In the final installment of a 3-part series on the “Today’s Game” Hall of Fame ballot, I’m going to discuss the candidacies of the three gentlemen on the ten-man ballot who did not play or manage on the field. The candidates are former Commissioner Bud Selig, former Royals and Braves General Manager John Schuerholz and former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.
As a reminder, potential Cooperstown inductees will be chosen by a sixteen-member committee. 12 out of 16 votes are required for induction into the Hall.
George Steinbrenner
Let’s start with the flamboyant, bombastic longtime owner of the New York Yankees. If being famous was the primary qualification to enter baseball’s Hall of Fame, George Steinbrenner would be an automatic selection. From the mid-1970’s until his death in 2010, Steinbrenner was one of the most well-known public figures in New York City, a Big Apple icon even bigger than a certain real estate developer who would later become president.
It’s easy to be cynical about the idea of George Steinbrenner being in the Hall of Fame alongside Reggie Jackson and Goose Gossage, Yankee legends who delighted The Boss with two World Series titles in 1977 and 1978, or Joe Torre and future inductees Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, who delivered five championships.
The case for George, I suppose, is that he was the singular MLB owner who understood the power of free agency. He actively recruited Reggie to New York in the off-season between 1976 and 1977, signed him to a five-year, $3 million deal (a lot of money back then) and opened his wallet again for the Goose a year later, even though he already had a Cy Young Award winning relief pitcher in Sparky Lyle. And, in the winter before the 1981 season, Steinbrenner famously inked Padres superstar Dave Winfield to a 10-year, $23 million contract, then the biggest contract in the history of sports. Unfortunately for Big Dave, his signing coincided with the Bronx Bombers’ 18-year title drought and a decade of feuding with The Boss. That contract seems so quaint now, doesn’t in, in an age where Giancarlo Stanton has inked a 13-year, $325 million deal?
Besides the recruitment of Reggie, you can make the case that it was George who made the brilliant decision to cut ties with enigmatic and erratic manager Billy Martin during the ’78 season, replacing him with the more even-tempered Bob Lemon in the Bronx Bombers’ 2nd title run. Of course, you could make the case on the other side that the managerial carousel in New York made the Yankees the laughing-stock as well as the envy of the rest of baseball. King George hired and fired Martin so often (five times in total) that Miller Lite made a commercial making fun of it.
As ESPN’s Buster Olney (an advocate for Steinbrenner’s Hall of Fame case) noted, The Boss made the phrase “You’re Fired” a popular one in New York City long before the star of The Apprentice.
From 1973 to 1995, Steinbrenner changed skippers 20 times before hiring Joe Torre for the 1996 season. Torre of course rewarded The Boss with four World Championships and lasted 12 years in the Bronx.
There aren’t a lot of team owners who are currently in the Hall of Fame (and most are from the 19th century or the first half of the 20th) but the precedent is there. Longtime Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley is in the Hall of Fame. Longtime Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey is in the Hall despite his team winning nothing while he was there. Bill Veeck is in the Hall and, in the case most analogous to Steinbrenner’s, Jacob Ruppert (who was the owner of the Babe Ruth-era Yankees), was enshrined in the Hall of 2013, albeit 74 years after his death.
If you are a Yankee fan, you loved how much George cared about winning. I’ll give him credit for being the decision-maker in the Reggie Jackson signing (manager Martin wanted Joe Rudi instead). I’ll give him credit for hiring Torre. Now, it’s true that he was a hands-on owner who was involved in big-ticket decision-making and that his teams won seven championships but it’s the General Managers (Gabe Paul in the ‘70’s and Gene Michael, Bob Watson and Brian Cashman in the ‘90’s and ‘00’s) who deserve the lion’s share of the team-building credit.
This is the reason why I’m conflicted about King George in the Hall of Fame. The argument can be made that the Yankees won 7 world championships despite his meddling just as well as you can make the argument that they won those titles because he set the tone for the franchise. No team owner in baseball in the last half century demanded World Series titles more than The Boss did. If setting the tone is the cornerstone of leadership, you can’t argue with the results.
