1944 Best of Baseball Election

[Paul Wendt]

I'm removing J. L. Wilkinson from my ballot for the time being, though he certainly will reappear. I've added Richter and Klem to my contributor ballot.

I considered Wilkinson vs. Ward late last year and my reasoning for Ward may be quixotic (unreasonable).

C.I. Taylor voters,
Why do you support Taylor ahead of Wilkinson? When I have asked about Taylor in the past, the replies have favored Wilkinson, Posey, or both.

All,
Is age a criterion for you here, after it plays its role in determining eligibility? This is much too late for C.I. Taylor to enjoy his election but in the 1940s it may be an argument for Barrow or Landis.

[leecemark]

--My ballot has been completed.

[Ubiquitous]

The last paragraph, to me at least, is an argument against having a contributor ballot. That's fine, but if we're going to have one (and we will so long as there's sufficient interest and the rules call for one), it's irrelevant. You boosted Al Spalding for his sporting goods business, promotions, and so forth. Somebody was going to realize they could make money selling such items, and it only stands to reason they'd want to promote the game to help themselves. Some GM was going to have a player who would openly cross the color line. Eventually, one of them would have had success. These guys actually did these things, and popularized them and/or made them succeed. That's why we are supporting them as contributors.

The fact that Creighton is the guy who at the very least popularized pitching the new way renders the whole issue of whether or not he was actually the first to do so an interesting side question, but not one which should be determinative of him as a contributor. Certainly, Branch Rickey wasn't the first guy to try and put an African-American in a major league uniform. There's no question John McGraw tried it, but as a subterfuge, rather than as an open choice. Some may well have knowingly succeeded McGraw's way. Rickey, though, chose wisely as to who would be the first to make that open break with tradition, and gave Jackie ample support in the effort.

Like I said earlier, I have a hard time voting for players as contributors. That is because I feel most of the contributing players are simply evolutionary steps in baseball. Whereas the people running and organizing baseball are to me the ones that make or break the game at this stage of the game. As long as these pioneers are out there then there will be a game and there will be players who tinker within that game. If there is a Spalding or Cartwright then eventually there will be a Creighton. But if there is no Spalding or Cartwright then even if there is a Creighton it doesn't really matter because nobody is going to be around to care.

[jalbright]

--My ballot has been completed.

Thanks for the heads-up. Duly noted and recorded. We now have a quorum on both sides.

[Paul Wendt]

if there is no Spalding or Cartwright then even if there is a Creighton it doesn't really matter because nobody is going to be around to care.

This is awfully wrong about the Spaldings and probably about the Cartwrights, meaning the original Knickerbockers. Their steps, too, were evolutionary steps.

Most-successful businessmen rarely do anything but most-successfully marry their interests to what people are doing en masse. In Spalding's case there were many other sporting goods businessmen. He was more successful and ultimately he managed to buy the Reach and Wright businesses, rather than vice versa, but the difference is incremental --incremental whether the alternative is Reach purchase of Spalding or all continuing independently. At the same time, the annual baseball guide was 17 years old when he put together his first one and it was essentially mature. That is, Spalding mainly copied the form, and a few years later he hired Beadle's longtime editor Henry Chadwick to take over his own.

Without Spalding's aid, Hulbert's effort to organize a more centralized league of clubs might have failed, or lasted only a few seasons. Either way, who can doubt that commercial baseball as mass entertainment --the national spectator pastime-- was here to stay? Spalding gained from the League (by exclusive contracts to produce official baseballs and publish the official book) and the League gained from Spalding. But the League is only some institutional details. Without Hulbert's National League, or following its failure, there might have been another. Or commercial baseball might have developed more like English football. What then? Perhaps two distinct businesses would have become its most successful producer-distributor of goods and its most-successful publisher. Perhaps two distinct publishers would have retained the leading editorial authority (Chadwick) and secured an official contract.

How would such differences be "revolutionary"? Why, that is, should we consider the steps down two different historical paths revolutionary rather than evolutionary steps?

[jalbright]

All,
Is age a criterion for you here, after it plays its role in determining eligibility? This is much too late for C.I. Taylor to enjoy his election but in the 1940s it may be an argument for Barrow or Landis.

Truthfully, as I'm basically looking at this from a 2008 perspective, the age issue is at best a very minor one for me. It would have been much more important in its own time. So long as I can find contributor candidates I can accept who are doing well with our voters, I'll choose from that group. This approach is calculated to help move things along, and, given that we have to choose between this apple and this orange and this mango and this watermelon, it makes life a little easier.

[Chadwick]

Players
1. Louis Santop
2. Paul Hines
3. George Wright
4. Sherry Magee
5. Fred Clarke
6. John Montgomery Ward
7. George Sisler
8. Amos Rusie
9. Edd Roush
10. Zack Wheat
11. Dazzy Vance
12. Jimmy Collins

Contributors
1. William Hulbert
2. Francis Richter
3. Ed Barrow
4. Alfred H. Spink
5. Bill Klem

[Paul Wendt]

Pasteur

"Louis Pasteur" at wikipedia shows multiple people working on Pasteur's themes at several points. Germ theory and experiment may be a better historical example, rather than its application to vaccination. But these examples from vaccination are clear (probably because their concrete nature fits the wikipedia project well).

