A Hall of Fame Season

It’s Hall of Fame consideration season.  Until the announcement of the new class, Connections will be looking at some of the names on the 2025 ballot. 

Years and years ago, when Baseball Reference hit the scene and afforded us much easier ways to design clubs of personal choice, I started a list populated by my favorite apex campaigns authored by players outside of Cooperstown’s plaque room.  They weren’t the best by bWAR (this came before that evaluative tool was a part of the discourse) and run-scoring environmental context wasn’t a concern.  Rather, it was the gaudiness (or austerity) of the raw numbers, the preponderance of league-leading stats, lines filled to the brim with numbers that caught my eyes, that generated a specific (but expansive) lens of wonderment – “Imagine if this player had done this kind of work more often – wowza.”  The 1920s and ‘30s were great for this exercise, at least on the offensive side (Williams! O’Doul! Herman! York! Trosky! and on and on!); the Deadball Era and the 1960s fertile ground for the pitchers (Ford and White and Tiant and Ellsworth and Chance and Horlen, McLain and McDowell!!!!).  The Colorado Rockies have also been supremely useful for this exercise (Ellis Burks’ 1996 is, for me, part of the gold standard for the club):  Hall of Fame seasons from non-Hall of Famers that tractor beam all sorts of return visits and giddiness.  

I’ve been thinking about this list a lot lately, pretty much since it was announced that Carlos González had made his debut appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot.

On September 7, 2010, González went 1-for-3 with a three-run homer, giving him a Triple Crown line of a .340 average, 32 homers and 100 RBI.  He was three longballs off the NL lead while holding top marks in the other two categories (Joey Votto, who was on the losing side in this contest against Gonzalez, was tied with the Rockies outfielder in homers and second to him in both average and RBI).  It was joyous (and reasonable) to envision a last day of the 2010 campaign in which the 24-year-old had done it, had finally produced another batting Triple Crown.  No one had done this since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967; no NL player had accomplished the feat since Joe Medwick in 1937.  Only three others in the Modern Era had ever done it in an age-24 or younger season:  Mickey Mantle in 1956, Ted Williams in 1942 and Ty Cobb in 1909.  Similar to  following Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 as they chased Roger Maris’ 61 or George Brett in 1980 as he pursued Ted Williams’ .406, there was a tingly sensation to jumping into each morning’s box scores:  “What did he do last night?!”

Ultimately, González didn’t do enough, falling short of league leadership in home runs by eight and RBI by one (both categories were led by Albert Pujols, whose own Triple Crown quest saw him finish sixth in batting).  González did take home the batting crown, at .336, along with league-leading tallies in hits and total bases.  Aside from trailing just Pujols in RBI, he was also second in slugging and extra-base hits.  He was one of seven NL batting champs in the Expansion Era to be so young, he was one of eight players in the Integration Era to lead his league in both batting and total bases at such a fledgling age.  He was in some illustrious company:

NL Batting Title in an Age-24 or Younger Season, 1962-2010

Carlos González in 2010

Albert Pujols in 2003

Gary Sheffield in 1992

Tony Gwynn in 1984

Bill Madlock in 1975

Tommy Davis in 1962 and 1963

League Leader in Batting & Total Bases, in an Age-24 or Younger Season, 1947-2010

Carlos González in 2010

Albert Pujols 2003

Álex Rodríguez in 1996

Gary Sheffield in 1992

George Brett in 1976

Hank Aaron in 1956

Mickey Mantle in 1956

Al Kaline in 1955

The highs would never be so lofty again, even as González played another nine big league seasons (although he would have soaring stretches now and again – in 2015, for example).  Still, his name is a time machine coordination map, instantly transporting me back to that final month in 2010 when it seemed that a Triple Crown could be his, that we were witnessing the ascension of someone with Hall of Fame worthy seasons in his DNA but perhaps was going to have too many of them to be able to make my list.  

In (large) part, that’s the allure of my long-ago developed club:  a Non-Hall of Fame, Hall of Fame season is a singular snapshot, evocative not only for its vibrancy but for its ephemerality.  A baseball version of Halley’s Comet.  Jubilation perhaps infiltrated by sadness that there was just that one expression of brilliance, but again, made that much more special by its cameo.  Carlos González delivered this in 2010, a Hall of Famer at least for one magnificent stretch of 162 games.

My Starting Nine in the Non-Hall of Fame, Hall of Fame Season Club (Modern Era Version)*

P     Smoky Joe Wood, 1912 (apologies to Dwight Gooden in 1985)

C    Javy López, 2003

1B   Norm Cash, 1961

2B   Alfonso Soriano, 2002

3B   Al Rosen, 1953

SS   Cecil Travis, 1941

LF   Ellis Burks, 1996

CF   Pete Reiser, 1941

RF  Tommy Holmes, 1945

*I don’t consider seasons by Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Álex Rodríguez, Roger Clemens, etc. (you know the list) eligible for my club, as they produced Hall of Fame careers, regardless of what the BBWAA Hall of Fame voters have decided.  I also urge readers to make their own lineup, including you, Tim of Recollections – it’s so much fun.

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.  Thanks also to Retrosheet  – all of the mentions of league leaders on a specific day of the season come from that site’s essential collection of information.