Does Thurman Munson Deserve Another Hall of Fame Chance?

A little over three months ago, on August 2nd, baseball fans throughout the country noted the 40th anniversary of the tragic death of New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson. At the time the death of Munson, caused by a crash of a plane he was piloting, was a shock to the entire baseball world. Munson, the first Yankees’ captain since Lou Gehrig, was one of the most famous players in the game of baseball. He was a 7-time All-Star, a 2-time World Series champion and a star in the nation’s biggest media market.

Munson was the kind of player who had an aura of a future Hall of Famer. He was a hard-nosed, team-oriented player who frequently played with pain. The mustachioed backstop went by several nicknames, The Walrus, Squatty Body and Tugboat.

Tragically, with his passing at the age of 32, Munson didn’t accumulate the statistics that would impress Hall of Fame voters. He spent 15 years on the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot from 1981 to 1995, never earning more than 15.5% support in a vote that requires 75% to be elected.

This December, the current version of the Veterans Committee (the Modern Baseball Committee) will examine the careers of ten men whose primary impact on the game occurred between 1970 and 1987. Although Munson was bypassed on the last couple of iterations of this ballot,  on Monday the Hall of Fame announced that the Yankee captain was one of the ten candidates who will be considered.

Munson will be on the ballot with another catcher (Ted Simmons) and another Yankee (Don Mattingly) along with Steve Garvey, Dale Murphy, Dwight Evans, Dave Parker, Lou Whitaker, Tommy John, and former MLB Players Association head Marvin Miller.

In this piece, I’ll first recap Munson’s 11-year career and the impact of his death. At the end, there will be full examination of the question of whether Munson deserves to be elected by the Modern Baseball Committee for a plaque in the Hall of Fame.

Cooperstown Cred: Thurman Munson (C)

• New York Yankees (1969-1979)
• Career: .292 BA, 113 HR, 701 RBI, 1,558 Hits
• Career: 116 OPS+, 46.1 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 1970 A.L. Rookie of the Year (.302 BA, .801 OPS, 52% CS as catcher)
• 1976 A.L. MVP (.302 BA, 17 HR, 105 RBI)
• 7-time All-Star
• 3-time Gold Glove Award winner
• Won 2 World Series Championships with Yankees
• Career postseason: .357 BA, 3 HR, 22 RBI in 135 plate appearances

(cover photo: Associated Press)

Thurman Munson: Early Years

Thurman Lee Munson was born on June 7, 1947 in Akron, Ohio, the youngest of four children born to Darrell and Ruth Munson. At Lehman High School in Canton, Munson was a three-sport star in football, basketball and baseball. From his SABR bio, Munson started catching during his junior year because he was the only player on the team that could handle the 90 mile-per-hour fastball of teammate Jerry Pruett, a future fifth round draft pick.

In high school Thurman was heavily recruited for both football and baseball; he settled on Kent State for baseball, mostly because it was close to his girlfriend (and future wife) Diana Dominick. After three years at Kent State, Munson was the first round draft pick of the New York Yankees in June 1968. Munson spent only parts of two seasons in the minor leagues before making his major league debut in August 1969.

In his first start, Munson faced future teammate and Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter. Munson singled off Hunter for his first MLB hit and followed that up with a 2-run single later in the game against reliever Marcel Lachemann. In his second start, Munson hit his first big league home run off the A’s Lew Krausse.

1970: Rookie of the Year

Because he only had 97 plate appearances in 1969, Thurman Munson was still technically a rookie in 1970. The 22-year old right-handed hitter was anointed the Yankees starting catcher. Munson had impressed manager Ralph Houk in the spring of ’69; the Yankees skipper marveled at Munson’s “cannon” for an arm.

As a rookie, Munson hit .302 with a .386 on-base% and also showed off that arm by throwing out 34 of the 65 runners who attempted to steal a base, a superb 52% caught stealing rate. For those efforts, Thurman was a nearly unanimous choice for A.L. Rookie of the Year.

Using today’s metrics, Thurman posted a 126 OPS+ (26% above league average) and a 5.5 WAR, which was the best in the American League for catchers. Munson helped lead the Yankees to 93 wins, the most for the team since 1964. That total was 15 wins shy of the 108-win Baltimore Orioles in the A.L. East but was a good harbinger of things to come.

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1971-1975: Prelude to the Championship Years

As many players do, Thurman Munson had a bit of a sophomore slump in 1971. He hit just .251 (with a 105 OPS+) but continued to dominate defensively, throwing out a career best 61% of all would-be base thieves. The slower season with the bat didn’t stop Munson from earning his first of seven All-Star bids.

After another middling campaign in 1972, Munson had arguably the best season of his career with the bat in ’73. He hit .301 with a 142 OPS+ thanks to newly developed power. Thurman hit 20 home runs (a career best) in ’73 to go with 74 RBI. He also won the first of three consecutive Gold Glove awards and finished 12th in the MVP balloting.

In the American League in the early 1970’s, a rivalry was emerging between Munson and the Boston Red Sox’ Carlton Fisk. The Sox’ backstop won the A.L. Rookie of the Year award in 1972, two years after Munson claimed it. Both players were All-Stars in ’73 but Fisk was voted the starter in the fan balloting.

