@EasyAce
What do you think?
I happen to agree about Phil Rizzuto. There
is a place for him in the Hall of Fame---as a broadcaster, not
as a player. He's probably in as a player because a) he was a Yankee shortstop, in an era when they were the
dominant team in the game and was surrounded by enough higher-caliber talent to look better than he really
was; b) he had one season (1950) in which he played
way over his own head; and, c) people remembered
him.
Ozzie Smith and Bill Mazeroski
do belong in the Hall of Fame. The issue people have with them: what they had
to sell was off-the-charts defense. (Mazeroski retired with the best defensive statistics of any player, ever, at any
position; it wasn't even close.) Decades of Hall of Famers with truckloads of offense and no defense to sell didn't
quite register with those who thought electing Mazeroski and Smith was an act of temporary insanity. But if you
argue that
preventing runs helps your team win, too, then there's a place in the Hall of Fame for men like
Mazeroski and Smith.
I can think of a small volume of Hall of Famers who don't really belong there; it would only begin with the rash
of former Cardinals and Giants cronies Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry strong-armed into the Hall when they ran
the old Veterans' Committee, and it would only continue with Don Drysdale, who
could be a great pitcher
but often as not was merely a
good pitcher but a) looked like a Hall of Famer married to Sandy Koufax, yet
b) doesn't measure up when---as you should, considering his overall record isn't that powerful a Hall of Fame
case---you analyse him more deeply for his impact on pennant races:
* In six critical pennant races in which his teams took it almost down to the absolute wire, Drysdale had only
one (1965) in which he pitched like a Hall of Famer.
* In twelve games---the biggest games of his career, in the absolute highest heat of those pennant races, when he
had the chance to beat the teams his team needed most to beat to stay in the race or win the pennant---Drysdale
never won one of them, didn't pitch that well in games his team went on to win, and had six no-decisions
in which he didn't pitch well enough to win..
* When he was given the ball on the final day of 1966, to start game one of a doubleheader with the Dodgers
needing to win only once that day to nail the pennant, Drysdale got driven out early by the Phillies (who weren't
near that year's race), forcing manager Walter Alston to a desperation play in the nightcap: sending out Koufax
on two days' rest. Koufax pitched a masterpiece in the nightcap to win the pennant . . . but it deprived Alston
of the option he wanted most for the World Series, starting Koufax in Game One. Had Drysdale pitched like a co-
ace in the first game, the Dodgers could have sent just about anyone out for the nightcap as a sacrifice to enable
Koufax to open the World Series on regular rest.
(Trivia: Sandy Koufax lifetime on two days' rest---he pitched 25 such games, won 14, lost four, and had a 2.25
ERA with a 1.06 walks/hits per inning pitched rate, not to mention 13 complete games.)
Since Drysdale was knocked out early in the opener of the twin bill, he could and did start Game One and got
beaten. (It didn't help that a near-nobody named Moe Drabowsky, in relief of Dave McNally, picked that day to
pitch the game of his life, his eleven-strikeout relief job to secure the game for the Orioles.) Koufax started Game
Two, still exhausted from the stretch drive, and pitched masterfully (Orioles first baseman Boog Powell, after meeting
Koufax years later and hearing Koufax lament he wasn't at his best that day:
Whatever he had was plenty good
enough. He might have been hurtin', but he was bringin') until three Willie Davis errors in the fifth ended his day
on the wrong side of the ledger and helped stake a rookie named Jim Palmer to the win. Claude Osteen in Game
Three and Drysdale in Game Four were overmatched, and the Dodgers never got to send a properly-rested Koufax
out for another game in the set.
* Koufax retired after the 1966 season, leaving Drysdale as the staff ace. The Dodgers never competed for
a pennant again until after Drysdale---already dealing with serious knee issues---was forced to retire early in
1969 thanks to a shredded rotator cuff. If one of your criteria for a Hall of Fame pitcher is whether his team
would compete for or win a pennant with him as the staff ace, Drysdale falls short enough.
He was a good pitcher and a good guy, but Don Drysdale really wasn't a Hall of Famer.