The Hall of Fame is a museum of the history of baseball and George Steinbrenner is as much a part of the game’s history from the mid-1970’s to the year of his death as any player or manager.
This is the third time that Steinbrenner has been on the ballot of some version of the Hall of Fame’s “Veteran’s Committee.” The most recent time was just two years ago, when the committee unanimously elected Torre and fellow managers Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox.
In neither appearance on the ballot did the blustery king of the New York tabloids get a lot of support and I wouldn’t think he’ll get much this year either. The list of 16 panelists contains no obvious advocates or allies, with no former players. The one committee member with any connection to the Yankees is Bobby Cox, who was Martin’s first base coach during the 1977 title run.
However, the list of players on the ballot is highly flawed so there’s a chance that it will finally happen and New York City will get a famous citizen into the Hall of Fame one month after getting another famous citizen into the White House.
John Schuerholz
Let’s turn now to another non-player who had a great impact on the sport and that’s the former General Manager of the Kansas City Royals and Atlanta Braves, John Schuerholz.
The now 75-year old Schuerholz got his start in the Baltimore Orioles organization in 1967 and joined the expansion Royals two years later, slowly working his way up the organizational ladder until he became farm director in 1976, Scouting Director from 1977 to 1980, assistant GM in 1981 and General Manager from 1982 to 1990.
In October 1990, he left the Royals to become General Manager of the Braves, replacing Bobby Cox, who had taken over the team as manager during the season and had been serving the dual role of manager and GM. Schuerholz remained the team’s GM until 2007, after which he relinquished the title to Frank Wren and became the team’s President.
Schuerholz, as a team-builder, watched his teams win a whopping 15 division titles as well as World Championships in 1985 (with the Royals) and 1995 (with the Braves).
The last GM to get the nod into Cooperstown was Pat Gillick, who was the architect of the Toronto Blue Jays two championships (1992 and 1993) and won a third title with the Philadelphia Phillies title in 2008. Gillick was also responsible for constructing the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who won 116 games but failed to advance to the World Series. Gillick entered the Hall of Fame in 2012 and is sitting on the committee evaluating Schuerholz and the other 9 candidates this weekend.
It is very easy to look at Schuerholz’s decades-long record and rubber stamp his entry into the Hall but I’m going to focus the lens a bit and point out some things that you might assume he was responsible for which he wasn’t.
Let’s start with the Royals, remembering that he served in multiple capacities before assuming the GM reins in 1982:
- He was not responsible for the Royals team’s four division titles and pennant from 1976-1980.
- In the eight years that he was the team’s GM, the best #1 draft pick was pitcher Kevin Appier (in 1987), a solid pitcher but not a Hall of Famer.
- He did draft Bret Saberhagen in the 19th round of the 1982 draft and Bo Jackson in the 4th round of the ’86 draft. Saberhagen was instrumental in the team’s World Series victory, pitching two complete games while giving up just one run.
- The rest of the players on the ’85 Kansas City squad who were “Royals originals” were not drafted while Schuerholz was the GM, although one would assume he played a significant role as Scouting Director and Farm Director.
- From 1983-’85 he did trade a bunch of mostly nobodies for pitcher Charlie Liebrandt, first baseman Steve Balboni and catcher Jim Sundberg, all key members of the title team. In fairness, he traded catcher Don Slaught (a decent catcher, not a nobody) for Sundberg.
- He did make a doozy of a bad trade in March 1987 when he sent David Cone to the New York Mets for the immortal Ed Hearn and Rick Anderson. He also traded Liebrandt and Danny Jackson in subsequent years without getting much in return.
So Schuerholz’s record in Kansas City is solid but not uniquely spectacular. As GM, the team had the title run in 1985 and one other division title (in 1984) but he was also at the helm at the beginning of the team’s playoff drought that would not end until 2014.
Schuerholz’s record in Atlanta was something quite different indeed and one can assume is the cornerstone of what will get him into Cooperstown. He took over in the fall of 1990 and the team immediately went from last place to first place in the National League East, made it all the way to the classic Game 7 of the World Series in Minnesota and proceeded to win every single NL West or NL East title until 2006. The record of 14 straight division crowns is one that is unmatched in baseball history.