The simmering rivalry and hatred boiled over on August 1, 1973. In the 9th inning of a tie game at Fenway Park, Munson was on third base when shortstop Gene Michael missed the ball on a suicide squeeze attempt. Munson and Fisk collided at the plate (Munson was called out) and the two backstops initiated a bench-clearing brawl. It was this brawl that was the genesis of the intense rivalry that would continue between the two teams and their proud catchers for the rest of the decade.

Munson had somewhat of an off year in 1974 but started the All-Star Game after Fisk suffered a season-ending knee injury a few weeks earlier. Munson finished ’74 with a .261 BA (101 OPS+).

In 1975, Thurman had a huge year with the bat. For years, Munson had bounced around different positions in the batting order. After a blistering start in ’75 (Thurman hit .410 in his first 23 games), manager Bill Virdon installed his catcher into the cleanup spot. When Virdon was replaced by Billy Martin, the new Yankees’ skipper kept his catcher in the 4th spot in the order. Munson responded by driving in 102 runs, his first of 3 consecutive seasons with at least 100 RBI. He would finish 7th in the A.L. MVP vote.

Thurman Munson: Tough Guy

There were two moments in the first five full years of Thurman Munson’s career that defined his toughness and ability to bounce back. In the first incident, on June 18, 1971 in Baltimore, Munson was knocked unconscious when Orioles catcher Andy Etchebarren bowled him over at home plate. Munson was taken to a nearby hospital but turned out to be OK. He pinch hit the next day and started the day after that.

As Christopher Devine noted in his biography Thurman Munson: A Baseball Biography, “unconsciousness is what it took for him to make an error that season.” A dropped ball on the collision with Etchebarren would be the lone miscue in 614 chances for the sophomore receiver in ’71.

The next incident took place on June 24, 1975 in Chicago in the first game of a doubleheader against the White Sox. In the top of the 8th inning, Munson was hit by a pitch, nailed on the elbow by a Goose Gossage fastball.

I plunked Thurman Munson right on the point of the elbow. Smoked him as solidly as you can hit someone. Munson, being a manly man, insisted on walking down to first base under his own power.. Before he left the park, Munson tore a tiny piece of paper off a tablet and wrote me a personal message. “I took your best bleeping shot, you motherbleeper,” he scrawled. He sighnd the note “The White Gorrilla.” It being Thurman, his misspelled the word gorilla. 

— Goose Gossage, The Goose is Loose (2000)

Note: in his book, Gossage didn’t actually write “bleeping.”

Munson was removed from that game for x-rays, which proved to be negative. The Yankee catcher returned to Comiskey Park in time to pinch hit in the second game of the double header.

Thurman Munson, in his entire career, never spent a day on the disabled list.

1976: Pennant Winners

Before the 1976 campaign, Thurman Munson was named by Martin as the team’s captain, the first player so honored since the Iron Horse, Lou Gehrig.

“I’ll be a terrible captain. I’m too belligerent. I cuss and swear at people. I yell at umpires, and maybe I’m a little too tough at home. I don’t sign autographs like I should and I haven’t always been very good with writers.”

— Thurman Munson (upon being named captain), reported by Sports Illustrated (Sept 13, 1976)

Munson responded to the responsibility of recognized team leadership with a superb campaign. He set the tone early by hitting the first home run by the Bronx Bombers in the newly renovated Yankee Stadium.

For the season, Munson hit .302 to go with 17 home runs with 105 RBI. The 29-year old catcher also stole 14 bases. Although, by WAR (which of course didn’t exist at the time), it was only his 4th best season, given that the Yankees won a league-best 97 games, it was good enough to give him the MVP award.

The 1976 ALCS against the Kansas City Royals is famous for the walk-off home run in Game 5 by first baseman Chris Chambliss but Munson also had a big series, hitting .435 while driving in 3 runs. In the World Series, the Yankees were swept by Sparky Anderson’s Big Red Machine. A year after a World Series matchup of All-Star catchers Fisk and Johnny Bench, this Fall Classic featured Bench and the soon-to-be MVP Munson.

In losing, Munson was the Yankees’ hitting star, batting .529 with 2 RBI. Bench bested his counterpart, however, hitting .533 but with 2 home runs and 6 RBI. Bench would be named the World Series MVP a few weeks before Munson would earn the honor for the A.L. for the entire campaign.

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1977: Reggie Jackson Joins the Yankees

In the offseason after the World Series loss, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner had dinner with the Yankees’ captain to solicit his opinion about whether to sign free agent outfielder Reggie Jackson. “Go get the big man,” Thurman Munson told The Boss. “He’s the only guy in baseball who can carry a club for a month. And the hell with what you hear. He hustles every minute on the field.”

Steinbrenner signed Jackson to a 5-year, $2.9 million contract. Despite having given George the thumbs up, Jackson’s contract did rankle Munson, who had previously been promised by Steinbrenner that he would always be the Yankees’ highest paid player. Reggie threw gasoline on the situation early in 1977 in an infamous Sport magazine article in which he allegedly said that “Munson thinks he can be the straw that stirs the drink, but he can only stir it bad.” Years later, Reggie has denied that he made the comment.

Jackson, of course, more famously feuded with manager Billy Martin but the off-field drama didn’t stop the Yankees from winning 100 games to claim their second straight A.L. East title. Munson followed up his MVP campaign with another superb season; he hit .308 with 18 home runs and 100 RBI on the nose. It was the third straight season in which the Yankee captain hit over .300 with at least 100 RBI. Jackson did his part for the ’77 Bronx Bombers, hitting 32 homers to go with 110 RBI and a 150 OPS+.

