Hall of Fame Polls: Gary Sheffield

I’ve been missing for a couple of days. Our oldest son and his girlfriend are here, and we are having our Christmas. It has been great seeing them. He’s a good kid. I’m luckier than I deserve with my boys. They make me proud.

And I’m sad to see that Ian Tyson has passed. Back in the site's early days, Hugo used song lyrics as post titles. I followed along for a bit, and I’m sure I used a dozen of his songs to title posts. He was a real cowboy, writing real cowboy songs for years after becoming famous, singing folk songs with his then, wife Sylvia.

This is Gary Sheffield’s ninth time on the ballot. He was on 40.6% of the writer’s ballots last year, making it two years in a row he’s been at exactly 40.6%.

I don’t see any reason he shouldn’t be in the Hall, other than he wasn’t the most friendly of players.

Looking at his stats, Sheffield was a better player than I thought he was back in the day. Sheffield, the nephew of Dwight Gooden (a one-and-done in Hall of Fame voting, getting just 3% of the vote), was a first-round pick in the Brewers’ 1986 draft. He went on to have a 22-year (I didn’t think he played that long) major league career, playing for eight different teams.

He played 2576 games, hitting .292/.393/.514 with 509 home runs, 1676 RBI and 253 stolen bases thrown in for good measure. Gary made nine All-Star teams, won five Silver Slugger awards, and received MVP votes seven times (finishing second once and third twice). His career WAR is 60.2.

He came up as a shortstop, was moved to third base and then the outfield, he was never much of a defensive player, but he could hit.

He was pretty interesting off the field too. He called the Brewers’ racist’ when they moved him off short to play third. He felt racism was behind anything terrible that happened to him. And he figured there were more Latin players in the majors than African-Americans because Latin players were ‘easier to control.’ He claimed that manager Joe Torre treated black players differently than white players and who am I to say he didn’t? I’d imagine that when you are subjected to a lot of racism, you likely start seeing it in places where it isn’t. But then I’m a white boy with blue eyes. I’ve never dealt with racism directed at me. So odds are Sheffield was right more than he was wrong on the subject.

His name appeared in the Mitchell Report, but many players were mentioned. How much do you subtract for his defense? Does he lose points for his personality? I don’t think he got along great with reporters. Some won’t vote for him because he didn’t play nice with them.

A guy with 509 home runs who got on base 39% of the time should be in the Hall. He’s a massively better player than Harold Baines.

You can see his stats here.