In the early efforts to build and grow a roster of baseball’s immortals, third basemen were notably absent from the Hall of Fame select. It took almost a decade to promote a hot corner magician into the hallowed ranks, a filter that in 1945 finally summoned 19th/20th century third sacker Jimmy Collins for a permanent residence in Cooperstown. Since then, only 12 others who played at least 60% of their games at third have been invited to join Collins – a list heavy on seminal names but short on volume.
Of the 13, five share a certain claim: league leadership among position players in bWAR in a given season. In other words, a case as the very best in the AL or NL at a particular moment. Mike Schmidt holds the most boasts, with four seasons as the National League’s finest. Wade Boggs led the AL in bWAR three times and Brooks Robinson twice did this. Ron Santo and George Brett each have one such high point.
The Cubs great and Royals icon (as well as Collins and his fellow Hall of Famers Home Run Baker, Pie Traynor, George Kell, Eddie Mathews, Chipper Jones, Scott Rolen and Adrian Beltré) lag behind another third-sacker in this “best in the league in a season” category: Graig Nettles. The defensive virtuoso led AL position players in 1971 and 1976 – apex campaigns in a 22-year career that claimed six All-Star nods, five pennants, a home run title, a 1981 ALCS MVP, a pair of Gold Gloves, and so many flashes of leather as to outfit a Schott NYC exhibit.
A reel of Nettles’ career would – for all its exclamatory-worthy, sit-up-in-your-seat visual highlights and statistical proclamations of power – be forced to end on a much more subdued tone, with the afterword admitting that he never received more than 8.3% of the vote on a Hall of Fame ballot and fell away after four years of consideration. This juxtaposition feels incongruous, a flat and forgettable summation for a player who generated crests of pulsation and a memorable, long-rippling imprint.
Nettles crouched at the hot corner for the very time on September 14, 1968. Sharing an infield with Rod Carew, he handled three chances all to the good while singling and scoring a run. 20 years and 10 days later, his final steerage at the position arrived, giving him more games at third base than anyone but Robinson (Beltré would later surpass Nettles’ tally).
It was a journey that – with his peaks offering texture around a two-decade steadiness – ultimately speaks of an immense contribution at his spot on the diamond, one that settles in comfortably amid the position’s nobility. Among all 13 Hall of Famers, Nettles’ overall 67.9 bWAR would place him between Rolen and Baker, at 10th. His 52.7 offensive WAR would sit between Rolen and Robinson, and again would rank 10th. His 21.4 defensive WAR flips the status considerably, here moving Nettles ahead of Rolen into occupation of the third highest slot, behind his pair of games-played pacesetters, Robinson and Beltré.
A shift from modern to traditional counting stats maintains the portrayal of Nettles as a legitimate companion to those considered the very best ever. His 390 homers would rank fifth, between marks from Jones and Santo; his 1,314 RBI would install him in the eighth slot, between Santo and Rolen; his 3,779 total bases would tie him with Santo for eighth; his 1,088 walks would establish him between Brett and Rolen for the seventh most; his 746 extra-base hits would be the 10th most, placing him below Boggs and ahead of Traynor. His uncovered presence among the elite third baseman solidifies the sense that something went awry in the discourse between performance and appraisal. There is a voilà moment in this – an action akin to his magic at third, when he’d make himself parallel to the ground to stab a scorcher to his right or left.
The draw can be considered from another comparative pursuit – one that lets the Hall of Famers go on about their own business and instead checks Nettles against all the other expansion era (since 1961) third sackers without a plaque.
Since 1961 – Nettles’ Ranks Among Non-Hall of Fame Third Basemen (60% of Games at 3B)
| Stat | Nettles’ Rank | Notes |
| bWAR | 1 | Ahead of Buddy Bell |
| oWAR | 2 | Behind Sal Bando |
| dWAR | 2 | Behind Bell |
| HR | 1 | Ahead of Aramis Ramírez |
| RBI | 3 | Behind Ramírez & Gary Gaetti |
| TB | 3 | Behind Ramírez & Gary Gaetti |
| XBH | 6 | Ramírez & Gaetti are 1-2 |
| BB | 1 | Ahead of Robin Ventura |
Since 1961, among this cohort of non-immortals at the hot corner, Nettles also produced the most 20-homer seasons (11) and is tied for the second most seasons with a bWAR of at least 5.0 (6), matched with Nolan Arenado and one behind Sal Bando. And, to circle back to Nettles’ intro, he and Álex Rodríguez are the only two in this selection set to have paced all position players in their league in bWAR in a season multiple times.
Those are the numbers, an array of lines all pointing toward Nettles as a lofty representation for what the position can best offer. His genius, of course, went beyond categories and counting stats – a “you had to see it to believe” artistry and flair toward the phenomenal that occurred when a batter decided to whistle one toward third. For all of the homers and runs driven in and bases added, it was the ones that he took away that remains as the afterimage of Nettles on a ballfield. He – like Ozzie Smith at shortstop – elevated the experience of watching a great gloveman: ink-it-in reliability occasioned by the spectacular and dramatic.
As the story goes, Nettles received the nickname “Puff” for his propensity to suddenly disappear following a practical joke or a cutting remark. Somehow, this moniker extended to also describe his anointed place in the game’s mosaic of celebrated greatness – after 22 seasons, after brilliance in batches and crucial roles on pennant winners, after compiling an exceptional and rarely reached bar of accumulation, Nettles retired and seemingly without too much consternation by those tasked in assessing the qualifications for immortality, vanished.
Perhaps the shadow of Brooks Robinson – defensive mastery and magic coupled with a good but not great bat – loomed too large. Perhaps others – Reggie Jackson, the conflagration that was “the Bronx Zoo” – helped steal away some of Nettles’ resonance. Perhaps his .248 batting average was a bridge too far for some. Perhaps the historic longevity ultimately hurt him – by the time he appeared on his first Hall of Fame ballot, it had been almost a decade since his last All-Star appearance. Perhaps there’s something about crowning third basemen that creates struggles within the electorate.
Whatever ingredients facilitated his disappearing act, Nettles has a legitimate place among the men who grace third base in an imagined Elysian Baseball Field, where the best of all generations meet to swap stories, compare notes and show off their extraordinary talents. In that version of baseball heaven, Nettles will deservedly appear, stealing an extra-base hit with a gymnast’s flair, maybe launching one beyond the grounds and undoubtedly, at some point, stealing off into the gloaming. Puff …
Note: Two Negro League third basemen – Ray Dandridge and Judy Johnson – are in the Hall of Fame but are not part of the consideration set being used in this piece.
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.