Should Joe West be in Cooperstown?
- Thread starter budcrew08
- Start date
Perfectly stated. Think about how much worse baseball, and life, would be if Crew Chief Joe West didn't have the grapes to overturn those calls. It would have provided so much additional fodder for Dan Shaugnessy to weave Curse tales. It's more Enos Slaughter. Ed Armbrister. Bucky Dent. Bill Buckner. Tim Tschida. Grady Little. Fuck all that.
Do you want to take away the only 0-3 comeback in baseball history? Do you want to eliminate the only World Series ring for Pedro Martinez? Of course you don't.
Country Joe West should be enshrined on the first ballot for his contributions to the game of baseball, and the world.
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As mentioned upthread, it’s a lousy question in the poll. Should umpires be in the Hall of Fame? Most certainly YES. Should Joe West be one of them? I’m not sure…
So many people in sport completely underestimate the impact good officiating has on the game (not just baseball…all the sports) - and not just in a right/wrong call way. Officials aren’t just adjudicators, they’re as much like conductors of an orchestra, directing the game, setting its tone and pace - and when most successful, doing it without anyone realizing it’s being done.
So maybe, I should rethink this ironically - Umpires DON’T belong in the Hall of Fame, because Fame itself is a black mark on an umpire. Maybe Umpires should have a special “Hall of Obscurity” instead at a Cooperstown strip mall on the edge of town…
So many people in sport completely underestimate the impact good officiating has on the game (not just baseball…all the sports) - and not just in a right/wrong call way. Officials aren’t just adjudicators, they’re as much like conductors of an orchestra, directing the game, setting its tone and pace - and when most successful, doing it without anyone realizing it’s being done.
So maybe, I should rethink this ironically - Umpires DON’T belong in the Hall of Fame, because Fame itself is a black mark on an umpire. Maybe Umpires should have a special “Hall of Obscurity” instead at a Cooperstown strip mall on the edge of town…
I had drafted most of this but hadn't finished it before the vote. Might as well submit what I've got.
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I need to view this question in the context of the 8-person "contemporary era" slate that the Eras Committee is evaluating.
West feels more HOF-worthy than Ed Montague, the other umpire. Montague was crew chief for 4 world series, but for me, just working a lot of games shouldn't make you a HOFer. If an ump was known for particularly judicious, accurate or dispute-calming tendencies in a game, that strikes me as worth honoring a handful of them. Tim McClelland is a name that comes to mind in that regard. West has in his corner the testimony of a lot of umpires who learned from him, even sought out being in his crew to learn from him. Red Sox fans know what he did in the 2004 ALCS, which has made a lot of us forget the calls (plenty of them questionable) that he had made against us over the years (including ejecting Papelbon). He had a cameo in The Naked Gun. He sued Paul Lo Duca for defamation (and won), after Lo Duca claimed on a podcast that he and other players would bribe umpires including West for favorable calls.
The executives, Hank Peters and Bill White, what did they do?
Hank Peters: GM, KC Athletics (1965); AGM, Cleveland Indians (1966-1971); President of MiLB ("National Association"), 1971-1975, wherein he originated the system of MLB "co-op", with the minors taking on big-league prospects. GM, Baltimore Orioles (1975-1987) incl 1983 WS title; President/COO, Cleveland Indians, 1987-1991. Main contribution to the game appears to have been "saving the minors" with the farm-team system.
Bill White: Had a very impressive (but not HOF-worthy) career as a player, including 4 years with MVP votes, 5 ASG selections and 7 GGs as a 1B. Was the play-by-play announcer for the Yankees for 18 years (1971-1988), and then was NL President from 1989-1994, during which time the NL added the Marlins and Rockies. He was the first black executive to hold a position that high in baseball. He is himself a former member of the HOF Veterans Committee, so I expect them to put him in just for that.
And 4 managers.
Cito Gaston: TOR manager 1989-2001, WS titles in 1992 and 1993. First black manager to win a World Series, following an 11-year playing career.
