Keg Party At My House, Joey!

Columns — By Ian Collier on January 16, 2009 2:57 pm

Podcast listeners will recall my reluctance to discuss Jim Rice’s Hall of Fame induction at length, favoring instead to talk about the welcome news that Rickey Henderson passed with flying colors.  Why focus on voter incompetence, inconsistency, and malleability when one can focus on what they got right?  Since then, however,  Rice’s comments regarding his induction and the comments of his most ardent supporters have irked me into tackling the issue full stride.

There seems to be the feeling in their minds that Rice’s induction was long-overdue, justice has been served, and his enshrinement was a no-brainer.  None of these are true.  Rice’s career deserved the careful and cautious consideration it was getting by those who want to ensure the integrity of the Hall of Fame and want to make sure only the very best of the best get their due.  Certain writers, namely Dan Shaugnessy of the Boston Globe, considered it sacrilege to question for even a moment the brilliance of Rice’s career.  Shaughnessy’s counter-argument to those who were left cold by Rice’s accomplishments essentially amounted to this paragraph from a December 11th column: “Guess you had to be there. Or maybe talk to some of the players and managers who were there. Rice was dominant. Rice was feared.”

Which brings me to the point of this article.  Remember Albert Belle?  I don’t blame you if you don’t.  Even when he was arguably the best hitter in baseball throughout the mid-90′s, he wasn’t given the credit his awesome talents seemed to merit, essentially due to his tumultuous relationship with the media and eventual Stonewalling of beat writers altogether.  Albert Belle was forced to retire following the 2000 season at the age of 33 due to a chronic hip ailment.  He played 12 seasons, compiling 381 home runs, 1239 RBI, and a career OPS+ 143.  He had 162-game career averages of .295 / .369 / .564.  He is the only player in Major League history to amass 50 home runs and 50 doubles in the same season, which he did in his ridiculous 1995 campaign.  To go along with these accomplishments, he was one of only two players whose very presence in the on-deck circle made my sainted mother use profanity (the other being Edgar Martinez).  For that fact alone, he should be in the Hall of Fame.  Talk about feared.

Jim Rice played 16 seasons, or exactly 4 more than Albert Belle.  He hit 382 home runs, or exactly 1 more than Mr. Freeze.  Rice knocked in 1451 runs over those 16 years.  On a relatively meaningless sidenote, that’s an easily attainable average of 53 RBI a year over the 4 “missing” years of Belle’s career – but of course, Hall of Fame voters do not, nor should they, make assumptions about what a player MIGHT have done.  Rice’s seasonal average was .298 / .352 / .502.  He had a career OPS+ of 128.  Those are the statistical comparisons, and they are clearly apt.  Belle, for his career, had 17 points of OBP and 62 points of SLG over Rice.  Belle played in an era that was more conducive to offense, so his OPS+ (which is league/era adjusted) gives him a still-sizable 15 point edge.

(Another side bar – one might think a lack of support for Belle’s cause would stem from steroid suspicions and the general questions that spring to mind when discussing offensive numbers from the mid-nineties.  But consider this, and take it for what it’s worth – Jose Canseco himself claims Belle is “one of the very few superstars from that era who never used steroids”.  Belle’s response: “Great.  I have a criminal on my side.”)

Other barometers people use when discussing Hall of Fame worthiness are All-Star game appearances and MVP Awards.  Let’s use these two players to discuss the idiocy of that concept.  Rice was an 8-time All Star and winner of the 1978 AL MVP Award.  In comparison, Albert Belle was a 4-time All-Star who never won an MVP Award.  But take a look at Belle’s 1995 season, where he finished second in voting to Mo Vaughn.  Belle hit .317 / .401 / .690, amassing 50 home runs and 126 RBI.  His OPS+ that season was 177, and his Cleveland Indians made the playoffs and advanced to the World Series, eliminating any “non-contender” factors from his low vote total.  Mo Vaughn, whose Red Sox also advanced to the playoffs, hit .300 / .388 / .575, with 39 homers alongside 126 RBI, an OPS+ of 144.  Belle had 17 points of average, 13 points of OBP, and an absured 115 points of SLG, while having the advantage of playing the outfield while Vaughn played first base, but still came up short with voters.  And to the All-Star voting argument – in 1998, a season in which Belle hit 49 home runs and a career-high 152 RBI, to go with a scary .328 / .399 / .655 line, Albert was not named the American League All-Star team.

In 2006, Albert Belle became eligible for the Hall of Fame.  He received 7.7% of the electorate’s vote, making him eligible (just barely) to be considered for the honor the next year.  In 2007, his support shrunk to 19 votes, or 3.5%, dropping him off the ballot for good.  Compare this to Rice’s 2009 support – 412 votes, a 72.2% share.  Was Jim Rice 68.7% better than Albert Belle?  Can anyone make that argument?

There are numerous issues people – and by people, I mean baseball writers – have with Albert Belle.  He was reportedly surly, uncooperative with writers, moody, and violent.  There are tons of stories abound about Albert.  Yankees fans who have read Buster Olney’s “Last Night of the Yankees Dynasty” might recall an anecdote in which Belle smashed a thermostat a teammate had adjusted because he liked the clubhouse cold – earning him the nickname “Mr. Freeze”.  He threw a baseball into the stands in 1990 and hurt a fan who was heckling him over his past problems with alcohol.  He bumped a kid with his car after his house was egged.  He stalked a woman and got 90 days in jail.  But as this terrific piece points out, for all of Belle’s problems as a human being, he’s got plenty of support from former teammates and coaches who say that whoever Belle was to the media – the mean, angry, unhinged thug – he was somebody totally different in real life.  But stop giving interviews to the guys who vote, and watch your Hall chances fall by the wayside.  Furthermore, the people who like to make decisions based on cold, hard facts – statisticians and analysts who work outside of MLB clubhouses and don’t know the players they evaluate – could care less what kind of person Albert Belle was.  The numbers don’t lie.  Albert Belle was at the very least the equal of Jim Rice as a baseball player.  These are the things you would hope matter when it comes time to honor the greats of the sport.

Finally, the point of all this.  It isn’t to build up Albert Belle’s Hall of Fame case – that’s a moot point anyway, as he’ll never be there, and he doesn’t have one anyway.  The point is that to elect players based on intangible, unprovable, and altogether meaningless arguments – “most feared” et al – is to pervert justice and degrade the sanctity of the Hall of Fame.  It’s a slippery slope from Jim Rice on down.

Tags: Albert Belle, Jim Rice