After another thrilling 5-game ALCS win over the Royals, the Yankees were matched up against Tommy Lasorda’s Los Angeles Dodgers, the first World Series featuring the longtime rivals since 1963. The Yankees won Game 1, with Munson delivering a key blow in the bottom of the 8th inning. With the score tied at 2, Munson stroked a go-ahead RBI double off future Hall of Famer Don Sutton. The Dodgers scored in the 9th, forcing the game into extra frames. The Yankees won it in 12 innings.

Munson had another good series (hitting .320 while throwing out 4 of 6 potential base stealers) but Reggie was the star. His three home runs in Game 6 earned him MVP honors and the moniker “Mr. October.”

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1978: The Bronx Zoo

The 1978 season for the New York Yankees was immortalized in a tell-all book by relief pitcher Sparky Lyle, a book entitled The Bronx Zoo. Lyle had won the 1977 Cy Young Award and was a hero in the ALCS by tossing 5.1 innings of scoreless relief in the crucial Game 4 win. He was “rewarded” in the offseason by Steinbrenner’s decision to sign flamethrower Goose Gossage, who replaced Lyle in the most high-leverage situations.

In the book, Lyle colorfully detailed the dysfunction in the Yankees’ clubhouse. As a 11-year old baseball fan, I found the behind the scene tales riveting. The clashes between Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin were well known and now the stuff of legend but Lyle had interesting tales about almost all of his teammates.

Here’s how Lyle described a confrontation between Munson and Martin after a plane flight from Kansas City to Chicago when the traveling secretary told the players that they couldn’t play their tape recorders without headphones because Martin didn’t like to hear the music after a loss:

Billy and the coaches were sitting up front in first class. Thurman was sitting in the front of the coach section.. and he kept pulling the earphone plug out of his machine, letting the music blare for a few seconds… I don’t know if he was teasing Billy or just having fun or if he was pissed off because we weren’t allowed to play our music out loud.

The plane landed, and Thurman got up, ready to get off, and in front of all the passengers Billy started yelling at him that he should be a better influence… Thurman said, “the only reason you’re saying this stuff now is that there are nine guys between us.” Thurman really didn’t mean it in such a way that he wanted to fight, he was just telling Billy more or less that hey, you’ve had too much to drink, keep quiet. But when Thurman said that, Billy went crazy. He tried to get at Thurman, and the coaches had to grab Billy and hold him back. All the while, Thurman was watching as Billy struggled to get free, laughing and shaking his head, which made Billy even more livid.

— Sparky Lyle, The Bronx Zoo (1979)

It should be known that this incident was not reflective of the relationship between Munson and Martin, who were generally close.

“Thurman was Dad’s favorite,” Billy Joe Martin said, “and the thing he probably loved most about him was that Thurman wouldn’t talk to the press. He’d turn his back on ’em and just look into his locker or he’d look at ’em and say, ‘Go to hell, get out of here. I’m not giving you leeches anything.’ My dad used to just look at him and say, “I wish I could do that.”

— David Falkner, The Last Yankee (1992)

Meanwhile, on the field, the Yankees won 100 games despite an off-year with the bat by the now 31-year old Munson. Thurman still hit .297 but saw his power numbers sag to 6 home runs with 71 RBI (with a league-average 101 OPS+). In the middle of the season, Munson had an 18-day “vacation” from the tools of ignorance to give a break to his ailing knees; he started 13 consecutive games in right field while Jackson temporarily became the team’s designated hitter.

During Munson’s 13 days in right field, the two-year feud between Jackson and manager Billy Martin sparked the skipper’s resignation. Veteran manager Bob Lemon took over the squad in late July and helped steer the Yankees to a 14-game comeback in the A.L. East to finish the regular season in a 100-win tie with the Red Sox.

The 1978 Postseason

After defeating the Red Sox in the tie-breaker game, the Yankees were matched up in the ALCS against the Royals for the third straight season. After the teams split the first two games, Munson was the hitting star of Game 3. With the Yankees trailing 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th inning, Munson hit a 2-run home run off Doug Bird to give the Bombers a 6-5 lead (and eventual win, saved by Gossage in the 9th). New York won Game 4 to advance to the Fall Classic for the third straight season.

Up against the Dodgers again in the World Series, the Yankees lost the first two games at Dodger Stadium. Back home for Game 3, the Yankees had 25-game winner Ron Guidry on the mound but the Gator didn’t have his best stuff. Thanks to some brilliant glove work at third base by Graig Nettles, the Yankees prevailed.

In Game 4, the Yankees were trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th. With one out, Munson doubled to left field off reliever Terry Forster to tie the score at 3. New York would go on to win in the bottom of the 10th on a walk-off single by Lou Piniella. In Game 5, Munson went 3 for 5 with 5 runs batted in to power the Bombers’ to an easy 12-2 win. The Yankees would win their 2nd consecutive championship two days later in Los Angeles. Overall, Thurman Munson hit .320 with 7 RBI in the series.

This would be Munson’s final postseason appearance; he finished with a .357 batting average (.874 OPS) and 22 RBI in 30 playoff games.

