Apparently, it's HOF week here at The Daily Something.  Yesterday, Bill made an important distinction between the Hall of Fame and your Hall of Fame (well, not yours personally, but the Hall of Fame of anyone who insists on applying their own standards to the existing Hall to complain about how current or potential enshrinees do not belong), pointing out, "If your Hall of Fame doesn't have room for Ron Santo in it, then you're dealing with an entirely different sort of institution than the one located in Cooperstown, NY," because Ron Santo is clearly one of the best 10 or so 3B in history and 3B are underrepresented in the Hall.  The irony, of course, is that as much as every baseball fan has their own definition for what constitutes a Hall of Famer, the Hall itself has no real definition.  A Hall of Famer simply is someone who 75% of supposedly knowledgable voters decide is a Hall of Famer.  A set of rules does limit the pool of eligible players somewhat (players simply have to last 10 years in the league and have been retired at least 5 (unless they die unexpectedly)), but almost none of the players it excludes would be considered candidates anyway (unless you're dying to vote for Shane Spencer for his great run of 78 PAs in '98).  The Hall itself gives incredibly vague guidelines that barely limit the pool from which writers can choose.  Voters should consider “record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played,” but which statistics are relevant, what contributes a "contribution" to a team (Kevin Millar, by all accounts, was a great teammate in Boston) and how much consideration to give to unquantifiable qualities such as integrity, sportsmanship, and character is left entirely to the discretion of the voters.  Without objective criteria, Ron Santo is not technically a Hall of Fame quality 3B because the Hall of Fame voters don't view him as such.

Confused yet?

So what we're left with is a subjective Hall, no more or less subjective than millions of individual Halls of Fame that exist in our minds.  And you know what?  I think I'm all right with that.  Sure, I don't think Freddie Lindstrom was a good addition to the Hall.  He had just two great years, was only about nine percent more productive at the plate than the average National Leaguer, was done at the age of 30, lost his only two postseason series (as an 18 year old filling in for Heine Groh at 3B for the Giants and in his penultimate season (1934) as a part-timer for the Cubs).  But isn't it good that Freddie Lindstrom is remembered in some way?  I mean, without the Hall of Fame and his controversial spot in it, wouldn't Lindstrom be as forgotten today as, say, Buddy Myer, Bob Johnson, or Bob Allison?  Sure, we should pay more attention to those other players, but that doesn't mean that Lindstrom shouldn't also get some acknowledgement, particularly since New York Giant fans are an endangered species.  Keeping his name alive and using it to stoke the fires of the annual debate about what constitutes a Hall of Famer seems like a good thing to me.  Isn't the world an inherently better place when we talk about baseball more often? 

Sure, I'll argue he doesn't belong there, but it's not like I want to kick him out.  That would be awfully mean of me.  The guy's got a family, after all.  And I know how they feel (and here is where you learn something about me); my great-grandfather is a member of the United States Hockey Hall of Fame.  Not the big NHL Hall of Fame in Toronto, mind you, the U.S. Hall of Fame in Eveleth, MN (located almost two hours north of Duluth).  He was a great amateur player in the early part of the 20th Century.  Nobody personally remembers him except my grandmother and my mom's oldest sister, and that's ok too.  But even though I flop around like Delmon Young playing the outfield every time I put on a pair of skates, it gives me a tremendous amount of pride to know that my great-grandpa is enshrined.  That his accomplishments will be read about and admired.  That people will care about this man I never met who, nevertheless, is connected to me.  I'll tell my son about it, and show him news clippings and web pages and describe how his great-great grandfather, who named his son after him, the man I ultimately named my son after, was described as "the first great American-born hockey player."  And I know how disappointed I would be if they took down his plaque.  Given the lack of an objective definition as to what constitutes a Hall of Famer, I don't see the fairness of excluding someone, of "fixing" the Hall.  Frankly, I think the Hall itself is wonderful the way it is; it's the selection process that I would like to change going forward.

I guess, the more I think about it, this makes me a "Big Hall" guy.  I don't have a problem, necessarily, with the inductions of Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, and potentially Jack Morris.  They were each outstanding players and significant figures in baseball.  What does bother me about their inductions is the politicking that has gone into elections among certain members of the media.  The meme Sean McDonnough spawned (or at least propugated) that Rice was the most feared hitter in the American League.  The "let's stick it to the Sabermatrictians" of the Dawson and Morris campaigns.  I don't like the twisting and torturing of player records that has gone into making these arguments.  And I especially don't like that Rice, Dawson, and Morris are likely going in before other candidates I think are far more deserving: Santo, Blyleven, Raines, Trammell, Larkin, etc.

All of this is probably too long a lead-in to say, while I think the Twins are making a mistake in inducting Greg Gagne into the team's Hall of Fame in 2010, I'm still happy for him and I don't begrudge them.  Gags was the Twins' regular shortstop from 1985-1992, stabilizing the position after the three seasons of flux (when Lenny Faedo, Ron Washington, and Houston Jimenez are the answers, you've asked the wrong question) that followed Roy Smalley's abrupt trade in 1982 (for Greg Gagne, among others).  Gagne was a member of both Twins' championship teams in 1987 and 1991 and provided excellent defense and decent power from the SS position.  UZR data isn't available back that far, but baseballreference estimates that, at his peak, he saved around 20 runs a year with his glove (that data, however, fluctuates wildly).  Aaron Gleeman has a great write-up on Gagne and his accomplishments As a contributor to two championship squads, Gagne is probably eventually deserving of a nod, particularly since the Twins seem hell-bent on selecting a new member every year (Ron Davis 2012!).  But other former Twins seem like they deserve consideration first, namely Gagne's pregenitor, Smalley.  Smalley was an offense-first SS before being an offense-first SS was cool, hitting .262/.350/.389 with 71 homers from 1976-1981.  He was also an assett on defense from '76-80, before a bad back sapped his range.  Upon being reaquired in 1985 by the Twins, he was relegated to DH for the most part (mostly because of Gagne's defense) and hit .258/.350/.419 with 40 homers.  While Smalley was not a central member of the '87 squad (he was supplanted at DH by Gene Larkin and Don Baylor, and only had 4 PAs in the World Series), he did win a ring with the team and is directly responsible for Gagne being on the Twins in the first place.  If the Twins really want to put in a SS this year, Roy Smalley is the guy, even before we consider his indescribable hair.  Smally has more games played, more PAs, more hits, more runs, more doubles, more homers, more RBI, a higher BA, OBP, and SLG, played the same position (for the most part), and played it well.  He also made an All Star team, when Gagne did not.  An even better selection, of course, would be Chuck Knoblauch.  But given how his relationship with the team and fans soured, it's safe to say Knobby's inclusion in the Twins Hall of Fame will be a long time coming.  Cesar Tovar would also be a good inclusion, given his excellent performance in the late '60s and '70s and his status as the first man to play all nine positions in a game.  I like Gagne, and I like that he's the newest inductee into the Twins Hall of Fame.  I just think he should still be in line.

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