Nice Matt Welch Reason column on the Cuba embargo and its cultural casualties — including Cuban baseball historian Severo Nieto, whose decades-long work remains unpublished.
(Incidentally, Luis Tiant’s just not Hall of Fame material. He was good, sure, but given the caliber of his contemporaries since inducted to Cooperstown — Palmer, Ryan, Seaver, Carlton, Sutton, Niekro, G. Perry, Hunter, Drysdale, Koufax, Bunning — Tiant doesn’t quite make the cut.
…Though he could sneak in with Tommy John or Jim Kaat or Jim Perry or Mickey Lolich as veteran committee’s inductee, I suppose.)
Gotta disagree with you on this one Jeff. Tiant’s on the bubble as far as I’m concerned, but he’s at least as qualified as Catfish Hunter and far more qualified than Bunning. (They are the two pitchers who come up closest to Tiant via Bill James’ Similarity Scores, by the way.)
1) Tiant, unlike the other two, was blocked from reaching the majors because of his race. (The encyclopedias say he was 23 when he debuted, but he was several years older.)
2) Tiant’s W/L record is about the same as Hunter’s even though Hunter pitched basically his entire career for powerhouse teams, which Tiant pitched for six seasons in Cleveland.
3) He had more wins and <i>fewer losses</i> than Bunning. Bunning’s ERA was three-hundredths of a run lower, but that’s a negligible difference. Relative to the leagues in which they pitched, their ERAs are both 14% better than the norm.
4) Tommy John had about sixty more wins than any of these guys.
I might be persuaded on Bunning, Mac—though the no hitters in each league and the strikeouts tilt in his favor. I think he was more dominant relevant to his era and league than was Tiant (whose dominance came in spurts), but its a judgment call, certainly.
Catfish, though… Being the ace on a dynasty has to count for something! Plus, he won the Cy Young, and led the league in wins twice. Lots of Yankees pitchers in the Hall (Red Ruffing, for instance) ‘cause of the team they played on. Wilbur Wood was a dominant pitcher on a crappy team, but he hasn’t got a shot at the Hall! But what HE could have done with the O’s in the early 70s…sigh. Dems da breaks, I guess.
I have mixed feelings on the longevity guys like T. John and Kaat. On John’s behalf, he did have a bunch of twenty win seasons (I think he’ll get in eventually); on Kaat’s behalf, he won all those Gold Gloves, as well—which means he was dominant at one aspect of his position, in addition to winning all those games and having several 20+ win seasons.
Always fun to debate these things. Jim Rice? Yeah, he should go, I think. Dale Murphy? Bill Madlock?
Tiant’s best year was actually better than Hunter’s, did you know that? By ERA, anyway. He was 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA in ‘68 on an Indians team that won 64 games—not quite Carlton in ‘72 but in the same category. Yeah, year of the pitcher, but still… I can’t see how putting up basically the same record with great offenses behind you makes you more qualified than the guy who does it with bad teams. There’s no way to prove it but my guess is that if Tiant had pitched for the A’s of the early seventies rather than the Indians of the late sixties, nobody would question his credentials.
I’m not going to make judgments on Murphy, because I’m <a href=”http://bravesjournal.com/”>biased</a>. I’d like to see Darrell Evans get in, but <i>that</i> will never happen.
I was a huge Bob Horner fan…
Tiant had those two great ERA years, but bottom line is winning and World Championships. Hunter had that going for him—plus he strung all his great seasons together. One measure of a Hall of Famer you always hear baseball writers cite is dominance over a decade. Hunter had it.
Still, there’s a chance Tiant’ll get in.