Edgar Martinez who played 18 seasons for the Seattle Mariners, primarily at designated hitter, received 33% of the vote this year for admission to the Hall of Fame. A 7-time all-star, Martinez finished with a career .312 batting average. Ordinarily, that lifetime batting average alone would get you into the Hall, but Martinez played only 591\/1412 games in the field and was, essentially, a one dimensional player.<\/p>\n
Martinez’ candidacy has raised the question of whether a one-dimensional player belongs in the Hall. However, we already<\/em> have one dimensional players in the Hall.<\/p>\n Relief pitchers are essentially one dimensional players. How else do you explain that two of them–Bruce Sutter and Rollie Fingers–are in the Hall in spite of lifetime losing records? You would never have traded say Dave McNally or Dave Stewart, two very good pitchers who each won 20 games in four straight seasons, for either relief pitcher. No one is suggesting that McNally and Stewart are Hall worthy, which in turn suggests that neither of the two relievers belongs in the Hall.<\/p>\n In any case, there are Hall of Famers who were world class hitters, but mediocre to poor defensively. You think Harmon Killebrew, for example, would have played that much in the field if there had been a DH in his day?<\/p>\n If we grant admission to players such as DHs and relievers who were one-dimensional, then we should think seriously about admitting players who played Hall of Fame caliber defense, but were weak with the stick. And that brings me to former Oriole shortstop Mark Belanger. He won 8 gold gloves while anchoring the infield for the Birds from 1969-1978, during which time Baltimore appeared in 3 World Series and won the A. L. East 5 times. Only 3 other shortstops have won more Gold Gloves than Belanger, including Ozzie Smith (13) and Luis Aparicio (9) who are in the Hall of Fame and Omar Vizquel, who has 11 and might be headed to the Hall himself one day. Belanger also retired with the highest fielding percentage of any American League shortstop in history (.977)<\/p>\n “The Blade” did receive 16 votes for the Hall in 1988, his first year of eligibility. This represented only 3.7% of the total and thus, he was removed from the ballot after that first year. Interestingly, he finished 26th<\/sup> out of 44 players on the ballot. Lee May, a pretty fair slugger, finished 27th<\/sup> with 0.7% of the vote.<\/p>\n If you’re an other-worldly hitter who happens to stand in the hole between second and third with a glove on your hand (see Honus Wagner and his error totals, which topped out at 74 in 1912. . . . 74??!!) you will get elected to the Hall of Fame. Why shouldn’t you also be enshrined if you are an other-worldly fielder who happens to stand in the batter’s box with a bat in your hands?<\/p>\n Austin writes about the Valley League Baseball as well as the Hagerstown Suns. He’s been an Oriole fan since 1964 and he’s fairly certain that Mark Belanger does NOT belong in the HOF, but he also likes provoking conversation!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If we grant admission to players such as DHs and relievers who were one-dimensional, then we should think seriously about admitting players who played Hall of Fame caliber defense, but were weak with the stick. And that brings me to former Oriole shortstop Mark Belanger. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":779,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,77],"tags":[1382,5992,2190,5090,3116,21230,1807,1931,2517,628,73,5990,76,3264,1829,811,3030,1446,1739,9724],"class_list":["post-10701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-hall-of-fame","tag-bruce-sutter","tag-dave-mcnally","tag-dave-stewart","tag-edgar-martinez","tag-gold-gloves","tag-hall-of-fame","tag-hall-of-famer","tag-hall-of-famers","tag-harmon-killebrew","tag-lifetime-batting-average","tag-luis-aparicio","tag-mark-belanger","tag-omar-vizquel","tag-oriole","tag-ozzie-smith","tag-relief-pitchers","tag-rollie-fingers","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-shortstops","tag-straight-seasons"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t