Hall of Fame: Memory Is a Funny Thing – Voting Results for Childhood Favorites
How did your childhood favorite player(s) do in front of the Hall of Fame voters? Hopefully better than the author’s, as the players mentioned will be well remembered by any 40-year-old baseball fan but not because of their Hall of Fame voting results.
The election of Tim Raines to baseball’s Hall of Fame is a personally meaningful event because as a kid growing up in Canada in the 1980s, Raines was the most exciting player in baseball in my 10-year-old self’s opinion. Picture a wood panel box-style pre-remote control television with knobs and dials on it and five channels to choose from. Saturday afternoons in the summer, the dial would get turned from Channel 2 (English public television) that would broadcast the Toronto Blue Jays games on to Channel 3 (French public television) which would be showing the Montreal Expos. Despite not knowing more than 20 words of basic French, that Expos team in the 1980s would often have that old TV on Channel 3 because of Tim Raines.
Witnessing the length of time Tim Raines needed to get elected to the Hall of Fame, it piqued my interest to see how some of my other favorite players from childhood fared when it came to Hall of Fame votes. Despite some top-10 MVP finishes in their respective leagues, two of my favorite players were off the ballot in their first opportunity and one did not even make the ballot! Please forgive the personal anecdote, but if you are a baseball fan, you likely have some players who you loved to watch that never came anywhere close to making the Hall of Fame. Leave some of your favorites in the comments section.
Jesse Barfield, RF, Toronto Blue Jays
It is a different world today for the 10-year-old baseball fan. Technology allows fans to follow teams from anywhere. In the 1980s, choice was limited to the local team. For me, the Toronto Blue Jays were the local team and in the 1980s, the team was making its first playoff runs in franchise history. Those runs would typically end in memorable heartbreak as the Blue Jays blew a three-games-to-one lead in the 1985 ALCS to the Kansas City Royals. Even worse, in 1987 the AL East division crown was lost to the Detroit Tigers despite having a 3.5-game lead heading into the last week of the season. The 1980s Blue Jays had some great players like 1987 AL MVP George Bell, shortstop Tony Fernandez and pitcher Dave Stieb, who lost no-hitters in back-to-back starts in 1988 after going eight-and-two-thirds and getting to two strikes.
The player that was a favorite for many Blue Jays fans was Jesse Barfield. The home run king of 1986, Barfield was a power hitter and a power arm in right field, leading outfielders in assists from 1985 to 1987. A quote from Bill James on Barfield is simply “by far the best outfield arm of the 1980s.” In 1985, Barfield was the first Blue Jay to have 20+ home runs and steals in the same season and in 1986, he led the league in home runs and finished in the top 10 for AL MVP voting in both years. With all of those accomplishments, he did not even get on the ballot for Hall of Fame voting five years after retiring.
Will Clark, 1B, San Francisco Giants
A five-time finisher in the top five of NL MVP voting during his seven years with the San Francisco Giants, Will Clark was one of the best hitters for both average and power in the late 80s and early 90s. He was a a classic number-three hitter in the lineup and his career OBP of .384 and solid defense ensured he was one of the best first basemen and best hitters of his era. The intensity and focus Will Clark brought to hitting are memorable and his NLCS MVP performance in 1989 kept the Cubs as lovable losers, as his two home runs (including a grand slam) off Greg Maddux in Game 1 set the tone for the series.
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His career stats include a .303 batting average, 284 home runs and 1,205 RBI, but that only got Clark one year on the Hall of Fame ballot. In his first year of eligibility, only 23 voters out of 520 (4.4 percent) voted for Clark and he finished 17th in the voting that year and off the ballot. Injuries and longevity were factors, as Clark’s statistical averages were in line or slightly better than Jim Rice (who would be elected three years later in his 15th year on the ballot), but with over 1,000 fewer at-bats than the Red Sox outfielder he was not able to compile the same totals.
Darin Erstad, CF California Angels
The way that Darin Erstad played the game was much different from the usual expectations assigned to the top pick in the draft. Erstad was a lead-off hitter for the California/Anaheim Angels and stylistically was likely the grubbiest number-one pick of all-time with fully extended diving catches in the outfield and unrelenting slides on the base paths. Because of nostalgic reasons, he is still my favorite Angels center fielder.
In 2000, Erstad has 240 hits in the season and finished eighth in AL MVP voting. A World Series champion (2002), two-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner, Erstad had a very good career but not Hall of Fame worthy. His first attempt at election was in 2015 (the year the Hall of Fame welcomed Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio) and it was also his last, as Erstad collected one vote out of 549 (0.2 percent) and dropped off the ballot.
Next: Red Sox All-Time 25-Man Roster
It is an interesting exercise to go back and see how your childhood favorites did when it comes time for their judgment in front of Hall of Fame voters. If you have any interesting cases, please leave them in the comments and here’s hoping your favorites end up more like Raines than the three great players that were overlooked (in my opinion and no one else’s).