd make fun of the black guys on the team and the way they shook hands (soul shakin') by pretending to be down and offering up a hand for a soul shake...but then Frank would grab the kid's thumb and pull it back as hard as he could.

Dick Allen even as a "kid" was a pretty big dude, we're talking a low-center of gravity 5'11 187 pounds. When he was coming up in 1964 he didn't really care for the way Frank Thomas was abusing the trust of the sacred soul shake with the brothers on the team. He told the 6 foot 3 / 200 pounder Frank Thomas right to his fucking face that if he pulled that shit again with the soul shake that he'd get him back. 

Truth be told, Frank kept pulling the stunt and lo...Dick Allen got mad and apparently Thomas hit him with a bat...leading to a violent fight.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uWvkxj-C64)

As told by that historian, Thomas was released and Allen was forbidden from talking to the press about the incident. The Philadelphia papers framed the altercation with Allen as the antagonist and Thomas as the protagonist. The fans in Philly took to booing and hating on Dick Allen every time he took the field in his home park of Connie Mack Stadium.

The label of Dick being a trouble maker took shape at that moment and it never let up. Allen had an OPS of OVER 900 in his rookie year (earning the rookie of the year award in 1964)...yet was the most hated player in Philadelphia history. That's kind of fucking ludicrous. It's abso-ludicrous.

Dick went on to have an OVER 900 OPS his whole entire career...finishing with a .912 career OPS. Yet his max Hall of Fame voting % only climbed to 18% at its highest point. Maybe he needed a gimmick too like Ozzie Smith...oh wait, he even had a gimmick.

Hey, listen to Dick's sweet singin' voice from his album. If you don't feel whimsical and begin remembering fond memories of a past love while listening to this song then you probably have no emotions: 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJDDs7ohpJk)

...and when Deceeeeember came and my dreams still echoed your name...

Jeez...he had a killer career and a gimmick, what do the voters want? No one can ever tell. You can see from his voice that he's a soft and caring guy. Obviously swimming in the fish bowl of hate which was Connie Mack stadium in the mid-sixties was difficult for him and the jeers didn't exactly roll off his back.

Dick took to writing things in the dirt while in the field. People saw this as a sort of protest from a trouble maker...but it wasn't that. He would write things like his mother's name while he played and listened to the boos...or sometimes he'd even write "boo" in the dirt.

This wasn't a trouble maker, this was a soft hearted guy trying to deal with constant emotional stress. His dirt scribbles were just something to regain his composure and to lean on. That's why he'd write something like his mother's name in the field..to lean on it.

Remember that Simpsons where Homer explains why he has no pictures of Maggie in his home? It was because they were where he needed them most...at his horrible job. The pictures were something for Homer to lean on at a place where he hated being. Dick Allen's scribbles were more along those lines than a trouble maker trying to provoke the fans as it was perceived back then.

Conclusion 

Trammell, Marshall, and Allen were really good at baseball.

Obsessed with Artificial Crap

Whoa! Look! It's 13 tons of floating cosmetic products!

People love fake shit. Think about these ones:

1) When they made Orange Drink, the corn-syrup cheap replacement for orange juice, they made the orange color more visually pronounced and visually appealing through additives and food coloring chemicals. The color of real orange juice just was not orange enough for us.

2) Perfume is made from the sweat, tissue, and puke of sperm whales (ambergris). Females think it's a good idea to attract males by covering the natural odors of their bodies with the vomit of whales. Most males are attracted to women's smells not the smells of whale puke...it's actually kind of an offensive odor to be honest. Plus, nowadays they don't even use ambergris...they make synthetic ambergris which smells exactly like whale puke but it fortunately spares the whale. You womens are buying fake whale puke!

3) Auto-tune...why does every singer want to sacrafice originality to sound like they are talking in front of rotating fan? Every singer wants to sound like Soundwave from Transformers. This is silly.

4) Generic synthetic leather couches. Ikea, Brault & Martineaux, and all the other chain bigbox stores import these generic fake leather couches from China and everyone buys them. Leather has a smell, a feel, and a look to it that is indistinguishable. The synthetic leather does not feel, smell or even look like leather...it looks, feels and smells like vinyl. Everyone who has one of these in their home, always without fail, will brag to you that they have a leather couch.

