Eddie Mathews
The voting record with respect to Eddie Mathews is one of the most mysterious in the Hall of Fame’s history.
He ended a 17-season career with 512 home runs and 1,453 RBIs, mostly in the uniform of the Milwaukee Braves. With those Braves he was a centerpiece of a team that won two straight pennants – missing out on a third in a playoff – plus the 1957 World Series. Mathews twice led the NL in home runs and made nine All-Star teams.
Yet when he first went on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1974, Mathews ranked ninth, drawing less than one-third support of voters. He climbed slowly, but it took five years for voters to elect him with 79.4 percent support in 1978.
What in the heck did voters hold against Mathews for those five seasons?
As with DiMaggio, there is almost nothing of a paper trail to inform us about their thinking with respect to Mathews. To the extent we can speculate, that speculation logically focuses on his lifetime .271 batting average, which would have been low by the standards of Hall of Famers in that era.
Prior to Mathews, the average batting average of the most recent 10 position players elected to the Hall had been .301. Not since Rabbit Maranville in 1954 had a player been elected with a career average below .280.
But in 1977, voters enshrined Mathews’ long-time National League rival, Ernie Banks, as a first-ballot honoree. Banks had 511 home runs – one fewer than Mathews – and a lifetime .274 average, just three points higher than Eddie, who was second with 62.4 percent of the vote.
So it’s plausible that in 1978 voters, having just enshrined Banks, looked anew at Mathews’ record, said “what’s the difference between him and Banks,” and voted him in.