Of course, Bobby Cox and the players deserve a little bit of credit for that post-season run as well.
Anyway, here are the highs and lows of Schuerholz’s tenure with the Braves:
- Just to set the record straight, he did not draft Tom Glavine, David Justice or Chipper Jones or make the brilliant Doyle Alexander-for-John Smoltz trade. These cornerstone Braves, two of which are in the Hall of Fame already and another of which (Jones) certainly will be when he’s eligible next year, are the product of Cox’s tenure as the team’s GM, not Schuerholz’s.
- Because of the team’s year-to-year success, the Braves never drafted close to the top of the first round during Schuerholz’s tenure but the team’s cadre of picks in the opening round of the player draft are poor. The most well-known player drafted in the first round was Adam Wainwright, but he was shipped to St. Louis while still a minor leaguer in a trade that netted J.D. Drew. The high-touted Drew had a fantastic year in his lone year in a Braves uniform before signing as a free agent with the Dodgers.
- The only other first-round draft picks that you’re likely to even have heard of are Jason Marquis, Jeff Francoeur, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, and Jason Heyward. Must be something about the letter “J” for John Schuerholz.
- Under Schuerholz’s watch, the Braves did make a few good later round draft picks but not a whole lot for a 17-year period. The most notable names are Jason Schmidt, Kevin Millwood, Jermaine Dye, John Rocker, Adam LaRoche and Brian McCann.
Overall, between his record with the Royals and Braves, you would not put John Schuerholz in the Hall of Fame because of his team’s drafting record as a GM. It was through trades and free agent signings, specifically with Atlanta, that build a nice Cooperstown resume. Here are the highlights:
- In April 1991, he traded two unknowns to the Expos for outfielder Otis Nixon, a key member of the ’92 and ’93 pennant winners.
- In August 1991, he traded reliever Tony Castillo and someone named Joe Roa to the New York Mets for reliever Alejandro Pena. OK, so Pena was the losing pitcher to Jack Morris in the famous Game 7 but he was a significant part of the reason the team made it to the Fall Classic, saving three games in the NLCS against Pittsburgh.
- In August 1992, he traded two unknowns to the Red Sox for veteran reliever Jeff Reardon, who helped the team down the stretch and played a key role in the NLCS against Pittsburgh.
- In probably his best trade, in July 1993, he acquired first baseman Fred McGriff from the Padres for three players that only a die-hard fan will have ever heard of. 1993 featured a classic pennant race, with the 104-win Braves barely beating out the 103-win San Francisco Giants for the NL West title. They would never have won it without the Crime Dog, who also was a part of the ’95 World Series Champion lineup.
- In April 1995, right as the players’ strike was ending, he traded Roberto Kelly, Tony Tarasco and Esteban Yan to the Expos for Marquis Grissom, who was a key member of the 1995 title team.
- This was kind of an even trade, but in August 1996, he traded Jason Schmidt to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Denny Neagle, who would be a fixture in the team’s rotation for the next two years before a trade to Cincinnati for Bret Boone and Mike Remlinger.
- In January 2002, he traded Brian Jordan, Odalis Perez and Andrew Brown to the Dodgers for Gary Sheffield. Jordan had been a productive player in Atlanta but he only had one decent year in Los Angeles before the final four years of his career as in injured or part-time player. In the meantime, Sheffield had two excellent seasons in Atlanta, including a magnificent 2003 campaign in which he hit 39 homers, drove in 132 runners and had a slugging percentage of 1.032 (netting a 3rd place MVP finish).
- In December 2004, he traded three players who would amount to nothing in the majors for pitcher Tim Hudson, who won 113 games in 9 solid years with the Braves.
- In July 2007, he sent Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, Matt Harrison, and Saltalamacchia to the Texas Rangers for Mark Teixeira. If you look at Tex’s sterling career since then, this looks like a fair swap but the Braves didn’t follow through on signing a long-term deal with Teixeira and Schuerholz’s successor (Frank Wren) dealt him to the Angels the following summer.
