MLB Showdown Obsession

Life is hard for a defending champion. No matter how you got there last year, you are the toast of the town and the last team standing as you hold your championship trophy high...but now there's no escaping the fate for next year. Everyone is gunning for you, and you have the biggest of targets on your back. And the only question anyone has for you next year is the timeless: think you can repeat? And if the pressure of defending a championship wasn't bad enough, try defending a championship after having an all-time great season. After sweeping their way to the title in '27, Miller Huggins and the Murderers Row Yankees were for the most part back in 1928. On the American League side, the only hope of resistance was coming from the Philadelphia Athletics, and while they put up quite a fight and the Yankees did regress from their legendary win total, the 101-53 record was sufficient enough to claim their third straight AL flag. In the World Series, the last hope left to stop ...

 No Old-Timers Committee in 1952, so the only hope for inductions were in the BBWAA vote, which thankfully submitted two men for enshrinement. Paul "Big Poison" Waner wasn't the only member of his family on the ballot in 1952. His brother Lloyd "Little Poison" Waner only received once vote and would go on to need the help of the Veterans Committee to follow his brother into the Hall of Fame.

 1950 sucked. No one got the needed amount of votes to receive enshrinement, the Old-Timers Committee didn't meet and they didn't allow any run-off election for any second look vote. No one got into the Hall of Fame. It was clear that easy options were no longer on the table, but 1951 was a bounce back year where the BBWAA gave the green light to two men. Mel Ott and Jimmie Foxx (the second X is for eXtreme) joined the fraternity.

 As I continue this arduous task of mine to chronicle every member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, I take a moment to reflect on where I am at and what is to come. At publishing, it is almost time for my annual special where I highlight everyone on the 2025 ballot, and I realize I have about 75 years worth of HoF classes to run through. If I were to dedicate this blog to just HoF classes in an attempt to catch up, ignoring all other themes and series I am running, then one year from now I would still be playing catch up. At least I have a supply of content for the next while... Anyway, the 1949 class gave us another first when it came to the voting. In the last update, I mentioned how the voters have the option for a run-off election if their first vote did not result in anyone getting the required 75%. This situation came about in 1949, with the highest percentage going to Charlie Gehringer at 66.7%. The top 20 losers all advanced to the run-off round, where only Gehringer received ...

 The Mets are like a Chinese knock-off toy. You know, when you go to a 99cent city in the basement level of a sketchy mall where they have that weird toy section in the back where you find a Spider-Man figure painted to look like Batman and the package is labeled as "Super Team Force" or something that can't be sued over...yeah, that's the Mets. When you take a NY Giants figure, paint it to look like the Brooklyn Dodgers, add Yankees pinstripes for good measure and label the package "New York Baseball Team" or "New York Metropolitan Players" Anyway, all kidding aside, here are the famous New York Metropolitan players. #14 - Gil Hodges Gil Hodges was another Brooklyn Dodger great who came "home" in 1962 when the Mets franchise was born. At the tail end of his career, there wasn't much we has able to accomplish. Right as his playing days concluded, he switched to managing, In 1968, he took control of the Mets and was the man in charge w...

 It's always interesting to read up on some history and notice how things were different back in the day. For example: Today if the Hall of Fame vote happens and nobody gets elected, then the baseball world awkwardly shrugs and waits to try again next year. Once upon a time, however, that wouldn't be good enough, as there were suggestions to create a run-off round of voting if no one gained 75% on the first try. As for voting like the Old-Timers Committee, there was no schedule and they met whenever they felt like it to nominate a player from long ago for immortalization. Such rules were in place around 1948. Thankfully, the regular vote only needed one try to find worthy players to make plaques for, so Herb Pennock and Pie Traynor didn't need a re-do. It's funny when you see how strict and rigid the scheduling and standards are for voting today, then gaze into the past and see that there was a period where baseball was still ironing out the kinks in the process. Fun fa...

 The Chicago White Sox have dealt with their fair share of problems, yet suffered mostly in silence. In Chicago, their title drought was overshadowed by the longer drought of the Cubs. They can't even get attention as the most tortured item of laundry, for even though the White and Red Sox both had pretty much the same inability to win the World Series after their respective 1917 and 1918 titles, the Red Sox got the attention. It's all about branding, I guess. Blaming your failures on a goat or the single worst trade in baseball history is good for marketing, while Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox scandal...not so much. So while the South Siders couldn't bank on victory for the better part of 90 years between titles, they still had a solid assortment of men to represent them. 11 players in total, which is a surprising number for some, were deemed legendary enough to be remembered by the team that actually wears black socks (and red for a while) as their uniform... #2 ...