The Library of Congress has made a bunch of old baseball photographs available over at Flickr. The photo above is of Les Nunamaker, a catcher for the Red Sox, Yankees, Browns, and Indians from 1911 to 1922.
Nunamaker’s career line: .268/.332/.339. Among his 10 most comparable players are the excellently named Johnny Peacock and Clyde Kluttz, as well as “The Colonel,” Hall of Fame broadcaster Jerry Coleman.
This particular photo was taken in 1912. Little did Mr. Nunamaker realize that a century later, folks all over the world would be able to watch him playing catch on something called the Internet…

Once again I’m a little late delivering the goods because I wanted to make sure there were actual goods to deliver. In this case, it turns out there are.
The St. Louis Cardinals have traded third baseman Scott Rolen to the Toronto Blue Jays for third baseman Troy Glaus. Fun trade. Rolen is 33 and has battled shoulder problems, while Glaus is 31 and has battled foot problems.
Career lines:
Rolen: 6380 PA, .283/.372/.507, 126 OPS+
Glaus: 5203 PA, .254/.358/.500, 121 OPS+
2007 lines:
Rolen: 441 PA, .265/.331/.398, 89 OPS+
Glaus: 456 PA, .262/.366/.473, 120 OPS+
Yikes, Rolen’s power has disappeared.
Peak lines:
Rolen: 593 PA, .314/.409/.598, 157 OPS+ (2004, …read more

   Photo by TomGazpacho   some rights reserved
I’ve been thinking about ways to bring you stuff that just isn’t available anywhere else. News and analysis is great, and I’ll certainly continue to do my share of that, but one thing I thought might be fun is to use Baseball-Reference’s “random” function and highlight whoever happens to appear when I give it a spin. We’ll do this every Wednesday because, well, in keeping with the spirit of things, I actually chose the day at random.
Anyway, our first player is Harry Lord, a left-handed hitting third baseman who played for the Boston Americans/Red Sox, Chicago …read more

Okay, here’s the full vote. My thoughts below the table…

2008 Hall of Fame Vote

Player
Votes
Pct

Courtesy MLB.com.

Rich Gossage
466
85.8%

Jim Rice
392
72.2%

Andre Dawson
358
65.9%

Bert Blyleven
336
61.9%

Lee Smith
235
43.3%

Jack Morris
233
42.9%

Tommy John
158
29.1%

Tim Raines
132
24.3%

Mark McGwire
128
23.6%

Alan Trammell
99
18.2%

Dave Concepcion
88
16.2%

Don Mattingly
86
15.8%

Dave Parker
82
15.1%

Dale Murphy
75
13.8%

Harold Baines
28
5.2%

Rod Beck
2
0.4%

Travis Fryman
2
0.4%

Robb Nen
2
0.4%

Shawon Dunston
1
0.2%

Chuck Finley
1
0.2%

David Justice
1
0.2%

Chuck Knoblauch
1
0.2%

Todd Stottlemyre
1
0.2%

Jose Rijo
0
0%

Brady Anderson
0
0%

As promised, my take:

The voters finally stopped screwing Goose Gossage. This business about Bruce Sutter paving the way for him is absolute garbage. Gossage came first and was a better pitcher.
They completely dropped the ball on Tim Raines. There is no way in Hades that Jim Rice was a better player than Raines. Why folks in charge of this sort of …read more

   Photo by ewen and donabel   some rights reserved
Congratulations to Rich “Goose” Gossage on his election into the baseball Hall of Fame. Gossage received 86% of the votes. He will be the only member of the Class of 2008.

{democracy:32}

No, I don’t think so, but Steve Lombardi makes an interesting comparison between him and Jim Rice over at Stat of the Day that forces me at least to consider the possibility. I’m not sure if it’s possible for a guy who spent his entire career with the Yankees to be underrated, but if it is, Bernie Williams might be the one. Or maybe Roy White.
Williams was unbelievably good from 1995 to 2002, while playing a premium defensive position. His offensive line for that stretch was .321/.406/.531. You know how many guys put up better numbers during that period (minimum …read more

Vegas Watch has compiled a list of reasons voters have offered in support of their selections for the Class of 2008. Some of them are pretty funny if you’re willing to separate yourself from the fact that these folks are entrusted with something that a lot of people hold sacred.
Jeff at Brew Crew Ball goes so far as to claim that he hates the Hall of Fame. That’s a bit strong for my taste, but I totally understand it.
Here’s how I look at the situation. For me, baseball is almost like religion. The ballpark is my church, and Cooperstown is …read more

Michael Knisley and John Shea debate Andre Dawson’s Hall of Fame credentials over at ESPN. Dawson, to my way of thinking, is the very definition of a borderline candidate. Check out his list of Top 10 most similar players according to Baseball-Reference:

Billy Williams (133 OPS+)
Tony Perez (122)
Dave Parker (121)
Al Kaline (134)
Harold Baines (120)
Dwight Evans (127)
Ernie Banks (122)
Dave Winfield (130)
Luis Gonzalez (119)
Vada Pinson (110)

As a point of reference, Dawson’s OPS+ was 119. Anyway, five of these guys have been enshrined in Cooperstown: Williams, Perez, Kaline, Banks, and Winfield. Of those five, three were clearly superior players: Williams, Kaline, and Winfield.
The other …read more

I seem to be on a Hall of Fame kick lately. Maybe it’s because I actually visited the place this summer. Or maybe there’s not much else going on right now (seriously, don’t make me bust out some transaction haiku on the Darin Erstad and Miguel Olivo signings). Whatever the case, that’s where my head is at, so let’s take a look at another worthy candidate, Rich “Goose” Gossage.
On second thought, let’s take a look at someone else taking a look at Gossage. In this case, we’ll check in on a couple of guys with a vote, ESPN’s Phil Rogers …read more

Dan McLaughlin has a nice article up at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) on the Hall of Fame worthiness of Tim Raines. In it, Dan compares Raines to other great “tablesetters” — guys whose skills were best suited to the top of the order — throughout baseball history.
The most important finding is that Raines hangs pretty well with his contemporaries — Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Paul Molitor. I didn’t get to see Henderson and Molitor play much until later in their careers, but I watched a lot of Gwynn and Raines. As a huge Gwynn …read more