In seventeen years as the team’s General Manager, I can only count just two poor trades made by John Schuerholz against many great ones. The first bad deal was when he sent Ryan Klesko and Bret Boone to the Padres for Reggie Sanders, Wally Joyner and Quilvio Veras, none of whom made a major impact in Atlanta. The second was the Wainwright for one year of Drew deal.
Anyway, in addition to the multitude of solid trades, Schuerholz also was responsible for several shrewd free agent signings, and I’m not just talking about the obvious one of Greg Maddux, a Cy Young Award winning pitcher coveted by many other teams. I’m talking about signing Terry Pendleton, who would go on to win the MVP Award in his first season with the Braves, leading the “worst-to-first” charge. The Braves won the 1991 NL West title by just one game; they would never have won it or made it to the Fall Classic without Pendleton.
Other significant free agent signings include Sid Bream to play first base and 16-year old Andruw Jones (who would win 10 Gold Gloves) as an amateur free agent. I’m also talking about the amateur free agent signing of Rafael Furcal, who would become Rookie of the Year in 2000 and deliver 21.7 Wins Above Replacement in six years with the Braves.
Often forgotten was Schuerholz’s signing of Andres Galarraga from Colorado after the ’97 season. Even after leaving the cozy confines of Coors Field, the Big Cat would blast 44 home runs in ’98, finish 6th in the MVP voting and helping the Braves back to the World Series. And I’m talking about the November 1998 signing of the Cardinals’ Brian Jordan, who gave the team three very good years before being part of the Sheffield deal.
For the record of 14 straight division titles and the role that he played, both with good to great trades and solid free agent signings, John Schuerholz deserves to be in the Hall of Fame and I’m fairly certain that the “Today’s Game” committee of 16 will see it that way too.
Bud Selig
Well, this should be the easiest selection of all and, as I’ve written previously, it almost seems as if most of the others on this year’s ballot were chosen to make it easy for the former commissioner to glide into Cooperstown. All seven of the players and managers selected all have significant arguments against them.
First of all, I would be shocked if Allan H. “Bud” Selig doesn’t gain induction into the Hall of Fame later today, truly shocked. And it may well be unanimous. It’s almost considered a routine courtesy in the history of the Hall to induct long-standing commissioners. Kennesaw Mountain Landis, Happy Chandler, Ford Frick, and Bowie Kuhn all had bestowed upon them the honor of a plaque in Cooperstown.
Selig, who previously was the long-time owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, presided over the game of baseball for seventeen years. During his tenure, popular innovations such as interleague play, wild card teams and instant replay became mainstream. Attendance has soared and revenues are so high that players are being signed for $200 or $300 million contracts.
But there are obviously two massive blemishes on Bud Selig’s record. These two blemishes are literally two of the five greatest travesties in the history of the sport. The first of course is the cancellation of the 1994 World Series due to an impasse in labor negotiations after a player’s strike. While it’s true that Selig was merely an “interim” commissioner at the time with reduced powers conferred upon him by ownership, it did happen while he had a period of great influence. Not even two World Wars stopped the World Series from being played and it happened under Bud’s watch.
The other blemish is the scandal of the rampant use of Performance Enhancing drugs throughout the 1990’s and the early part of the new century. The ramifications of the steroid era are still being felt in the Hall of Fame voting and will continue to be felt for years or even decades. The all-time leader in home runs (Barry Bonds) is not in the Hall of Fame. A pitcher with 354 wins and 7 Cy Young Awards (Roger Clemens) is not in the Hall of Fame. Five members of the 500 home run club (Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Gary Sheffield) have thusfar been shunned in the Hall of Fame voting and another (Manny Ramirez) will almost certainly join their ranks this year. Not to mention the seventh (Alex Rodriguez) who will be eligible in five years. Terrific players are being squeezed out of the Hall of Fame because the writers are limited to ten names and nearly half of them are voting for Bonds and Clemens every year.
