The Joe Gordon Fan Club

Why did Flash get in?

There is bound to be plenty of feedback in the next few days for the Veterans Committee, much of it negative. Most of it will focus on the candidates not elected—Ron Santo, Sherry Magee, and Bill Dahlen, most prominently. Countless cases for these players have been made, including here at Seamheads by Professor Hoban . For now, we can examine Joe Gordon’s record to see what won the voters over.

Gordon was a cog in the Dimaggio-era Yankees teams, winning four titles in pinstripes in addition to a fifth with Cleveland in 1948. In 1942, his best season, he hit .322/.409/.491 with 18 homers and 103 RBIs, enough to beat out Ted Williams for the MVP award (more on that below). For his career, Gordon had a 120 OPS+ and 253 home runs, a total second only to Rogers Hornsby among second basemen when he retired in 1951 (currently, he’s at 7 ^th place all-time). Defensively, his range factor was above league average every season from 1938-1947. He missed two prime years from his career while serving in World War II from 1944-45, his age 29-30 seasons.

This brief resume includes four points which were likely salient for Veterans Committee voters, and each merits further attention.

The Hardware: 1942 MVP

In eleven major league seasons, Joe Gordon never led the American League in any offensive category; his Black Ink score is 2. For those impressed by trophies and league-leaders, the Gordon conversation begins and ends with 1942, when he won the A.L. MVP. He topped Ted Williams in the balloting, 270-249, garnering 12 first place votes to Williams’ nine. That was certainly a big resume-building distinction for the Yankee, but in hindsight, it’s outrageous that he won at all.

Compared to larceny on this level, Trammell-Bell in 1987 is petty theft. Williams outdid Gordon in every single offensive category, and led the league in most of them. His OPS, 1.147, had been matched only by Ruth, Gehrig, Hornsby, Foxx, Hack Wilson, and Williams himself in the previous year, at age 22. In fact, according to OPS, runs created and batting wins, Gordon wasn’t even the most valuable Yankee—that would be left fielder Charlie Keller. Even the less-than-immortal Wally Judnich had a better OPS.

So why did Gordon win it? His advantage over Williams can probably be attributed to the fact that New York out-distanced Boston by nine games for the pennant, before losing to St. Louis in the World Series. He probably beat out Keller because his batting average was 30 points higher, and because Keller was outshined in the outfield by Dimaggio. To be frank, it’s not impossible that something like this could happen again—imagine if Williams were Pujols and Gordon were Chase Utley—but it’s a mistake that definitely made a big difference for Gordon today.

Position: Power-Hitting 2Bs

I wrote an article in May about the greatest slugging second basemen in history . To summarize, Rogers Hornsby stole the show. In the context of the Veterans Committee election, though, it’s interesting to note that despite his reputation and home run totals, Gordon is not to be found among the top 20 slugging seasons by a second baseman. On his career, he is sixth among second basemen, and fifth in home runs. When he retired in 1950, though, only Hornsby had more homers, and no one was interested in slugging percentage. This had to play a large role in his reputation as a heavy-hitter—compared to his contemporaries, he was. Despite the evolving game, that perception has not changed appreciably over the years.

The Bronx Bias

This argument isn’t news to anyone, so it can be brief. Would Joe Gordon be a Hall of Famer if he’d played for the St. Louis Browns? It wouldn’t be fair to say that he rode others’ coattails to five World Championships—he was a major contributor to all of those teams, although he only hit .243 in 103 World Series at-bats. Nonetheless, his status as a classic Yankee, as the successor to Tony Lazzeri, did him nothing but favors in the balloting.

To put the matter differently, one could ask whether Sherry Magee would have been inducted if he’d played more games in the public eye. Magee’s career OPS+ of 136 easily tops Gordon’s 120, yet his only playoff performance was in the last season of his career, for Cincinnati in 1919, a Series with other, more compelling storylines. Whether or not it’s due to the pinstripe factor, Gordon is in and Magee is out.

In the Army Now

A last interesting aspect to Gordon’s career is that, like many, he lost important time to World War II, spending much of the war in Hawaii with the Army. Whether due to injury, service time or integration, handling ‘lost years’ is a highly delicate issue, and one which voters approach differently. The matter is especially relevant in the present case, as Gordon’s 1944-45 seasons were in the prime of his career. In hindsight, that could have allowed him to pass Hornsby as the greatest home run hitting second baseman of all time; it also would have been a chance to amass more career hits than 1530. Among live-ball era Hall of Famers who played a full career (not Doby, Campanella, Robinson), only five have fewer career hits: Ralph Kiner, Hack Wilson, Chick Hafey, Ross Youngs, and Ray Schalk. Not exactly inner circle.

It would be interesting to see how voters estimate time lost, especially at the peak of one’s career. In the case of Joe Gordon, they must have been generous, as his counting stats are somewhat lacking otherwise.

Conclusion

From reading this article, it should be apparent that I don’t like Gordon’s election into the Hall. That is true. He’s not a terrible choice: many consider him to be the finest defensive infielder of his era, which has to count for something, and which is bound to be more clear in voters’ memories than it is on the stat sheet. It’s also worth mentioning that although he was on the pre-1943 ballot, Gordon played through 1950. That means that the players on the voting committee had actually seen him at or near his prime, unlike Magee or other earlier stars. No, he won’t be out of place in Cooperstown, but that is damnably faint praise, and it’s a shame that in its first year to ‘fix’ the Veterans Committee, this is the best we get.