Davey Johnson: 13-year playing career as a 2B including the Orioles dynasty 1966-1971 <snip>
<...>
Now, back to West specifically, he umped up through 2021 - we have data. How did West do at calling balls and strikes? On balls in play, how often were his calls challenged, and how often overturned? West's profile at a site devoted to umpire actions gives a bunch of data on his ejections, things that happened (like a 3-game suspension for making a joke at Adrian Beltre's expense). But for contextualized data:
- Over at UmpScoreCards, their data (on pitch calling only) goes back to 2015 (towards the end of West's career), so from 2015-2021, when West was aged 63-69.
- By that, West was absolute bottom of the 122-ump list for Correct Calls Above Expectation, near the bottom for accuracy % (worse than Angel Hernandez! who was only like 30th percentile)
- West was middle of the road in "consistency", their measure of how often umps made calls consistent with their strike zone, as established in the game, regardless of the actual one.
- By the measure of how much his bad calls (of balls and strikes) impacted the game, based on runners/outs game state, he had an average amount of favoritism toward the home team, but a well above average amount of total run impact on the game (his bad calls really affected lots of runs). And he racked up a lot of these stats over the course of time.
- Over at Close Call Sports, they have an "Umpire Ejection Fantasy League" and have given out annual awards to umps since 2006. Joe West won their Honorable Umpire of the Year award in 2009 and shared it with Angel Hernandez (yes, I know) in 2020; you can read their rationales at the link.
- I'm trying to get full replay-overturn-rate data, will edit when I do.
Overall, I'm not seeing Joe West someone who was HOF level at umping. Just someone who stuck around for a while and was viewed as a mentor by some other umps. Give me the guy who umped for 30 years and raised the bar for what umps can achieve in consistency, fairness, and managing a game, over a guy who umped for 46 but was - if we're being generous - mediocre at his job. We're just lucky we got him on one of his best days.
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I need to view this question in the context of the 8-person "contemporary era" slate that the Eras Committee is evaluating.
West feels more HOF-worthy than Ed Montague, the other umpire. Montague was crew chief for 4 world series, but for me, just working a lot of games shouldn't make you a HOFer. If an ump was known for particularly judicious, accurate or dispute-calming tendencies in a game, that strikes me as worth honoring a handful of them. Tim McClelland is a name that comes to mind in that regard. West has in his corner the testimony of a lot of umpires who learned from him, even sought out being in his crew to learn from him. Red Sox fans know what he did in the 2004 ALCS, which has made a lot of us forget the calls (plenty of them questionable) that he had made against us over the years (including ejecting Papelbon). He had a cameo in The Naked Gun. He sued Paul Lo Duca for defamation (and won), after Lo Duca claimed on a podcast that he and other players would bribe umpires including West for favorable calls.
The executives, Hank Peters and Bill White, what did they do?
Hank Peters: GM, KC Athletics (1965); AGM, Cleveland Indians (1966-1971); President of MiLB ("National Association"), 1971-1975, wherein he originated the system of MLB "co-op", with the minors taking on big-league prospects. GM, Baltimore Orioles (1975-1987) incl 1983 WS title; President/COO, Cleveland Indians, 1987-1991. Main contribution to the game appears to have been "saving the minors" with the farm-team system.
Bill White: Had a very impressive (but not HOF-worthy) career as a player, including 4 years with MVP votes, 5 ASG selections and 7 GGs as a 1B. Was the play-by-play announcer for the Yankees for 18 years (1971-1988), and then was NL President from 1989-1994, during which time the NL added the Marlins and Rockies. He was the first black executive to hold a position that high in baseball. He is himself a former member of the HOF Veterans Committee, so I expect them to put him in just for that.
And 4 managers.
Cito Gaston: TOR manager 1989-2001, WS titles in 1992 and 1993. First black manager to win a World Series, following an 11-year playing career.
