Nationals/Expos second chance election, BBF franchise HOF project

[jalbright]

This will be one of three second chance round elections this week. What we'll do for the second chance election is a Yes/No vote requiring the greater of 6 or 75% of the votes to induct. The election will be limited to the listed nominees. The elections will only be open for a week--but there will be at least three or four days for discussion and new nominations. You can abstain from an entire ballot (player or contributor), but if you vote in that portion of the ballot, only the guys you expressly vote yes for get credit for a positive vote. The others in that section of the ballot will be considered to have gotten a "no" vote. There will be no limits on how many nominees you can vote for . I will also provide the nomination discussions for the nominees. The deadline for suggesting nominees is twelve hours before the election begins.

In this case, the election will not begin until Saturday, May 19 at 7 am EDT, and will end at 7 am EDT May 26. Nominations close 43 hours before the election begins, or May 17 at noon EDT. Ballots not cast within the stated election time frame will not count.

I'm modifying the time for how long I'll accept nominations. Nominations will close at noon on Thursday rather than 7 pm Friday. Among the reasons for this are situations like yesterday when I'm away, the day before is a real pain in the rump. Another reason is that if I decide to go to requiring seconds for some nominations, I'll need some additional time for those seconds, and this move provides that.


The Nats/Expos have the following already inducted:
Players inducted (7): Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dennis Martinez, Tim Raines, Steve Rogers, Jose Vidro, Tim Wallach

Contributors inducted (1): Felipe Alou


The list of nominees at present is:

Players
Marquis Grissom
Pedro Martinez
Jeff Reardon
Rusty Staub
Larry Walker

Contributors
Jacques Doucet
Dave van Horne

[jalbright]

Doing one more sweep of candidates, I thought of Jacques Doucet for the Expos. He got a real push in the BBF HOF project, and I remember it well. Here's the best post in that push, by Slaff:

For us it wasn't Mel Allen, Red Barber, Ernie Harwell or Vin Scully ... it was JACQUES DOUCET (also an important member of SABR Québec).
That doesn't mean that I can't recognize the greatness of Allen, Barber, Harwell and Scully. They were GREAT.

Doucet was a major baseball character not only in Québec (where he is also a social and cultural icon) but also in french community all around the world.

I think Doucet and Buck Canel were the two most important non-english-broadcasters.

I know that baseball in Québec is not as strong as japanese baseball (nowhere near) but let's not forget that we were an important part of Major League Baseball for almost four decades and Jacques Doucet was one of the key man in Expos history ... at the same level than Gary Carter, Tim Raines, Vlad Guerrero.

Don't know if that will convince you but here’s an article that describe much better than I could do (with my poor english ) how important he was:

------------------------------

EXPOS' MOVE MARKS END OF BASEBALL ERA IN FRENCH

Friday, June 03, 2005

By Christopher J. Chipello, The Wall Street Journal

MONTREAL -- For more than three decades, Jacques Doucet was the French-language radio voice of Major League Baseball.

Many Montreal baby boomers grew up listening to his mellifluous descriptions of lanceurs staring into home plate, frappeurs swinging for the fences and voltigeurs tracking down fly balls at la piste d'avertissement, or warning track.

But the Expos migrated south and started playing this spring as the Washington Nationals -- the first move by a major-league team since the Washington Senators became the Texas Rangers 33 years earlier. That meant the disappearance of big-league baseball in French from North American airwaves.

Mr. Doucet and other announcers from the Expos' early days were more than just broadcasters. They also helped hone modern French baseball lingo, polishing terminology that had been adapted from English over the course of a century.

A 1935 French-English lexicon put out by the Societe du Parler francais au Canada rendered the game, literally if awkwardly, as jeu de balle aux buts, and featured such quaint translations as batteur risque-tout (literally, daredevil batter) for "slugger" and gardien de but, (goalkeeper) for "baseman."

In 1969, the Expos' first season, the brewery sponsoring the team hosted a symposium for journalists and commentators to hash out terminology for le baseball. The recommendations included such colorful and enduring turns of phrase as balle papillon (butterfly ball) for "knuckleball" and vol-au-sol (theft at the ground) for "shoestring catch."

