When I recall Ryne Sandberg, I see him most distinctly running the bases. In writing about his Hall of Fame credentials, many people mention his base-stealing totals, which were impressive early in his career, peaking at 54 steals in 1985, and came to 344 lifetime against 107 times caught. Yet these numbers don’t capture the way Sandberg moved.
Sandberg certainly belongs in the Hall, and after drawing a vote on almost half the ballots cast by the Baseball Writers Association of America in his first opportunity, he could be elected next year. (Seventy-five percent is required for enshrinement.) Some have argued that a player either is a Hall of Famer or not and that the notion of making a player wait is arbitrary and capricious. Yet I’d answer that the notion of a first-ballot Hall of Famer is inherent in the system and a distinction worth preserving.
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That lack of walks is especially damning. If there’s anything the first-ballot elections of Joe Morgan and Ozzie Smith demonstrated, it was the growing appreciation of baseball writers for the base on balls. The same shortcoming has weighed on Andre Dawson, who got four votes more this year than Sandberg. Dawson played the game well and honorably, and his 1987 season, when he came to the Cubs for a paltry $600,000 contract in the middle of the owners’ collusion campaign against free agency, remains one of the highlights of Chicago sports over the last couple of decades–especially his 49th homer in his last at-bat of the season at Wrigley Field. Yet Dawson was even more of a free swinger than Sandberg. In 1990 he was intentionally walked 21 times, which is exactly the number of walks he got on his own. This hole in his game distressed BBWAA voters.