Davey Johnson: 13-year playing career as a 2B including the Orioles dynasty 1966-1971 <snip>
<...>
Now, back to West specifically, he umped up through 2021 - we have data. How did West do at calling balls and strikes? On balls in play, how often were his calls challenged, and how often overturned? West's profile at a site devoted to umpire actions gives a bunch of data on his ejections, things that happened (like a 3-game suspension for making a joke at Adrian Beltre's expense). But for contextualized data:
- Over at UmpScoreCards, their data (on pitch calling only) goes back to 2015 (towards the end of West's career), so from 2015-2021, when West was aged 63-69.
- By that, West was absolute bottom of the 122-ump list for Correct Calls Above Expectation, near the bottom for accuracy % (worse than Angel Hernandez! who was only like 30th percentile)
- West was middle of the road in "consistency", their measure of how often umps made calls consistent with their strike zone, as established in the game, regardless of the actual one.
- By the measure of how much his bad calls (of balls and strikes) impacted the game, based on runners/outs game state, he had an average amount of favoritism toward the home team, but a well above average amount of total run impact on the game (his bad calls really affected lots of runs). And he racked up a lot of these stats over the course of time.
- Over at Close Call Sports, they have an "Umpire Ejection Fantasy League" and have given out annual awards to umps since 2006. Joe West won their Honorable Umpire of the Year award in 2009 and shared it with Angel Hernandez (yes, I know) in 2020; you can read their rationales at the link.
- I'm trying to get full replay-overturn-rate data, will edit when I do.
Overall, I'm not seeing Joe West someone who was HOF level at umping. Just someone who stuck around for a while and was viewed as a mentor by some other umps. Give me the guy who umped for 30 years and raised the bar for what umps can achieve in consistency, fairness, and managing a game, over a guy who umped for 46 but was - if we're being generous - mediocre at his job. We're just lucky we got him on one of his best days.
I'm not certain, but think Peters also deserves some credit for the trend toward locking up young MLB talent to extensions to eliminate the arbitration process and buy out a year or two of free agency. Cleveland popularized that in the '90s under John Hart, but Peters came to Cleveland at age 63 and brought Hart along with him from Baltimore to train as his successor. I'd lean toward putting him in, but I imagine it would take a particular committee consisting of contemporaries who probably aren't around anymore.
If you ask that, there are probably 2 or 3 times as many "I don't know" answers as Joe Wests. The HOF should be for people who are almost universally recognized even by casual fans: hardcore fans are already invested, and we can fight over the Hall of Very Good and such. Cooperstown already had way too many marginal people in it when I visited last, and that was before Harold Baines and Jack Morris. Putting extra non-entities in makes it less interesting for people to visit, it basically turns it into the Grammies. A laughingstock
Make it more selective and people will be more likely to care about the people they see when they visit. It should be maybe 1/3 the size it is now, if it cared about recognizing true greatness and marketing the game to normal fans.
Completely disagree. What interest will "normal fans" have if there are fewer selections? What "normal fan" is going to be excited about attending a museum where very few changes are made?
The museum changes all the time. The plaque room is just a small part of it and doesn't really need to add lots of people to make regular visits interesting.
I understand that, but I still don't see the benefit of making the inductions more exclusive.
Tom Connolly deserves some credit for innovation in the practices of umpiring, particularly in getting the league to back up their umps and say that the umps' word is final. Al Barlick seems to have been regarded as something like you'd expect for a HOF umpire: regarded as one of the fairest and best-respected umps in the league, while also being around for decades and helping to build and train a pipeline of umpires for the next generation.
Bill Klem seems to have been something of a Forrest Gump of umpiring, present at many major junctures in the sport's history, and innovating for some of them.
Bill McGowan (umped 1925-1954) is also in the HOF. He founded the second umpiring school in the US. Ted Williams regarded him as the best umpire from his playing days.
There should be some sort of hall of fame suitable for Ernest Quigley, though he's in the Basketball HOF as it is. He played college basketball under James Naismith, and refereed college basketball for 40 years while also umpiring 3000 MLB games, refereeing college football, and even serving on the rules committee for college football.
If we need more umps in the Hall - and we may not - Harry Wendelstedt (father of Hunter) might be a good choice.