But in a game of tactical nuance and long pauses, it often fell to the radio play-by-play men to figure out how best to paint word pictures in respectable French. Over the decades, Mr. Doucet, a former newspaper reporter who switched to broadcasting in 1972, became the acknowledged master of that art.

When Mr. Doucet described infielders moving to serrer les lignes de demarcation in the late innings of a close game, listeners would envision the players hugging the foul lines to guard against an extra-base hit. And if a frappeur de puissance (as sluggers are now known) hit a fleche (an "arrow," or line drive) into the right-center field allee, listeners held their breath to hear whether the coureur (base-runner) would round third base and file vers le marbre (dash toward the "marble," or home plate).

Mr. Doucet, "created the perfect words" to bring the action to life, says Jean Lapointe, a popular Quebec entertainer who is now a member of Canada's Senate. "The quality of his language in French was incredible," says Mr. Lapointe, who used to have aides record games during his stage performances so he could listen to them later.

Sometimes, when groping for the right phrase, the broadcasters would ask listeners for suggestions. When Mr. Doucet and then-commentator Claude Raymond, a former big-league pitcher, couldn't come up with a good translation for "pickoff attempt," a University of Montreal professor came to the rescue with tentative de prendre a contre-pied, Mr. Doucet says. (That translates literally as "attempt to catch on the wrong foot.")

Beyond coining particular terms, however, Mr. Doucet's special talent lay in depicting baseball in French that "seemed so natural" that "it just worked," says Marc Robitaille, the author of "Un ete sans point ni coup sur," ("No-hit, No-run Summer"), a 2004 novel about a youngster captivated by baseball during the Expos' early days.

Baseball's 1994 labor stoppage, which led to the breakup of what had been a National League-leading Expos team, marked "the burial" of the franchise, says Montreal anthropologist Serge Bouchard. Still, he says, baseball retains a "very big place" in the "profoundly American" culture of French Canadians.
Even as attendance dwindled inside gloomy Olympic Stadium during the past decade, Mr. Doucet's accounts of the action remained part of summer's rhythm for thousands of listeners.

"For some people, summer is a Carlos Jobim song, the singing of birds or the murmur of streams; for me, summer is the voice of Jacques Doucet," mused Stephane Laporte in a column for Montreal's La Presse newspaper, as the Expos' demise began to look inevitable three years ago. "I won't miss millionaire players" or owners, he wrote. "But I'll miss the voice of Jacques Doucet for a long time."

In recent years, Internet users from France to Russia to Japan also tuned in, often peppering Mr. Doucet and his broadcast partner with emailed comments and questions.

A group of loyal fans mounted an email campaign to nominate Mr. Doucet for the Hall of Fame's annual broadcasting award for 2005, but the effort fell short. A Hall of Fame spokesman in Cooperstown, N.Y., says Mr. Doucet finished in the top 10 in online fan voting, with "a few thousand votes," but wasn't among the top three who made the final ballot.

SOURCE: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05154/515468.stm

Doucet got at least 50% of the vote, so he is on the ballot.

[jjpm74]

Doucet absolutely should be in this franchise's HOF.

[jalbright]

With the change in how long I'll allow nominations, there's under 3 days left for them.

[jjpm74]

Pedro Martinez:

19.2 WAR with the organization
In 1997, posted a WHIP of 0.932 and an ERA+ of 219
1 CY Young Award
2 AS selections
Pitched 9 perfect innings in a game on June 3, 1995 against San Diego before giving up a hit in the 10th inning.
In 1997, he was the first pitcher to record 300 strikeouts with an ERA under 2.00 since Walter Johnson

[dgarza]

Rusty Staub
Called "Le Grand Orange" when he played in Montreal.
While there, Staub made an attempt to learn some French, which helped endear him to the fans.

