Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame [Paperback]

Bill James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 1995

Arguing about the merits of players is the baseball fan's second favorite pastime and every year the Hall of Fame elections spark heated controversy. In a book that's sure to thrill--and infuriate--countless fans, Bill James takes a hard look at the Hall, probing its history, its politics and, most of all, its decisions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

James examines the history, politics and voting decisions surrounding the controversial elections to baseball's Hall of Fame.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

George F. Will Bill James has a genius for igniting fascinating baseball arguments, and an enviable talent for winning a lot of them. This book demonstrates why, were there a Cooperstown for baseball conversationalists, James would already be enshrined there.

Daniel Okrent Once again, typical James: informative, insightful, amusing, and utterly persuasive. It will, I should add, be absolutely infuriating to the remaining baseball Luddites who don't realize what a genius Bill James is.

Richard Corliss Time For 452 sizzling pages, the game's premier stats solon and most passionate fan stir-fries the old debate about who does and doesn't deserve to be [in the Hall of Fame].

Dan Gutman Newsday Let's just let Bill James decide who belongs in the Hall of Fame. He's proven that he knows more about baseball than anybody in the whole world....

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (April 6, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684800888
• ISBN-13: 978-0684800882
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #667,084 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hot Stove League Commissioner?, May 2, 2002

By 

William Hare (Seattle, Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame (Paperback)

After reading "Politics of Glory" I would like to nominate Bill James for Hot Stove League Commissioner. The Hot Stove League is where baseball hungry fans spend their winter days arguing that "My favorite player is better than yours!" James approaches baseball arguments the way a Philadelphia lawyer evaluates lucrative contracts, by examining every point with microscopic clarity.

A book about the Hall of Fame, with its unending controversies over just who is truly deserving of entry and who is not, is ideal grist for the analytical mind of James. He covers many controversies, two of which surround Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale and Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto. Drysdale had been voted into the Hall by the time James wrote his book while Rizzuto was elected just as James was completing his final chapter. The evaluations of both players were so thorough that James concluded his analysis of Drysdale by covering the tall right-hander's performance in pennant stretch drives of the Dodgers as well as in the twelve games James deemed the most crucial of his career excluding World Series performances. Rizzuto's Hall of Fame worthiness was ultimately evaluated by a statistically microscopic comparison of the Yankee star with his counterpart New York contemporary at shortstop, Pee Wee Reese of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In addition to comparing and contrasting players both in and out of the Hall, James also delves into the politics of Cooperstown. He decries the period of the fifties and sixties for what he deems less than deserving choices made by the Veterans Committee. James pinpoints the reason as the leadership influence of Frankie Frisch, the great infielder of the Cardinals and Giants, whose love affair with the game of his playing days continued even when he was managing teams years later. James notes that the "Fordham Flash" was less than a hit with his players for constantly proclaiming that "The players of my days were much better than the players now." Frisch's period on the Veterans Committee resulted in numerous former teammates being selected, including choices James statistically debunks as inadequate, including three former St. Louis Cardinals, pitcher Jess Haines, first baseman Jim Bottomly, and outfielder Chick Hafey.

Reading James improves a baseball fan's instincts for looking beyond the sheer numbers, such as park advantages, i.e.: Did a pitcher perform in a home park favorable to pitchers or hitters or did a hitter play half his games in a stadium with short or long fences? James comes up with some convincing arguments by searching in places where most fans have never treaded.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Sabermetrics is all about, November 29, 1999

By 

Michael Wendt (Vernon Hills, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame (Paperback)

Back in the 70s, when Tony Kubek was considered a baseball savant, Bill James began popularizing a rigorous statistical analysis of baseball. In the 80s, when the pedantry of the Elias Baseball Analyst team threatened to remove the ideas from the study of the game, James kept chugging along with his yearlies, and the Historical Abstract (another must read). Later he produced this, probably his best work. For anyone who shakes his head at a player or manager dismissing another's opinion by saying "He never played the game;" for anyone who is not cowed by the received truth of an inside "authority" or eyewitness, for anyone who loves baseball and thinks we can do better by using the tools at our disposal, Bill James is a godsend. If you're a big baseball fan and you don't know who he is, get this for yourself. It will open up your appreciation of the game, its history, and the numbers and debates that keep its history alive.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best, December 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame (Paperback)

Quite simply one of the best baseball books ever. Written with the serious fan in mind this book puts to rest many of the debates about who should and shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. It is hard to argue to James' logic in every one of the cases he sites.

The idea that James has some sort of hidden agenda, as one reviewer states, is absurd. What could James possibly have against Freddie Lindstrom or Travis Jackson? Besides regular statistics, James does use first hand accounts in helping to determine whether or not someone should be in the Hall of Fame. However, he does not put much credence in something an old teammate says 40 years later. The fact is that James points out obvious discrepancies between the number of HOFers from the 20s and 30s and other decades, and in particular in the number of teammates of Veterans Committee members in the Hall of Fame.

This is just one of the many issues detailed here. All in all this book is a must read for anyone interested in the Hall of Fame.