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1979: Final Season

Bothered by multiple injuries (both knees and shoulder), Thurman Munson played in 97 of the Yankees first 106 games but not up to his usual standards. He was hitting a respectable .288 but with little power, only 3 home runs and 18 doubles in 419 PA for a OPS+ of 95. Despite playing through pain, however, Munson still managed to throw out 46% of would-be base stealers, right in line with his 45% career rate.

After a victory on August 1st, the Yankees were a respectable 58-48 but that put them 14 games behind Earl Weaver’s Baltimore Orioles, who were off to a blistering 72-34 start. In late July, Munson had his aching knees checked and manager Billy Martin (re-hired as the team’s manager in June) speculated that Munson might not be able to catch for the rest of the season. In four games between July 29th and August 1st, Munson started at first base in three games and was the team’s designated hitter in the other.

Cessna Citation

After a Wednesday night game in Chicago, the Yankees had a day off on Thursday, August 1st. In the previous month, Thurman Munson purchased a Cessna Citation twin engine jet for $1.25 million with the expressed purpose of using it to more easily commute to Canton, Ohio on off days to spend more time with his wife and three children.

“Munson in 1979 clearly had changed from the good-time guy I’d grown to know so well… Instead of hanging out with the guys, he started keeping to himself. On the road, instead of having a few beers in the hotel bar, he stayed in his room studying aviation manuals. I believe that Thurman had grown tired of playing baseball. He’d had his fill of the circus atmosphere inside the Yankee clubhouse and the pressure of dealing with the insatiable New York media.”

— Goose Gossage, The Goose is Loose (2000)

Munson invited teammates Jackson, Piniella and Bobby Murcer to fly with him to Canton on the off-day. All three declined due to prior commitments but also because of some trepidation of flying with the inexperienced pilot. Murcer, one of Thurman’s teammates in his early years with the Yankees, had been reacquired by the Yankees from the Chicago Cubs just five weeks earlier. Because the Yankees had finished a series with the White Sox, he had things to do in Chi-town, where he had spent the previous two and a half seasons.

“He loved that plane. He was just delighted to be able to fly. That’s all he wanted to do. Every chance he had, he wanted to fly. He wanted my family and me to fly home with him that night and spend Thursday with him, but I had some things I had to do in Chicago, where I still have my apartment.”

— Bobby Murcer, The New York Times (August 6, 1979)

August 2, 1979

On August 2, 1979, Thurman Munson died when he crashed his Cessna Citation at the Canton-Akron airport. During the early afternoon on this day, he asked friends David Hall (previously his flight instructor) and Jerry Anderson to accompany him as he practiced “touch and go” landings. As noted in his SABR bio, after two successful landings, Munson was directed to a different, more elevated runway, by the airport air traffic controller. As the jet descended, it sheered off the top of three trees before slamming into a stump on the ground. The plane  eventually spun completely around, coming to stop 600 feet short of the runway.

Munson’s companions were able to exit the aircraft but couldn’t unlock Munson’s seat belt because of heat and fire inside the cockpit. Reports at the time indicated that Hall and Anderson tried valiantly to free Munson from the fiery plane but the “fire got so bad that they had to get out.” Thurman Munson officially died from asphyxiation due to the inhalation of super heated air and toxic substances.

“Nobody on the Yankees will say the year is over. And nobody should. Anything can happen. But in a sense, anything already has happened. The look on all of the Yankees’ faces is enough for anybody to know that the year is over. The year ended when they heard that Thurman Munson was dead.”

— Dave Anderson, The New York Times (August 6, 1979)

August 6, 1979

Four days after he passed away, funeral services were held for Thurman Munson. More than 500 people, including all Yankee team members and many of their wives, attended the funeral at Canton Civic Center. The Yankees team members all were up at 5:00 in the morning in order to get from New York to Canton in time for the service.

Another 1,000 other people waited outside to pay their last respects, and hundreds more lined the five-mile route to the Sunset Hills Cemetery, where Munson was buried. Bobby Murcer and Lou Piniella, two of Thurman’s closest friends, fought back tears as they delivered eulogies. One of the funeral attendees was New York Mets manager Joe Torre.

The Yankees had a game to play that evening, against the Baltimore Orioles, a nationally televised game for ABC’s Monday Night Baseball. Murcer hit a three-run HR off Dennis Martinez in the 7th and stroked a game-winning two-run single off Tippy Martinez in the 9th, enabling the Yankees to overcome a 4-0 deficit and win the game 5-4. In this video clip of Murcer’s game-winner, ABC’s Howard Cosell summed up the drama of the moment and the day in his unique and poetic way.

The walk-off win against the Orioles was thrilling and emotional for the players and the fans but the team was still 14 games behind the Orioles in the American League East. The Yankees went 29-21 in the final 50 games of the season, finishing with 89 wins, which placed the team in 4th place in the East, 13.5 games behind the division-winning O’s.

Cooperstown Doesn’t Call

Instead of the usual five year wait after a player’s career has ended, Thurman Munson appeared on the BBWAA ballot for the first time in December 1980. He earned 15.5% of the vote, far shy of the 75% needed for induction. For the next 14 years, Munson remained on the ballot, never once even cracking 10%. His final BBWAA ballot was in 1995.

In the early 2000’s, the Hall of Fame instituted a new Veterans Committee process that opened up the voting to all living Hall of Famers. In 2003, ’05, ’07 and ’09, not one player ever received the necessary 75% of the vote to gain induction into the Hall of Fame. Munson never came close. The best he did was in 2007 when 6 out of 84 Hall of Famers checked his name on their ballots. 22 other players received more votes.