.295/.402/.497
149 OPS+
17.6 WAR - Staub's best seasons were in Montreal (1969 [6.1], 1970 [6.0], 1971 [5.5])

All-Star Games
1969
1970 *
1971
Staub was the Expos' lone representative at the All-Star Game those three seasons and was the star of the Expos.

Putouts as RF
1970 NL 308 (1st)

Assists as RF
1969 NL 16 (1st)
1970 NL 15 (1st)
1971 NL 20 (1st)

Range Factor/Game as RF
1970 NL 2.02 (1st)

[dgarza]

Larry Walker
.281/.357/.483
128 OPS+
20.1 WAR

All-Star Games
1992 *

Gold Gloves
1992 NL (OF)
1993 NL (OF)

Silver Sluggers
1992 NL (OF)

Possibly the best RF in all of MLB from 1989-1994 (Walker was 33.5 g/WAR; Gwynn was 36.4 g/WAR):

                                              
Rk          Player WAR/pos From   To   Age   G
1       Tony Gwynn    21.8 1989 1994 29-34 793
[B]2     [U]Larry Walker[/U]    20.1 1989 1994 22-27 674[/B]
3    Bobby Bonilla    18.8 1989 1994 26-31 855
4    David Justice    17.3 1989 1994 23-28 657
5     Jose Canseco    17.2 1989 1994 24-29 640

Doubles
1994 NL 44 (1st)

Assists as RF
1992 NL 16 (1st)

Total Zone Runs as RF
1993 NL 15 (1st)

Range Factor/9Inn as RF
1991 NL 2.54 (1st)

Range Factor/Game as RF
1991 NL 2.23 (1st)

[dgarza]

Dave Van Horne
Van Horne spent 32 years of his broadcasting career with the Montreal Expos.

Van Horne was the 2011 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award.

[dgarza]

Marquis Grissom

                                                                            
Year   Age  Tm  Lg   G   R   H  2B 3B HR RBI  SB CS   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS OPS+
MON (6 yrs)        698 430 747 130 23 54 276 266 48 .279 .331 .405 .736  101

19.2 WAR

All-Star Games
1993 (CF)
1994 *

Gold Gloves
1993 NL (OF)
1994 NL (OF)

Stolen Bases
1991 NL 76 (1st)
1992 NL 78 (1st)

Putouts as CF
1994 NL 322 (1st)

Assists as CF
1991 NL 13 (1st)

Total Zone Runs as CF
1993 NL 12 (1st)
1994 NL 19 (1st)

Range Factor/9Inn as CF
1991 NL 2.82 (1st)

Range Factor/Game as CF
1991 NL 2.75 (1st)
1994 NL 3.01 (1st)

Washington Nationals first base coach for the 2009 season

[dgarza]

Jeff Reardon
Franchise saves leader - 152
Franchise Games Finished leader - 281

                                                        
Year   Age  Tm  Lg  ERA   G  GF  SV    IP  SO ERA+  WHIP
MON (6 yrs)        2.84 359 281 152 506.1 398  126 1.173

All-Star Games
1985 *
1986

Awards
1985 NL Rolaids Relief

Saves
1985 NL 41 (1st)

[jalbright]

Nominations are now closed.

[jalbright]

This election is now open.

My ballot

Players
Marquis Grissom-Y
Pedro Martinez-Y
Jeff Reardon-N
Rusty Staub-Y
Larry Walker-Y

Contributors
Jacques Doucet-Y
Dave van Horne -N

[jjpm74]

Players:

Marquis Grissom-Y
Pedro Martinez-Y
Jeff Reardon-Y
Rusty Staub-Y
Larry Walker-Y

Contributors:

Jacques Doucet-Y
Dave van Horne-N

[NJRob65]

Players:

Marquis Grissom-N

Pedro Martinez-N

Jeff Reardon-N

Rusty Staub-N

Larry Walker-N

Contributors:

Jacques Doucet-Y

Dave van Horne-N

[dgarza]

Players:

Marquis Grissom-Y
Pedro Martinez-Y
Jeff Reardon-Y
Rusty Staub-Y
Larry Walker-Y

Contributors:

Jacques Doucet-Y
Dave van Horne-Y