Others developed vaccination for smallpox, Pasteur for chicken cholera. Then anthrax:
>>
In the 1870s, he applied this immunisation method to anthrax, which affected cattle, and aroused interest in combating other diseases. Pasteur publicly claimed he had made the anthrax vaccine by exposing the bacillus to oxygen. His laboratory notebooks, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, in fact show Pasteur used the method of rival Jean-Joseph-Henri Toussaint, a Toulouse veterinary surgeon, to create the anthrax vaccine.[17][7] This method used the oxidizing agent potassium dichromate. Pasteur's oxygen method did eventually produce a vaccine but only after he had been awarded a patent on the production of an anthrax vaccine.
<<

Later with rabies he took one giant step for a man but it seems to be one small step for mankind, one a small step because merely a shortcut (which is very common, I believe).
>>
The rabies vaccine was initially created by Emile Roux, a French doctor and a colleague of Pasteur who had been working with a killed vaccine produced by desiccating the spinal cords of infected rabbits. The vaccine had only been tested on eleven dogs before its first human trial.[7][18]

This vaccine was first used on 9-year old Joseph Meister, on July 6, 1885, after the boy was badly mauled by a rabid dog.[7] This was done at some personal risk for Pasteur, since he was not a licensed physician and could have faced prosecution for treating the boy. However, left without treatment, the boy faced almost certain death from rabies. After consulting with colleagues, Pasteur decided to go ahead with the treatment. The treatment proved to be a spectacular success, with Meister avoiding the disease; thus, Pasteur was hailed as a hero and the legal matter was not pursued.
<<

Back to baseball, the point is to support analogies such as Spalding to Pasteur to reject the revolutionary interpretation. What wouldn't have happened except for the successful Captain of Industry is institutional detail, such as location of one center or another in Chicago rather than Philadelphia, and it is shortcuts, hastening this by several years and delaying that by a few.

--
This interpretation may support honoring people for long and meritorious service, such as NA and NL secretary-treasurer Nick Young, umpires Connolly and Klem, and some field managers or club executives.

[henrich]

01 hoyt
02 barnes
03 magee
04 wheat
05 stovey
06 terry
07 galvin
08 pennock
09 santop
10 wright g
11 clarke f
12 thompson s

contributors
01 landis
02 cartwright
03 creighton
04 hulbert
05 klem

[PVNICK]

1. George Sisler
2. Monte Ward
3. Amos Rusie
4. Pie Traynor
5. Hoss Radbourne
6. Bob Caruthers
7. George Wright
8. Jimmy Collins
9. Louis Santop
10. Joe Jackson
11. Bill Terry
12. Dazzy Vance

1. Jim Creighton
2. AJ Reach
3. Albert Spink
4. William Hulbert
5. Landis

[Captain Cold Nose]

1. George Wright
2. John Montgomery Ward
3. Louis Santop
4. George Sisler
5. Amos Rusie
6. Willie Keeler
7. Charles Radbourne
8. Jimmy Collins
9. Paul Hines
10. Harry Stovey
11. Frank Grant
12. Pete Hill

Contributors

1. Alexander Cartwright
2. William Hulbert
3. Ned Hanlon
4. Bill Klem
5. Ed Barrow

[jalbright]

If you've got plans for next week (Spring break for many schools), you may want to get your vote in before you go away. Just a reminder from your friendly project manager.

[J W]

Players

1. Joe Jackson
2. Frank Grant
3. Louis Santop
4. George Sisler
5. Rube Waddell
6. Amos Rusie
7. Sherry Magee
8. Stan Coveleski
9. Charlie Radbourn
10. Fred Clarke
11. Pie Traynor
12. Dazzy Vance

Contributors

1. William Hulbert
2. Alexander Cartwright
3. Fred Clarke
4. Bill Klem
5. Francis Richter

[Freakshow]

1944 Ballot

1 George Wright
2 Louis Santop
3 Paul Hines
4 Amos Rusie
5 Ross Barnes
6 Fred Clarke
7 Joe Start
8 John M. Ward
9 Jimmy Collins
10 Dazzy Vance
11 Zack Wheat
12 George Sisler

[Freakshow]

Candidates with highest OPS+, minimum 7200 PA, including next year's newbies.

Player		OPS+	BrYr	 PA	From	 To
Sherry	Magee	136	1884	8546	1904	1919
Joe	Kelley	133	1871	8120	1891	1908
Fred	Clarke	132	1872	9819	1894	1915
Paul	Hines	131	1855	7470	1872	1891
Zack	Wheat	129	1888	9996	1909	1927
Goose	Goslin	128	1900	9822	1921	1938
Bobby	Veach	127	1888	7557	1912	1925
Gabby Hartnett	126	1900	7297	1922	1941
Edd	Roush	126	1893	8156	1913	1931
Larry	Doyle	126	1886	7382	1907	1920
Willie	Keeler	126	1872	9594	1892	1910
Kiki	Cuyler	125	1898	8098	1921	1938
Jim Bottomley	125	1900	8355	1922	1937
Cy Williams	125	1887	7720	1912	1930
Jake	Beckley	125	1867	10470	1888	1907
George	Sisler	124	1893	9013	1915	1930
Jimmy	Ryan	123	1863	9106	1885	1903