I count only 27 players with at least 90%:

1 Tom Seaver 98.84%
2 Nolan Ryan 98.79%
3 Cal Ripken 98.53%
4 Ty Cobb 98.23%
5 George Brett 98.19%
6 Hank Aaron 97.83%
7 Tony Gwynn 97.61%
8 Mike Schmidt 96.52%
9 Johnny Bench 96.42%
10 Steve Carlton 95.82%
11 Babe Ruth 95.13%
12 Honus Wagner 95.13%
13 Rickey Henderson 94.81%
14 Willie Mays 94.68%
15 Carl Yastrzemski 94.63%
16 Bob Feller 93.75%
17 Reggie Jackson 93.62%
18 Ted Williams 93.38%
19 Stan Musial 93.24%
20 Roberto Clemente 92.69%
21 Jim Palmer 92.57%
22 Brooks Robinson 91.98%
23 Wade Boggs 91.86%
24 Ozzie Smith 91.74%
25 Christy Mathewson 90.71%
26 Rod Carew 90.52%
27 Roberto Alomar 90.01%

I am of the general opinion that two many players have been elected to the Hall of Fame. I think it's for the really great players, not the very good over a long period of time. Funny thing is, at least since 1950, it's hard to point to any player and say "this guy shouldn't be in."

At least there's still the three-tier classification:

1. First time eligibility, and gets in, whether it's by 0.1 vote margin or unanamous, unamous, unianamous, uanamous, u-na-na-mouse!

They are in. I don't care how the word is spilled... Dang them spill checkers.

2. See number 1.

1) The voting took place in 1936, when Ruth had only been retired for a year. It wasn't impossible that he would come back and play again.

2) The voters in 1936 were probably from the "Old School" Dead Ball Era, who felt that this new-fangled home run craze was ruining the game.

3) Ruth's personal life was not untainted. In those days, that counted for more than Cobb's overt racism.

4) Hatred of the Yankees in general.

5) A certain percentage of voters probably ran out of room on their ballots voting for players they thought were more deserving than Ruth. That's different than consciously voting against Ruth.

<2) The voters in 1936 were probably from the "Old School" Dead Ball Era, who felt that this new-fangled home run craze was ruining the game.>

I think that is the key. Also, having read some books from that era, I think most "knowledgeable" people would have rated Cobb ahead of Ruth (and everyone else) for a few reasons.

1. They overrated batting average, at which Cobb was comfortably ahead of Ruth.

2. They overrated hits. Cobb had over 4000, Ruth had under 3000.

3. They didn't value walks. Ruth's walk records stood until McGwire and Bonds, but no one back then noticed. They noticed Ruth's 1330 strikeouts, though.

Summing up all of the foregoing, people back then didn't know how to look at a batter's stats and figure out how good he was at generating runs. Once the sabermetricians had made some progress toward cracking that nut, it became clear that Ruth was a far more productive hitter than Cobb.

As part of this general lack of sophistication about statistics, people tended to overvalue cumulative stats over "rate" stats. People noticed, for example, that Cobb scored 2,246 runs to Ruth's 2,174. That Ruth had 3000 fewer plate appearances to work with didn't really register.

There were other, more defensible reasons that people rated Cobb so highly. Cobb was good at every aspect of baseball offense: bunting, hitting to a spot, hitting the ball hard (over 700 doubles, nearly 300 triples), stealing bases. Ruth was easy to caricature as a fat guy who hit home runs from time to time. Basically people were expressing an aesthetic preference for a kind of baseball where the home run was a rarity, not the be-all and end-all of the game. I have some sympathy for that preference myself.

Finally, of course, people gave credit to Cobb for playing his prime years in the dead ball era. That makes sense.

Looking to another one of Phony's points, none of the old books I saw so much as mentioned Cobb's racism. And why would they? There was still a color line in 1939.

In fact, looking back at that list of players who got more than 90% of the vote, I note Cobb is the only player elected before 1980 to make the top ten. That must be significant, but I'm not sure of what.

By the way, I just noticed today that BaseballReference.com has finally come up with a new stat that is actually meaningful: ELO ratings for baseball players!

Win more often than he loses. Be better than his team. Here's a short article showing Ryan falling well short of Ferguson Jenkins and Ted Lyons by those measures, to say nothing of Lefty Grove and Walter Johnson.

To save others the trouble, allow me to point out that this is a really stupid comment.

<In fact, looking back at that list of players who got more than 90% of the vote, I note Cobb is the only player elected before 1980 to make the top ten. That must be significant, but I'm not sure of what.>

I venture to say that 50 years ago (color barrier notwithstanding) Ozzie Smith would have had trouble getting into the Hall of Fame, much less get 90% of the vote. His offensive stats are not that great, and many voters would not have witnessed his defensive wizardry.

The result is that "everybody" knows who should go into the Hall and why, and everybody votes for them.

Then as he just kept going as the years passed, and his strikeout and no-hitter totals went up to historic levels, people began to see him as great. This idea only grew as he kept pitching well until he was well past 40.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/l...

Ryan indeed tops the list. Andy Messersmith surprises me. Hoyt Wilhelm does not. And look who's at #14.

Game Collection: Pillsbury - Showalter 1897 match

Game Collection: Marshall -- Showalter 1909 match

But people are acting as if the team is a powerhouse with a great lineup. The team was NINTH in runs scored in the NL last year, and I don't see much improvement, unless Posey improves a lot and Sandoval comes back. And even that run total is deceiving, as they had a bunch of really high scoring games. In one stretch in August they scored 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 5, 6, 1, 0, 11, 16, 11. The total looks great, but they scored 3 or less in 7 of 12 games.

<Leave it to a librarian to know how to convince someone that whitewashing a fence could be fun...>