The whole PED mess happened during Bud Selig’s tenure as commissioner. Again, he’s not fully to blame. The players, even the clean ones, are partially to blame. The collective media (including myself), which delighted in the McGwire-Sosa home run chase even though it was so obvious that something was amiss, is partially to blame.
Selig almost certainly would have liked to impose a testing regimen much sooner than the eventual implementation in 2005 but he couldn’t get it done. A once in a generation leader would have convinced the owners to give the players’ union a big financial concession in exchange for a PED testing program but he didn’t make that sale. I don’t know how hard he even tried.
Again, the PED era happened on Bud Selig’s watch and the record book is ruined forever because of it. It took a book by Jose Canseco and a Congressional subpoena to really get the ball rolling on drug testing. That happened after over a decade of tainted performances.
If you recall, I said there were five major travesties in baseball history. The other three are the Black Sox scandal of 1919 (when members of the Chicago White Sox purposely lost the World Series because they were paid by gamblers), the Pete Rose gambling scandal, and the exclusion of African-Americans from the major leagues until 1947. Kennesaw Mountain Landis, who was given broad powers as the commissioner in the wake of the Black Sox scandal, offered no leadership whatsoever in the integration of the game. That leadership fell to Brooklyn Dodgers GM Branch Rickey. But Landis is in the Hall of Fame anyway despite his role in keeping the sport segregated.
So, I’m going to finish with this. If you feel that Bud Selig should be in the Hall of Fame despite having the canceled World Series and PED era on his watch, I’m not going to argue with you. I think the totality of his accomplishments and his stewardship of the sport are great enough that he deserves a plaque in Cooperstown with the other long-time commissioners.
But I’m going to state emphatically here that, if Bud Selig deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, then it’s time to let the truly great steroid-using players from the PED era into the Hall of Fame as well and that starts with Mark McGwire. From my perspective, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t exclude the players but include the man who presided over the sport when it happened.
Look, I get the other side of that argument: “Bonds cheated. Clemens cheated. McGwire cheated. Selig didn’t cheat.”
I know that many, many players cheated their fellow players by giving themselves a chemically induced advantage. But the players, their union, the owners and the commissioner let it happen for a long time. If you were a player during the PED era and you knew that other players are using steroids and the league doesn’t give a rat’s turd, PED’s would be mighty tempting.
In this sorry drama, almost everyone is a victim and almost everyone is a villain. The players who didn’t use steroids are victims because they played at a competitive disadvantage. Most of these players are villains as well because they didn’t push their union to take on the issue. The players who did use PED’s are villains, to be sure, but they’re also victims. Many users and abusers watched the sport do nothing about it, didn’t want to be at that competitive disadvantage, and started using if for no other reason than to keep up with the Joneses. And now these users are pariahs, denied the honor of a Hall of Fame plaque that many of them would easily have earned if steroids had never been invented.
Bud Selig should be in the Hall of Fame. For my money, Mark McGwire should be in also. If you’re going to admit the enabler, you admit the user.
Anyway, to wrap up, there are 10 people being considered for the Hall of Fame by the 16-member committee. Any member can vote for up to four individuals but don’t have to vote for any. As someone who feels the modern era is vastly underrepresented in Cooperstown compared to the first half of the 20th century, I’m in the “more the merrier” camp. So I’m going to rank these ten men, in order my perceived worthiness, with the top four being who I would actually vote for (because four is the limit):
- John Schuerholz
- Bud Selig
- Mark McGwire
- Orel Hershiser
- George Steinbrenner
- Albert Belle
- Davey Johnson
- Will Clark
- Lou Piniella
- Harold Baines
To me, Schuerholz and Selig are easy choices. I’ve also stated my reasons for selecting McGwire. The fourth pick is tougher because Hershiser’s peak of excellence was brief (6 years) and because Steinbrenner’s reign in the Bronx was so tumultuous and controversial. If I were one of the sixteen panelists sitting in the room and felt that there was an emerging consensus in favor of Steinbrenner, I’d probably join the group and let Hershiser get another shot in the future.
Thanks for reading.
Chris Bodig