Starting in 2011, the Hall abandoned the “all hands on deck approach” and went back to a committee system with smaller 10 or 12 man ballots. Until this year, in the three committee ballots in which Munson was theoretically eligible, he was not selected for consideration by the screening committees.

The Case for and against Thurman Munson for the Hall of Fame

Why has Thurman Munson gotten so little support for the Hall of Fame thusfar? Before going into the Hall of Fame case in favor of Thurman Munson, we need to understand why he’s never gotten close to Cooperstown. Munson’s Hall of Fame resume was clearly perceived as lacking by the vast majority of the writers who make up the BBWAA and by his peers when he was on the Veterans Committee ballots in the 2000’s.

While Munson’s first-year BBWAA vote percentage on the 1981 ballot was low (15.5%), it should be noted that Munson debuted on a star-studded first-year-eligible ballot that included Bob Gibson, Harmon Killebrew, Juan Marichal and Vada Pinson.

The rest of the ballot of returning candidates was also stacked with talent: future BBWAA inductees Don Drysdale, Hoyt Wilhelm, and Luis Aparicio were still taking up spaces on the writers’ 10-person ballots. Other strong candidates who would be eventually be inducted by the Veterans Committee (Nellie Fox, Red Schoendienst, Jim Bunning, Richie Ashburn, Orlando Cepeda and Bill Mazeroski) were still getting votes as well. The ballot also had five other big names who are still outside of the Hall: Gil Hodges, Maury Wills, Roger Maris, Harvey Kuenn and another former Yankees’ catcher, Elston Howard.

With all of this talent on the ballot, only Gibson was elected to the Hall (with 84%) while everyone else split the vote and finished at varying levels below 61%.

The 1982 ballot was even more jammed, with Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson eligible for the first time. Billy Williams and Tony Oliva were also on the ballot for the first time. On this even more crowded ballot, Munson’s support dropped from 15.5% to 6.3%. But this was not a situation unique to Thurman.

With the presence of Aaron and Robinson temporarily defining a higher standard of excellence, every single position player on the ballot except for Aparicio saw their voting support drop, sometimes significantly. Hodges dropped from 60% to 49%, Wills from 41% to 22%. Howard, the other ex-Yankees catcher on the ballot, dropped from 21% to 10%. Another highly respected catcher, 11-time All-Star Bill Freehan, debuted on the ballot and received a whopping 2 votes (0.5%). He would never appear on the ballot again.

As we’ve seen in recent balloting, backlogs ebb and flow. The backlog dissipated a bit in 1983, with Brooks Robinson by far the best newcomer candidate and a first-ballot inductee. The other first-timers of note were Joe Torre (5.3%) and Dick Allen (3.7%). Howard sagged to 8.6% while Munson fell to 4.8% (this was a few years before the Hall automatically dropped players from future ballots when they polled at under 5%). The process was a bit arbitrary. Munson remained on the 1984 ballot; Allen was dropped but brought back in 1985.

No Respect for Munson, Torre, Howard, Freehan and Allen

Dick Allen is a special case, one I’ll tackle in the future. But the short version of why Allen never got any Hall of Fame traction is because he was a power hitter who finished his career with 351 home runs one year after the inductions of Aaron (755) and Frank Robinson (586). Allen played third base and first base, as did Killebrew, also on the ballot with his 573 career taters. Nobody had heard of OPS+ in 1983.

Let’s briefly take a look at the career statistics for the four catchers who appeared on the 1982-83 ballots. I’m showing basic statistics only, the ones available to writers in the early 1980’s:

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Like Munson, Torre and Howard won MVP awards. Like Munson, Howard and Freehan had World Series rings. None of this quartet got within a whiff of Cooperstown (except of course for Torre, who was inducted as a manager in 2014).

If you look strictly at the numbers, Torre looks by far the best of the four. In fairness, though, he was a catcher for less than half of his career starts (836 starts behind the dish compared to a combined 1,206 at the corners).

Who were the Hall of Fame Catchers in 1983?

It’s plain by the history of Hall of Fame voting by the BBWAA that the writers didn’t really know what to do with catchers. As of the 1983 ballot, only nine backstops had been enshrined in Cooperstown, with only five having been inducted by the writers in 48 calendar years of Hall of Fame voting. The five BBWAA inductees were Mickey Cochrane, Bill Dickey, Gabby Hartnett, Roy Campanella and Yogi Berra.

At a time where people cared far more about batting average than on-base or slugging percentages, Cochrane was a career .320 hitter who won two MVPs. Dickey hit .313 and won seven World Championships with the Yankees.

Hartnett hit nearly .300 (.297), won a MVP and had a longer career with more HR and RBI than Munson, Howard or Freehan. Even in an era before quality defensive numbers, Hartnett was regarded as a defensive whiz. His plaque in Cooperstown touts numbers like “chances without error,” “highest fielding average,” and “most putouts.”

Campanella’s career, like Munson’s, was cut short. Thankfully, the car accident that Campy was in did not kill him but it did paralyze him from the chest down, ending his playing career at the age of 35. In his 10-year career, Campy won three MVPs; he also hit 242 home runs in just 4,815 plate appearances. Berra, of course, was an all-time great who won three MVPs of his own to go with 358 taters and a whopping ten World Series titles.

