This week, sportswriters across America - baseball's version of the sleazy Hollywood Foreign Press Association - elected Scott Rolen to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Across the nation - at least in Philadelphia and St. Louis - fans reacted happily to the news. Rolen gave 17 dutiful years to the Phills, Cards and - in a brief cameo - Blue Jays.
As far as Yank fans are concerned, they might as well have elected Sidd Finch.
If you're a Yank fan, for the last two days, you've been scouring your memory banks, trying to recall the guy in the way that Baruch College volleyball diehards do for George Santos. Good luck. Over his 17 years, Rolen played 14 - fourteen - games in the old Yankee Stadium: That's 57 plate appearances with a .300 batting average in what we like to call Small Sample Size. Rolen played four games (4) in the new Yankee stadium, with a total of 19 plate appearances! He got four hits, drove in two runs. Was he real, or did we imagine him?
Listen, I don't mean to toss water upon Rolen's great honor. From all accounts, he seems like a righteous, standup dude who appeared in seven all-star games and won eight Gold Gloves. That said, a few points:
1. Rolen is a career .281 hitter. He averaged 19 HRs per season. In postseason play, a lifetime .220. Only once did he crack the National League's MVP's Top 10: He finished 4th in 2004. Surely, his numbers don't fully outline the great player and person that he is.
2. The Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a private enterprise owned by an unbelievably rich family. It was established on the lie that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in that town, and over the years, it has refused to honor people because of their political beliefs.
3. In the balloting, the Yankees simply do not always get a fair shake. Amazingly, ridiculously, Roger Maris still has never been inducted. Same with Thurman Munson and Ron Guidry. Bernie Williams. Andy Pettitte. All those rings under Joe Torre? Apparently, they just happened by themselves. Oh, one other thing: Don Fucking Mattingly.
4. The Hall of Fame voters are mostly old, white, small market fart bags who have devoted much of their lives to ranting about the Yankees ruined baseball, by paying the players too much money. They yearn for the time before Curt Flood and the players union - and when people still read newspapers.
So, Scott Rolen is in the hall? Congrats! And I mean it. He must have been great! I'll take their word for it. Frankly, I have no choice. I can't place him.
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30 comments:
I remember him. An excellent third baseman, pretty fair hitter with pretty decent power for his day.
And you're right, if he had been a Yankee, they never would have voted him in.
The Hall of Fame has become a watered-down version of itself. Instead of enshrining the greats of the game, it started some years back to enshrine the pretty good of the game. Like entertainment in general, "fame" is the biggest thing some of the honorees have to offer.
In small market towns, of course.
So with Rolen in, will Nettles, Doug Radar, Ron Cey and similar players be added down the line? Rolen was a good player and if they want to change the name to the Good Players Club then fine. But supposedly it's THE HALL OF FAME. Unfortunately most of these writers never saw these guys actually play. They use Sabermetrics to vote and as they say there are lies, damn lies and statistics
I remember him, consider him borderline at best for the hall and definitely not better than Todd Helton, who didn’t get in
This guy's "elevation" is proof that the HoF is crap.
AND: You knew that before this, didn't you?
Scott Rolen, to me, was never a star player. Sure, he was a very good player but not of superior talent. The only place more bogus than the MLB HOF is the Rock & Roll HOF which was started Ahmet Ertegun, a record executive, as a vehicle to promote the acts on his label.
They exclude or delay for decades some of the biggest bands and singers of all time (Moody Blues, The Guess Who and Jethro Tull) while they elect one-hit-wonders and very obscure people like Jac Holzman, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and Little Willie John. WTF are they? And half the inductees have no connection to Rock and Roll. Hell, that's like the MLBHOF inducting the Raybestos Brakettes, the Professional Women's Softball League's version of the UCONN women's basketball team.
I would like the HoF voters to answer one very important question: Will the Yankees go the entire month of January without an appearance in the Tabloid Covers Race (TM)?
Duque:
.281 lifetime batting average with 316 homers. I am not sure that is Hall Of Fame worthy. Politics.
1) Rolen
I believe the justification is Rolen has, "Positional Greatness(C)".
He is supposedly and statistically one of the best 3B of all time.
2) Cooperstown
"It's a business!"
Not just for that family but all the locals as well. Not having any one to induct is like having a snow storm hit just before its time to harvest.
Cooperstown took a big hit (no pun) from the steroid crisis as big draws Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, etc. didn't get their days. Those guys would have brought in fans from all over the country and meant big big bucks for the town.
A couple of years ago the hall had no inductees. They couldn't have another shutout so soon.
I understand that the writers vote and I'm not saying the town finances play into it directly, but no inductees is not good for Baseball and not good for the writers either.
Plus, they get to go and hobnob with the nobs.
@Carl Weitz—agree 100% about the Rock Hall. Where is John Hiatt? Where is WARREN ZEVON?
