Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Pitcher Deserves Call to The Hall

Many Hoyas, either in a high school civics class or in a college course on American government, certainly learn that the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from bestowing titles of nobility upon U.S. citizens. Of course, the Founding Fathers couldn’t possibly have dreamed that one day, their republic would end up doing just that – newspapers filled with accounts of Sir Charles, King James, His Airness – and that’s just basketball. Apparently, despite the best intentions of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, the aristocracy has been revived by the great minds of ESPN. Yet amongst the litany of sultans (of Swat, Babe Ruth), dukes (Duke Snider, the star outfielder of the Brooklyn Dodgers), and princes (Prince Fielder, current Brewers wunderkind first baseman), there remains one noble order that outranks all the others, the American analog to Britain’s Victoria Cross – the Hall of Fame. By Hall of Fame, of course, I do not mean those ersatz monuments in Springfield (basketball), Toronto (hockey) or Canton (football) – no, only one Hall of Fame needs no qualifying adjective. And it is this order – the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in case you hadn’t caught on – that just announced its newest entrant, former Yankees reliever Goose Gossage, to its hallowed ranks. Of course, no noble order is free of its mistakes, and the Hall of Fame is certainly no exception. A quick perusal of the bronze plaques hung neatly on the walls in Cooperstown reveals a few names who, in hindsight, are to American nobility what Elton John is to the British – a blemish on an otherwise august consortium of all-timers. Consider, for example, Bill Mazeroski, who, apart from his famous home run in the 1960 World Series, hardly distinguished himself. Or Phil Rizzuto, whose greatest qualification for eternal enshrinement was his affable personality and the Yankee pinstripes he wore throughout his career. And who can forget the troika of mediocrity, former Cubs infielders Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers and Frank Chance, whose inclusion in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown can be credited solely to a poem? Yet it is almost always the exclusions, and not the inclusions, that merit the most scrutiny from baseball diehards. Every true fan of the game has that one player whose name they await every January, praying for the committee to finally render justice. Perhaps this player played for your favorite team growing up – many Braves fans anxiously await the Hall of Fame electors to put Dale Murphy into Cooperstown. Or perhaps the player contributed some memorable performance to the long chain of incredible baseball moments – this is why so many writers call for the inclusion of Jack Morris, whose 10-inning shutout in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series may rank as the greatest pitching performance since the advent of division play in 1969. Still other players, such as Boston’s Jim Rice, seem to have put up career numbers that perpetually place them on the threshold. It is in this third category that my personal pet candidate falls. I first discovered Bert Blyleven in a sports encyclopedia my parents gave me for Christmas about eight years ago – a tome of about 800 pages that easily occupied hours of my free time and that, within a matter of months, I had practically memorized. Being a baseball fanatic, I spent an ungodly amount of time reading the charts of career leaders in batting average, stolen bases – any statistic I could find. One day, while drinking in pages upon pages of career pitching statistics, I noticed a strange anomaly on the career strikeout leaders’ chart. In first place was, of course, Nolan Ryan, he of the seven-career no-hitters. In second was my hometown favorite, Steve Carlton. Yet sitting in third place with a mind-boggling 3701 strikeouts was the mysterious Bert Blyleven. Thinking I had missed a name in the register of Hall of Famers, I flipped to the back of the book, only to discover that, amazingly, Blyleven had not yet made it to Cooperstown. It perplexed me then, and my confusion has only compounded when, each and every January, the Hall of Fame committee fails to call the name Aalbert Blyleven. With almost 4,000 strikeouts, he is the only pitcher to ever whiff over 3,000 batters and not make the Hall of Fame (with the exception of still-active, and likely Cooperstown-bound, pitchers). His career win total of 287 puts him only 13 victories shy of the magical 300 mark, which virtually guarantees enshrinement – even though Blyleven spent the majority of his career with dismal teams. Of course, in addition to his staggering numbers, Blyleven also deserves a place in Cooperstown for being everything today’s ballplayers aren’t – fun-loving, off-color and laid-back. Known as the consummate prankster in his playing days – he earned the nickname of “the Frying Dutchman” for routinely setting fire to teammates’ shoelaces – Blyleven maintained his sense of humor into his broadcasting days, to the occasional chagrin of Minnesota Twins management (in 2006, Blyleven famously dropped a four-letter expletive twice in a matter of seconds during a live telecast). Not many players in history have managed to balance such a prodigious talent with such an off-color sense of humor. The Baseball Writers Association of America, who elect new members to the Hall of Fame each year, may have erred again this year, but Blyleven was only 13 percent short of the three-quarters threshold needed for induction. Next year, let’s all hope that America’s royal court gets its jester. Brendan Roach is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service. He can be reached at roachthehoya.com. THE LOSING STREAK appears every other Tuesday in HOYA SPORTS.

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