A Review of the Classics

While the baseball world waits to see if Ichiro Suzuki becomes just the second player to earn unanimous induction to the Hall of Fame on the 2025 BBWAA ballot, another crop of Hall hopefuls is ready to hear the results of the semi-regular, often renamed Classic Baseball Era Committee.

Once upon a time, I looked down on those who entered the Hall by this back door, reasoning that if they couldn’t get on the writers’ ballot, then they didn’t deserve it. But I’m happy to say I’m no longer so harsh, as recent inductees from Ron Santo to Fred McGriff are justifiable selections, in my opinion. I know it’s fashionable to dump on Bob Costas these days, but I thought he summed up the process nicely when he referred to it as something along the lines of “baseball’s ultimate appeals court.”

So what does this judge think of those eight players up for consideration? Here’s a brief rundown of the merits of each, with my coffee-stained assessment of whether a plaque will soon be in order.

John Donaldson, LHP

I had never heard of Donaldson before this year’s ballot, but the more I read, the more intrigued I became. Basically he was Satchel Paige before Satchel Paige – a showman who did stuff like order his teammates off the field while pitching. He also may well have invented the slider some two decades before it showed up in the Majors, and was known by the nickname “Famous.” The numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt – one historian came up with 413 wins, 5,091 strikeouts and 14 no-hitters, but even this was against competition of questionable quality around North America in the first half of the 20th century. Still, I’m a sucker for these types of mythical supermen, and I think there’s room in the Hall for more greats of Black baseball as their hidden legacies are revealed. He’s a longshot, but I say send him in!

Vic Harris, OF/Manager

It appears that Harris was a good but not great hitter – Baseball Reference gives him a .303 career average with a 112 OPS+. But his real claim to fame came as player-manager for the Homestead Grays, the powerhouse team that won seven Negro National League pennants and a World Series under his watch. To this point, only one Negro League manager – Rube Foster, who was also an owner and founding figure – is in the Hall of Fame. I don’t think Harris will get in, but if we can honor managers from Al López to Dick Williams to Jim Leyland, then we should consider doing the same for their successful counterparts in Black baseball.

Ken Boyer, 3B

Boyer was before my time, so I have to rely on the numbers instead of any memories of his gifts as a ballplayer. What I see is an impressively steady offense performer – he compiled exactly 24 home runs for four straight years – who hit for a good average with solid pop and got on base at a decent clip. He also won five Gold Gloves – with the metrics backing up the hardware  – was named an All-Star in seven separate seasons and claimed the 1964 NL MVP. Overall, it seems to me that Boyer was more of a second-tier star, behind Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson and a few others from the era, and he had neither the lifetime numbers nor string of superlative individual seasons to get him over the top, although he came pretty close.

Dick Allen, 1B/3B

There are two reasons why Allen isn’t yet in the Hall of Fame – he was considered a jerk by a sizable contingent of the voting bloc, and he didn’t have the massive counting numbers that would have rendered his personality irrelevant to the discussion. In regards to the former, Allen at least no longer faces the judgment of writers who were rubbed the wrong way in a locker room encounter decades ago. And while his lifetime numbers haven’t budged since he retired in 1977, we now realize that it’s rate stats that made him special: a .292/.378/.534 line for a 156 OPS+, the latter tying him with Frank Thomas and ranking just ahead of Aaron, Mays and Joe DiMaggio. That sounds to me like a Hall of Famer, concerns about his defense or prickliness notwithstanding.

Steve Garvey, 1B

As I mentioned in my bittersweet recall of the 1981 World Series, Garvey was one of the game’s biggest stars of my early childhood (even if he was starting to decline by that point). He offered an ideal blend of power and average in his prime, topping .300 seven times, 200 hits six times and 100 RBI five times, and very much deserves credit for the durability that produced an NL-record 1,207 consecutive games played. Nowadays, we can see that Garvey’s all-around performance was dragged down by a modest .329 OBP, and his defense wasn’t all that good despite four Gold Gloves. Even that 1974 MVP is a bit suspect, as Johnny Bench and Mike Schmidt look like more worthy recipients from this standpoint. With just 38.0 bWAR to his name, Garvey will be remembered as a standout for some excellent Dodger teams, but not as an all-time great.

Tommy John, LHP

John certainly has his supporters, and I get it – he pitched for more than a quarter-century, accumulated nearly 300 career wins and was the first to come back from the radical elbow surgery that now bears his name. But I like my Hall of Famers to be dominant, and that just wasn’t the case with this prototypical crafty lefty. Although he finished in the top five in Cy Young voting three times in a four-year span (amazingly, after the operation), John was named an All-Star just four times in 26 seasons and also topped 5.0 bWAR only four times. He’s a no for me, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he got in.

Dave Parker, OF

My favorite ballplayer as a kid was Dave Winfield, and Parker was very much in the same vein – a massive, intimidating slugger with a booming bat and a rifle for an arm. He also had that great stance where he hunched over at the plate until unloading on a pitch, hence the wonderfully descriptive nickname of “Cobra.” At his best, Parker was a Hall-of-Fame-level bat – he led the NL in batting average, slugging percentage and doubles twice, and hits and RBI once apiece. That prowess produced an MVP Award in 1978 and top five finishes on four other occasions. Yet his lifetime bWAR stands at a middle-of-the-pack 40.1, a reflection of his inability to sustain his All-Star form for more than a few seasons. Sadly, the Cobra’s Hall chances would look a lot better if he hadn’t been hampered by injuries and his dalliances with drugs in the middle of his prime, but as is, he’s a difficult no.

Luis Tiant, RHP

I went back and forth on this one a few times, and I’m still not even sure where I’m going to end up as I type this. On the plus side, “El Tiante” won 20 games four times (back when we cared more about that), led the league in ERA twice and in shutouts three times. He was also a colorful character and a fan favorite, and yes, I do think that counts for something. On the negative side, he didn’t rack up a ton of Cy Young support (although he finished fifth in MVP voting in 1968) and he was named an All-Star just three times. Ugh. I think Tiant is one of those guys where if you let him in, then you have to wonder why pitchers from Vida Blue to Kevin Brown are on the outside. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised – or upset, for that matter – if El Tiante got the call this time.

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.