The Golden Age of Catchers

Making the prospects even more dim for the four backstops who were considered on the 1982-83 ballots was that the 1970’s and early 1980’s were the “golden age” for catchers. 1983 was the last year for Johnny Bench. Carlton Fisk, at 35, was still performing at a high level. Gary Carter was an emerging star. And Ted Simmons was winding down a highly productive career.

Take a look at Thurman Munson’s numbers compared to the other four, with statistics through the 1983 season only.

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As we can plainly see, Bench was the new gold standard. And, in the key statistical category of home runs, the 35-year old Fisk, 34-year old Simmons and 29-year old Carter had already far surpassed Munson’s total. As each year beyond 1983 passed, Fisk and Carter kept building their resumes, each year making Thurman’s accomplishments look smaller.

What the Writers Missed: the Hall of Fame Case for Thurman Munson

There are a few angles one can pursue when crafting an argument for Thurman Munson for the Hall of Fame. The first is an argument that blends Munson’s offensive skills with his defensive ability. Other than the awarding of Gold Gloves, there was very little relevant data about a player’s defensive ability during the 15 years that Munson was on the BWAA ballot.

Today, the offense-defense argument can be made with both caught stealing stats and with the modern metric Wins Above Replacement, which is designed to show the totality of a player’s skill in hitting, defense and base running. We can show that Munson is right on the border line of catchers, below the line with respect to most of the backstops inducted by the BBWAA but above the line of those inducted by previous Veterans Committees.

An argument for Munson for the Hall must acknowledge that postseason performance is not just a “bonus” to a player’s resume but can be a central plank if that player has enough opportunities to shine in October baseball. A player can’t make the Hall based on just one or two big moments (think Kirk Gibson) but a player who consistently performs at a high level in the playoffs has an enormous value and important place in the history of the game.

What Might Have Been

Finally, there is the question of “what might have been.” This is a tricky one. Putting a player into the Hall of Fame by giving him credit for something he did not actually do is an argument that should rarely be used. Sabermetric pioneer Bill James tackled this topic in his landmark book Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?

Players in most cases have to be evaluated by what they actually did, not by what they would have done or might have done. I’ll make an allowance for certain types of career gaps–military service, players in mid-career before the color line was broken, and perhaps one or two other things. Munson’s situation is an injury, an extreme injury, but an injury. There are dozens of players who would have had Hall of Fame careers if they hadn’t been hurt….. Munson was pretty much through, as a player, anyway. At the time of his death he already had the knee and back injuries which end the careers of most catchers. 

— Bill James, Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? (1995)

The last part of what James wrote is critical, that Munson was near the end of his playing career anyway. I’ll get back to the question about whether Munson was “done” near the end of this piece but let me first tackle the question of whether it’s appropriate at all to credit a player for time lost due to an untimely death. The first two “exceptions” (military service and the color line) are widely accepted as legitimate reasons to “fill in the gaps” of a Cooperstown resume because they impacted a significant number of players.

I would consider a player’s death while still playing as something that deserves consideration in cases where that player had already built most of his Hall of Fame credentials and merely needed a few more years to pad some of his counting stats. Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez looked like a Hall of Famer in the making when he tragically died in a boating accident but he was only 24 years old at the time. Obviously, we can’t extrapolate an entire career for him.

In the case of Munson, pretty much all of what what makes him a Hall of Fame candidate had already occurred.

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Thurman Munson Compared to other Hall of Fame Catchers

One of the things that makes Munson a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate is that he was both a force offensively and also a top-flight defensive catcher. Munson’s all-around game gives him (on Baseball Reference) a career WAR of 46.1, which is superior to four Cooperstown inducted backstops (Roger Bresnahan, Roy Campanella, Rick Ferrell and Ray Schalk) and very close to three others (Cochrane, Ernie Lombardi and Buck Ewing).

Using Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system (which combines career WAR with a player’s 7 best seasons), Munson is rated the 12th best catcher in MLB history, behind 9 Hall of Famers, Ted Simmons and Joe Mauer and ahead of six enshrined catchers (the previous four plus Ewing and Lombardi).

In the chart below, I’ve included basic offensive numbers plus WAR, OPS+ and the defensive component of WAR (dWAR). If you’re not familiar with some of these terms, you can see the Glossary. This chart includes the 2nd tier of Hall of Fame catchers plus Thurman Munson:

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Of the 8 men listed here, Munson is 4th in WAR, 2nd in dWAR, 5th in hits, 4th in HR, 6th in RBI, 4th in BA, 7th in OBP, 5th in SLG and 6th in OPS+. Essentially, because of his defensive prowess, he’s in the middle of the pack of the 2nd tier of Hall of Fame backstops.

Thurman Munson in the Postseason

What sets Munson apart from most of the other Hall of Fame backstops (and all catchers in general) is his prolific performance in postseason baseball. Here we will compare him to all Cooperstown enshrined catchers, using World Series statistics only to level the playing field.

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Munson’s OPS (.909) in World Series play is third on this list behind only Mike Piazza and Roger Bresnahan, both of whom had vastly fewer plate appearances.

Munson’s Defensive Performance in Postseason Play

Thanks to the research by a website (munsonhof.com) touting Thurman Munson for the Hall of Fame, we can see the postseason excellence of the Yankees’ catcher beyond his overall .357 postseason batting average and 22 RBI in 30 games.