"If a horse won't eat it, I don't want to play on it" - "Big" Dick Allen on artificial grass.

Corn syrup drinks, perfume/cologne, auto-tune, and synthetic fabrics are the norm now. This is what the consumer wants, it wants artificial products. This is what the audience for musicians want, it wants artificial music. People want artificial fabrics. The sellers are just giving the buyers what they ask for. Why do we want these things? Because that's what everyone else wants so it must be what I want.

We want to be saturated in reasonable fac similes of reality....but isn't reality refreshing sometimes? Aren't those strange things that don't seem to fit...a breath of fresh air? Take that show American Idol, where everyone is trying to achieve that level of reasonable fac simile and fit into the mold of what is "good" and what the audience wants. Why when William Hung came around did people take notice of him? Sure, many were laughing at him, but I think the main quality that propelled him to stardom was Hung's realness. The mold was diecast...yet he broke the mold.

Who set up what was right to be begin with? True musicians search for the the Perfect Beat...but is there even a Perfect Beat? If one person's trash is another person's treasure...then how can anything be perfect?

A term in linguistics called "Prescriptivism" applies to this situation, where some ruling power/authority prescribes a correct manner of speech and writing. How can there be a perfect or even right way of talking/writing in a world with a hundred thousand different dialects and languages? All us english speakers were prescribed what was "right" by the Victorian English Monarchy. It's right to pronounce a word in a certain way...but terribly wrong to pronounce it in another way. For all french speakers, the Académie Française (established in 1635) is the authority which governs proper pronunciations and, of course, decides whether a belt is male or female (a belt is a chick by the way).

Is what is "right" totally arbitrary? Yes, and that's why when a William Hung comes to town everyone takes notice. Because deep down inside we all crave for arbitrary rules to be broken. 

Take the greatest language, Mathematics, for instance now. Scientists have smashed apart the rules over and over again. When Einstein and others first started saying that the rules of math won't work in all cases and that there are certain special cases where the current set of rules would not apply...they called them crazy. Apparently, the story of Alice in Wonderland was written as a tongue-in-cheek bashing of the new math rules coming out in the mid 19th century. Lewis Carroll apparently was a mathematician and devout Victorian Rule-Lover who was enraged by the new concepts being proposed and made fun of them in his book...

By now, scholars had started routinely using seemingly nonsensical concepts such as imaginary numbers - the square root of a negative number - which don't represent physical quantities in the same way that whole numbers or fractions do. No Victorian embraced these new concepts wholeheartedly, and all struggled to find a philosophical framework that would accommodate them. But they gave mathematicians a freedom to explore new ideas, and some were prepared to go along with these strange concepts as long as they were manipulated using a consistent framework of operations. To [Carroll], though, the new mathematics was absurd...

-Melanie Bayley (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427391.600-alices-adventures-in-algebra-wonderland-solved.html?full=true)

Having said that, let's go back to music now. Knowing that the rules for what is "good" are arbitrary and that different things will please different folks, and that everyone basically wants crap. I think originality has a big place in music. You wouldn't have Rock and Roll if someone didn't get tired of playing what everyone else was playing, you wouldn't have rap if someone didn't get tired of playing what everyone else is playing (etc etc.).

One wikipedia entry I find very interesting is the one on Bavarian composer and music theorist N.Seneda. Seneda seemed to understand that the only way to break the current rules and create something new (and hopefully good...but not necessarily) was through, what he called, the "Theory of Obscurity." He believed that you had to disregard everything you heard and know from the music world around you to truly create something original (though not necessarily enjoyable to the listener mind you). Rumors say he would lock himself away in the wilderness, or some secret room, or Patmosian-esque cave for years to compose his great symphonies without being influenced from outside sources.

"...a man or woman moreso than this being can be called an artist, can only produce pure art when the expectations and influences of the outside world are not taken into consideration." -N. Seneda

You gotta keep it real and original too....simply for the sake of breaking silly rules.

Um, I think you're "leather" chair looks kind of like plastic...no?

(spellcheck says I spelled "sacrafice" wrong...did you grammar red barons catch it?).

(Oh, and ponder this too...is that bum Tom Petty famous because he's on TV or is Tom Petty on TV because he's famous?)