The fact that Warren Zevon is not in the Hall shows that voters are stupid.
Or there are already too many White Guys.
Yeah Cooperstown, Ruth, Gehrig, Jackie, Mickey, and now Scoot Rosen, or whatever his name is.
We are all slightly diminished.
My Rock and Roll HoF choices...
Igneous
Iron Pyrite (Because I thought it was gold when I was eight.)
Chris
Onion Roll (With tomato and cream cheese)
Salt Stick (they don't even make these anymore!)
Kimmelwick (Beef on wick with horseradish mayo!)
Of course I remember Rolen , a good player. NOT great. Rolen , like many others, simply doesn’t belong in the HOF.
Now you’ve triggered me with your Warren Zevon references. The reason he isn’t in the RRHOF is simple, he never sold enough records. The RRHOF is a joke, I would only go there to urinate on the entrance.
Here’s Warren’s take on the iconoclastic Sox lefty Bill Lee, but actually an embrace of the individual in the face of societal/corporate expectations:
You're supposed to sit on your ass and nod at stupid things
Man, that's hard to do
And if you don't, they'll screw you
And if you do, they'll screw you, too
When I'm standing in the middle of the diamond all alone
I always play to win
When it comes to skin and bone
And sometimes I say things I shouldn't
Like...
And sometimes I say things I shouldn't
Like...
I still miss Warren Zevon…
Mark Knopfler did it best. Don't go. Don't reply. Don't comment.
If you can't say anything nice....
The R&RHOF...where's Joy Division? Or The Smiths? Or New Order?
Ranger,
Nice Joy Division reference.
And Warren Zevon was a genius. I went home with a waitress, the way I always do.
Carl, I can't let you brush off Little Willie John. He was a great R&B singer, the original singer of "Fever," and was still in that era of early rock where nobody bought Black artists except Black people, and white performers made big money doing cover versions.
Mercifully, the Hall did put in Little Richard and not Pat Boone.
The baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown is a JOKE. There are guys in there who have no business being in there. And there are also plenty of guys who definitely should be in there who are not.
Everytime the assholes who vote want to put in a guy who doesn't deserve the honor, they come up with some stupid reason to get around their usual rules. But when they don't want somebody in there, they bend over backwards to prevent it.
And yeah, the HOF has discriminated against Yankee players big time, for decades now. If they didn't, the HOF would be full of Yankees. I guess that doesn't suit the agenda of the assholes who vote.
Scott Rolen was a good player, but any way you measure it, he comes up way short in my opinion. His stats weren't great. He did win a World Series, but only 1. Was he the best or one of the best at his position for at least a three or four year stretch? I don't remember, as I was never one to watch the boring National League games. You make the call.
If Rolen gets in, players like Mattingly, Bernie, Posada, Guidry, all should be in. But that is the hypocrisy of the JOKE baseball Hall of Fame.
I don't even pay attention to the nonsense of the HOF. Those assholes who vote can shove it up their collective assholes.
JM, not yet anyway…
I galls me to no end that the O'Jay's are in the R&R HOF. On the basis of what? Love Train?
Puh-leeze.
LBJ
I hear you. Plus, they killed their ex-wives and a bunch of waiters. That should disqualify them right there.
@Doug K & LBJ
O'Jays: out.
OJ: in.
Thank you both for clarifying EXACTLY why I've thought the whole HOF idea is idiotic. Seriously: thank you.
One of my favorite R&R HOF-related factoids that I carry around in my head is the handwritten letter authored by the Sex Pistols to the HOF.
The letter was their declination of the HOF's invitation for them to be installed.
Brilliant.
Jethro Tull is not in the Hall.
Ridiculous.
Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.
@JM....Little Willie John has to be brushed off because by any metric, he doesn't deserve to be in any R&RHOF, even a fake one like the one based in Cleveland. As in baseball, there has to be some legit criteria met: 500 HR, 300 wins, a certain number of years played, ERA, K's, etc, etc. You have to consider how successful an act was. I'm sure when it comes to record sales, concerts, notoriety, impact or longevity he fails in every category. He might have made some decent music but that isn't nearly enough. Hell, his genre isn't really rock and roll.
On Tull and the HoF and for the record I think they should be in there...
https://blabbermouth.net/news/ian-anderson-doesnt-think-jethro-tull-belongs-in-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame
How is Joe Cocker not there as well?
Jerry Garcia's cardboard cutout is there. Jerry couldn't be bothered to show up. A new batch of china white had just arrived.
Gotta have priorities.
Nettles HAS to be the greatest fielding third baseman behind Robinson, no? He hit 390 homers, and drove in over thirteen hundred RBIs. This in a slow offensive era.
What really burns my ass were the inclusion of the Twin Deadasses, Jim Rice and Juiced Papi. For sale of decorum I'll stop.
*for sale of decorum
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