From the site’s research, counting all postseason opportunities (the ALCS and World Series), Munson threw out 44.4% of all runners attempting to steal (24 for 54).

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What the website’s author notes in particular is that Munson was gunning down would be base-stealers from some of the most prolific running teams of all time. Baseball Reference has mostly complete stolen base and caught stealing statistics going back to 1925. Since that date, the 1976 Cincinnati Reds, the ’76 Kansas City Royals, and the ’78 Royals were three of the 21 most prolific base stealing teams in 94 years.

From 1976-78, Whitey Herzog‘s running Royals stole 604 bases in 881 attempts (a 68.6% success rate). In the three ALCS matchups between the Royals and Yankees, Munson threw out 12 out of 28 Royals (a 57.1% success rate or, from the catcher’s perspective, a 42.9% caught stealing rate).

Led by Joe Morgan (with 60 steals on 69 attempts), the ’76 Reds (the Yankees’ World Series opponent) succeeded on 210 out of 267 attempts in the regular season (for a superb 78.7% rate of success). The Reds only succeeded in 7 out of 11 attempts against Munson (63.6%).

Postseason Performance: Combining Offense and Defense

As I mentioned earlier, the best Cooperstown case for Thurman Munson requires one to give great credit to postseason play. There were two other charts on the Munson Hall of Fame website that I found interesting.

The author researched and combined the totals of postseason RBI and runners thrown out for Munson and all Hall of Fame catchers. The term “Quality Points” (adding RBI and CS) was created to show how prolific players were in terms of driving in runs and gunning down potential runs. It’s a bit more of an apples/oranges statistic than OPS (combining on-base% and slugging%) but it clearly shows how Munson stands out in postseason play compared to the already Cooperstown enshrined backstops.

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First of all, allow me to be point out that “Quality Points” is a completely contrived statistic, adding together two fundamentally different things. It’s not meant to have any significance beyond measuring what actually happened in postseason games in two statistical categories unique to catchers. It’s meant to show simply that Munson plated more runners and erased more runners from the bases at a greater rate than any Hall of Fame backstop.

The authors, thorough their research, also took a look at the RBI and CS for other notable catchers who had a significant number of postseason games played.

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Thurman Munson and the Running Game

As we saw in the previous section, Munson had a considerable amount of success throwing out base-runners in postseason baseball. That ability, however, was merely an extension of his general throwing ability. Comparing caught stealing rates across eras is problematic because, as time and has progressed and analytics have taken root, teams have understood the importance of maintaining a minimum 75% success rate on stolen base attempts.

Two examples. The Chicago Cubs’ Gabby Hartnett is one of the greatest throwing catchers of all-time, having gunned down a remarkable 62% of all would be base stealers. The MLB average for caught stealing for catchers during Hartnett’s career (1925-1941) was 45%.

By comparison, one of the best catchers from the past few decades is Ivan Rodriguez. I-Rod threw out 46% of all would-be base thieves. During Rodriguez’ years donning the tools of ignorance (1991-2011), that 46% success rate far surpassed the MLB average of 30%. Do you see the point. I-Rod’s 46% would have been barely above average had he played from 1925-41.

Thus, what I’m going to do here is compare Munson to his peers from the late 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s, catchers of note with a significant number of games played.

This chart will show the number of runners who successfully stole a base against these catchers, the number who were caught stealing and the percentage of runners who attempted to steal against each backstop in stolen base opportunities.

The “SB Att Rate%” is significant. The lower the percentage of stolen bases attempted against any backstop indicates the degree to which each catcher “shut down the running” game by reputation alone.

SB Attempt Rate% = The % of times runners attempted to steal out of the # of opportunities

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As you can plainly see, among his contemporaries or near-contemporaries, Thurman Munson had the highest percentage of runners caught stealing. In addition, only the great Johnny Bench had a lower percentage of SB attempts against him than Munson did.

Munson’s superiority on this chart over Ted Simmons is not surprising (Simmons did not have a good reputation as a defensive catcher) but Gary Carter on the bottom of this list is eye-opening. I dug deeper into this and, in fact, Carter threw out 42% of all base-runners from 1974 to 1983 but only 28% in the years since.

What does this all mean? It means that Thurman Munson was better than all of his peers save for Bench when it came to shutting down the running game.

Summing Up the Case by WAR

When it comes to the Hall of Fame case for Thurman Munson, going strictly by regular season numbers (both traditional and sabermetric), he is very much a borderline candidate.

To recap, using the all-encompassing WAR (Wins Above Replacement), Munson’s 46.1 is 16th all-time, in front of 4 Hall of Fame catchers. Using “peak WAR” (a player’s best 7 seasons), Munson is 8th best, ahead of 8 Cooperstown-enshrined backstops and behind only 6. Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system (which combines both) puts Munson in 12th place, still ahead of 6 Hall of Famers.

His untimely death leaves him short of the career WAR and JAWS standards, but, even so, he’s 14th in the former and ranks 8th in peak… As short-career guys go, that’s Hall-worthy.

— Jay Jaffe, The Cooperstown Casebook (2017)

When a player’s WAR puts him in the borderline case, I always look at other factors. Clearly, Munson’s 113 HR, 1,558 Hits and 701 RBI leave him a bit lacking but his 116 OPS+ is strong for a catcher, especially for one with the defensive and postseason credentials that Munson has.

