Evans was never the
biggest star on the Red Sox. In the early part of his career, he wasn't even
close. There were Fisk and Yastrzemski, for starters, in the 1970s. And in his
prime: well, still Yastrzemski, though Yaz's stats had diminished by the last
5-6 years of HIS career, and late on, Roger Clemens and the hitting machine Wade
Boggs were the biggest stars on a string of consistently good to great teams.
Evans was always one the most valuable members of his team, fulfilling that part
of James's definition C.
James posits a definition D: "A player who rises well above the level of the average player, a player who would be capable of contributing to a pennant-winning team, and who would be one of the outstanding players on an average team."
James includes "Little Poison", Lloyd Waner, brother of "Big Poison", Paul Waner, who have the best statistics of any brother non-pitchers in the history of the game, and are one of the three greatest brother acts ever to play baseball (5,611 hits between them), with Gaylord and Jim Perry (529 wins combined), and Phil and Joe Niekro (538 wins), Eppa Rixey, whose career record was probably the worst of any HOFer-- 266-251, for some mediocre teams, but his games-over-team is probably negative, and Wally Schang, a catcher who is not in the Hall even though Ray Schalk is, with almost identical statistics, career, at the same position at an almost identical time in baseball history (Schalk, 1912-29; Schang, 1913-1931) as players fitting this definition D. Evans does fit this description fully.
James posits a definition D: "A player who rises well above the level of the average player, a player who would be capable of contributing to a pennant-winning team, and who would be one of the outstanding players on an average team."
James includes "Little Poison", Lloyd Waner, brother of "Big Poison", Paul Waner, who have the best statistics of any brother non-pitchers in the history of the game, and are one of the three greatest brother acts ever to play baseball (5,611 hits between them), with Gaylord and Jim Perry (529 wins combined), and Phil and Joe Niekro (538 wins), Eppa Rixey, whose career record was probably the worst of any HOFer-- 266-251, for some mediocre teams, but his games-over-team is probably negative, and Wally Schang, a catcher who is not in the Hall even though Ray Schalk is, with almost identical statistics, career, at the same position at an almost identical time in baseball history (Schalk, 1912-29; Schang, 1913-1931) as players fitting this definition D. Evans does fit this description fully.
I am reluctant to put any definition D ballpayer in the Hall of Fame. Enos Slaughter eventually made it into the Hall, but he was certainly no more than a def-D player, and I can name at least 20 players whose statistics are equal or significantly superior, but who are not in the shrine, and will never be. Evans is one of them.
"Dew-ey! Dew-ey! Dew-ey!" Yeah, takes you back, doesn't it?
But I couldn't put him in the Hall of Fame if I was a BBWAA writer who votes for these things.
Nobody's more biased than me; I am a third-generation citizen of Red Sox Nation. My grandfather watched Babe Ruth pitch for the Sox in 1916, before grandpa went off to World War One. We Homanses predate the alleged, lifted Curse of the Bambino. But reality is reality. Dwight Evans is a near-HOFer-- but not one.
William P. Homans
Clarksdale, Mississippi
Aug 1, 2011 at 2:43 pm
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