Is The Hall Too Crowded - International League Baseball Hall of Fame 2007 - Is it Too Big?

 

Is The Hall Too Crowded?

The International League revived its Hall of Fame. Is the Hall a tribute to the greats of this side of the Triple-A, or a back-slapping love-fest of IL executives? Jim Mandelaro, who wrote this month's feature story on the IL Hall in SZ, weighs in.

JIM MANDELARO
Featured MLN Sportswriter
 
MAJOR BLOGS - www.majorblogs.net - OPINION -  The revival of the International League Hall of Fame in 2007 after a 34-year absence was a good thing, but the Class of 2008 is as bloated as Barry Bonds’ ego.

The IL inducted twenty-seven, count ‘em, 27,  people. Sixteen of them are deceased.  Eighteen, if you include a couple inductees who seem to be leading Sixth Sense lives and may not know it yet.
 
There are several worthy inductees.

Tommy Aaron is the only person to earn IL MVP honors and manage a Governors’ Cup champion. He also was the first African-American manager in league history. His brother Hank was pretty good, too.

Joe Altobelli, called “Mr. Baseball” in Rochester, was a player, manager and GM for the Red Wings. He led three teams, including Rochester twice, and Columbus once, to Governors’ Cup titles. He guided one to a Junior World Series championship. As a player, he once led the IL in home runs for the old Montreal Royals.

The late Gene Cook is a longtime Toledo Mud Hens GM who is largely credited with getting actor Jaime Farr  to wear a Mud Hens hat on M*A*S*H in his role as Corporal Max Klinger, but he also served 15 terms on the City Council and pushed for the new stadium that eventually became Fifth Third Field.


See the full article on the IL Hall of Fame
at the baseball section of SZ, the world's
first digital sports magazine since 2000.Russ Derry is the all-time home run champ in IL history on the tradition-laden Rochester Red Wings. Luke Easter is a legend whose number was retired in Rochester and Buffalo. 

What’s not to love in Ralph Garr winning back-to-back batting titles in 1969 and  1970, or Lefty Grove going 108-36, to lead the IL in strikeouts four straight years?

Even that old Slimfast pitchman, Tommy Lasorda, deserves a plaque for his other pitching. He was the 1958 IL MVP and went 107-57 with a 3.45 ERA.

Some of the other picks make you wonder why they bloated up the 2008 class.

Don Buford played ONE season in the IL, earning MVP honors for Indianapolis in 1963.  He is the last IL player to record 200 hits, he led the IL in doubles and he  . . . he . . .  zzzzzzzzz. . . .

OK, we’re back.

As for George Quellich, we will reprint the IL’s own bio on this former infielder and let you decide:

“George Quellich played largely in the shadow of other IL greats in the 1920s and ‘30s, never playing for a championship team and never leading the league in any offensive category.”

There is more of a case to be made for Frank "Flash" Gilhooley, who posted a career .324 batting average and 354 stolen bases, but also played when Babe Ruth was cutting his teeth. The only question mark for him is an explanation as to why the original HOF committee, which met yearly from 1947-63, did not induct him back in the day.

Jim Rice is the most modern inductee. He last played in the IL in 1974. Taking care of the past is one thing, but how about recognizing the past three decades? Include a guy like Jeff Manto, who played for just about everyone, hit 145 home runs, and is already in the Buffalo and Rochester Halls of Fame rather than some of the more questionable inductees that made the 2007 class.

Hall of Shame Picks

The more questionable inductions are the back pats to the league’s good ol’ boys club, many of whom have overstayed their welcomes.

Why not put in one or two executives per year and focus on the players?  Ben Mondor,  who was nominated, and Harold Cooper and George Sisler Jr., who weren't, would make sense.  They shaped the modern league.  Instead, this round of HOF admission includes back-slaps for execs who never played a minute in the IL, and whose off-the-field contributions are a matter of opinion.



Dave Rosenfield has been the Norfolk Tides GM since Moses carved his tablets. He is going in, mostly, for being the Tides’ GM since Moses carved his tablets. Unless, of course, he is going in for being the worst schedule-maker in baseball history.  Then he has my vote.

Tex Simone is Syracuse’s version of Dave Rosenfield. He came and never left. He oversaw the departure of the New York Yankees as their parent club. Nice move.  His other Hall-of-Shameworthy feat has been allowing the Toronto Blue Jays to set up shop for three decades, with zero Governors’ Cup appearances.  Meanwhile, the Chiefs’ fan base is smaller than Hank Steinbrenner’s heart.

Marketing Pigs

Putting the sacred marketing cash-cow aside,  it is wrong to have all fourteen cities in the league host induction ceremonies.

Allentown, Pa., the home of the first-year Lehigh Valley IronPigs, who christened their season with a 2-20 start, should not be participating for another half decade or so, or at least until they can find a pack of players who can notch .500 on the club’s totem pole for a season or three. Repping anything done by the Ottawa Lynx would be in as much bad taste as Shirley MacLaine accepting an Oscar for her past life as Joan of Arc.


Transition Schmansition

 The IL office believes that it needs four years of inducting the people whom they want in, er, “transition,”  before turning the election process over to a panel of club officials and media types.

No more than 14 inductees will be inducted in 2009, and no more than seven in 2010. Starting in 2011, when the panel takes over, will there be anyone left to induct? By then, the hot dog vendors, the guy who drives the truck for Berdzerk and you may be in the IL Hall of Fame too.


 - Jim Mandelaro is a national sportswriter based in Rochester who is in his 18th season covering the International League.