Was Thurman Munson Finished as a Player on the Day he Died?

So, I’m going to ask again, how much could Munson have added to his career totals if he had lived? Could he have surpassed 50 WAR, which would put him in the top 10 for catchers in the game’s history?

The answer is uncertain. Munson was clearly playing in pain when he passed away and one has to wonder how much longer he could have played. In 1978, as we’ve noted, he was briefly moved to right field because of the pain in his knees. The pain sapped his power, limiting him to 6 home runs.

In 1979, Munson kept catching (he was still better than anyone else on the team) but the pain in his legs was hurting him at the plate. Billy Martin explained it this way to George Steinbrenner:

“Don’t you understand, George, his legs are killing him. He can’t push off his legs to hit. The guy shouldn’t even be playing right now… He shouldn’t be playing, but we don’t have anyone else.”

— Billy Martin (to George Steinbrenner), Number One (Billy Martin and Peter Golenbock, 1980)

As we also noted earlier, Munson’s final four starts in 1979 were at first base (three games) and at DH. In the final game of his career, on August 1st at Comiskey Park in Chicago, he started at first base and was hitting third in the order.

He worked a base on balls in the first inning, lumbering down the line etched in pain. He looked weary that game. Slow. Beaten. Years of 140 games and reckless dedication had come back to taunt him. Reggie Jackson followed to the plate and eased Thurman’s journey by slugging a home run.

It was 9:15 PM in Chicago when number 15 stepped up for one more at bat in the third inning. His aching limbs restricted every move. When he twisted his knee on the third strike, there was no muscle that could push further. He reached the gray concrete shelter of the dugout and shook his head, looking Billy Martin in the eye. “Skip, I’m done. Can’t go anymore.” According to some, it was the first time he had ever taken himself out of a baseball game.

— Christopher Devine, Thurman Munson: a Baseball Biography (2001)

Devine, in this book, was clearly insinuating that Thurman Munson’s career as a player might have ended one night before the end of his life.

Obviously, there’s no way to know this. Perhaps, had he lived, Munson would have gone onto the disabled list for the first time of his career. Perhaps he would have missed the rest of the season. What would have happened next? Would Munson finally have gotten his wish and been traded to the Cleveland Indians so that he could play close to home?

Would the Indians franchise, with former Yankees’ GM Gabe Paul as its president, have been happy to trade for the aging catcher, giving the fans of a perpetually bad team a legitimate star and hometown hero to root for? Would the Indians have been happy to accept sub-par production from that star player from nearby Canton?

Of course there’s no way to know. But here’s something I do know. Even as a shell of his former All-Star self and in spite of missing the final 55 games of the season due to his untimely passing, Thurman Munson was still 6th in the American League in WAR (2.4) for catchers in 1979. Obviously, WAR didn’t exist in 1979 but batting average did and Thurman’s .288 was 4th among A.L. backstops with at least 200 plate appearances.

Conclusion

Considering that the players of the 2nd half of the 20th century are woefully unrepresented in the Hall of Fame compared to players from the 1st half, I believe that Thurman Munson deserves a plaque in Cooperstown. When you combine the accolades (Rookie of the Year, MVP, 2 rings) with his career WAR (which gives him credit for his superior defensive work), that’s a Hall of Famer to me. If you’re borderline by the numbers but you have a postseason resume like Munson does, that’s worthy of a plaque.

Having said that, Munson is one of a great many players from the 1970’s and ’80’s who is worthy of the Hall. There are eight other players on the Modern Baseball ballot. All have legitimate arguments for a Cooperstown plaque.

Thurman Munson and Ted Simmons

The first name that comes to mind is Ted Simmons, another catcher. Simmons, who played mostly in obscurity in St. Louis while Munson, Fisk and Bench shined in October baseball, was a terrific hitting catcher. Simmons doesn’t have the postseason heroics that Munson had and he was not the same quality catcher behind the plate but the hitting resume is vastly superior. 125 more home runs, 914 more hits and 688 RBI are significant.

Simmons turned 70 in August. He was on the 2018 Modern Baseball ballot and got 11 votes, painfully one vote shy of a Cooperstown call. I’d be happy to see both Simmons and Munson in the Hall but it’s hard to see it happening for both on one Eras Committee ballot. The 16 members of the Modern Baseball committee are allowed to vote for only 4 out of the 10 candidates. How many will vote for both catchers? How much weight will the voters give to the fact that Simmons missed by one vote two years ago? How much consideration will be given to the fact that this year is the 40th anniversary of Munson’s death? Will they split the vote, causing neither to get the 12 votes needed? We’ll know the answer to these questions when the results are revealed on Sunday, December 8th.

Right now, the backlog of quality players from the ’70’s and ’80’s who are worthy of Cooperstown consideration is long. If it’s not this year I believe there will come a time in the future that Munson will be elected to the Hall of Fame. If the Hall is about “fame,” Munson certainly had it. In any telling of the story of ’70’s baseball, Thurman Munson’s name must always be front and center.

What can I tell you about Thurman Munson, other that I loved him like a brother? No teammate of mine ever played with more enthusiasm or joy… Even when the game was on the line, Munson would always try to make light of the situation, no matter how critical. That’s what made him so special. 

— Goose Gossage, The Goose is Loose (2000)

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Chris Bodig

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