35th Time a Charm: Gil Hodges Elected to the Hall of Fame

Today, Gil Hodges was posthumously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Hodges, an 8-time All-Star first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers, had been a candidate for enshrinement in Cooperstown since 1969 when he managed the New York Mets to the franchise’s first World Series title. Hodges’ widow, Joan, is now 95 years old and still living in Brooklyn. Her daughter Irene was with her when the good news call came from Jane Forbes Clark, the Hall of Fame’s Chairman of the Board. It was Irene who was on stage today delivering the acceptance speech in honor of her father, who passed away 5- years ago.

Last December, the Golden Days Eras Committee considered players, managers, or executives whose primary contributions to the game were between 1950 and 1969. Hodges received 12 out of 16 votes from the committee, the minimum (75%) required to get a plaque in Cooperstown. Hodges was elected along with Minnie Minoso, Jim Kaat, and Tony Oliva. Also, on a separate ballot, Negro League pioneer Buck O’Neil was elected, as was 19th-century star Bud Fowler, recognized as the first black professional baseball player. David Ortiz was also inducted this Sunday as the lone player elected by the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America).

Hodges, known as a “strong and silent” type dating back to his years in the Marines, was a powerful right-handed hitter and slick-fielding first baseman who was a member of seven pennant-winning teams with the Dodgers in both Brooklyn and Los Angeles. After 16 seasons with the Dodgers, he spent his final two years as a player (in 1962-63) with the expansion New York Mets. When his playing days ended in May 1963, Hodges’ 370 career home runs were the 11th most in baseball history and the 2nd most ever for a right-handed hitter from the National League (just behind Willie Mays).

Hodges, one of the famed “Boys of Summer” on the Dodgers, was revered as a team leader as a player, and, thus, it was no surprise that he served as a manager (for the Washington Senators) just a couple of weeks after his final MLB plate appearance. The Senators, in fact, traded Jimmy Piersall to the Mets so that they could employ the retiring 39-year-old first baseman to be their skipper.

In the biography Gil Hodges: The Quiet Man, Pee Wee Reese is quoted saying, “If you had a son, it would be a great thing to have him grow up to be just like Gil Hodges.”

Gil Hodges’ Perpetual Close Calls with Cooperstown

All told, Hodges had appeared on Hall of Fame ballots 34 times before last December’s committee vote without ever getting elected. Unlike many other Cooperstown candidates who have been disappointed by the process for decades, Hodges sadly did not have to endure the continuous close calls personally. He passed away at the age of 47 in April 1972, but Joan and her four children have had to suffer the disappointing close calls for decades. A few days before last December’s Hall of Fame announcement, Gil’s son (Gil Hodges Jr.) told the New York Daily News, “I talk to her three to four times a day. She’s an Italian girl from Brooklyn who knows baseball. It would mean a lot to her and to me. But it’s not up to us.”

From 1969-83, Hodges appeared on the ballots cast by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). On 11 out of those 15 ballots, he received over 50% of the vote. Most of the time in life, getting over 50% makes you a winner but not when it comes to baseball’s Hall of Fame, which requires 75% of the voters to say “yes” for a plaque in Cooperstown to be conferred. Hodges’ highest vote share came in ’83, his final turn on the ballot when he received 63.4% of the vote.

Overall, no player in the history of the BBWAA vote had received more votes than Gil Hodges without eventually being granted a plaque in Cooperstown, until that all changed last December.

This graphic is now forever “dated,” but it’s illustrative to show how rare it is for a player to get so much support from the BBWAA without eventually being recognized as a Hall of Famer by the Veterans or Eras Committee.

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In the decades that followed his 15 years on the BBWAA ballot, Hodges had been considered by the Veterans Committee (now called the Eras Committee) 19 times. On all 19 occasions, Hodges fell short, with the various committees electing nobody at all. Prior to last fall’s vote, Hodges was last considered in December 2014 for the Class of 2015. On that ballot, two players (Dick Allen and Tony Oliva) got 11 out of 16 votes, putting each player painfully just one vote short of baseball’s greatest honor. Jim Kaat got 10 votes on that same ballot, Maury Wills 9, and Minnie Minoso 8. Hodges was one of 5 men who were reported to have “less than 4” out of 16 “yes” votes.

Since nobody was inducted in 2015, Allen, Oliva, Kaat, Wills, and Minoso were all back on the 2022 ballot with Hodges. Although the composition of the 16-member committee was significantly different than in December 2014, I didn’t personally expect that Hodges’ fortunes would be any different this time. But, at a time when so many current BBWAA candidates are tarnished by scandal, apparently the character of the candidates was a strong feature of the Golden Days presentations last fall.

“According to sources familiar with the presentations during the Golden Era meeting Sunday, the subject of the integrity/sportsmanship clause, which has been such a raging topic in the Baseball Writers elections ever since the steroid cheats began appearing on their ballot, was widely discussed when it came to Hodges. ‘You could make the case—and apparently somebody did—that no one in the game epitomized that clause more than Hodges, a quiet leader, an ex-Marine World War II hero who was universally respected by teammates and foes alike,’ said one source. ‘I think that made the difference for him, especially in this day and age.’”

— Bill Madden (New York Daily News, December 5, 2021)

Madden also noted that “it didn’t hurt either that the venerable Hall-of-Fame Dodgers announcer Vin Scully (who had just turned 94) lobbied hard behind the scenes for Hodges with a lot of the committee members. And who could say no to Vinny?”

There was one committee member who was especially close to the Dodgers “family.” It was Jaime Jarrin, the longtime Spanish-speaking broadcaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers. If, as Madden noted, Scully was lobbying members of the Golden Days Committee, who can bet your bottom dollar that Jarrin carried Scully’s message to the other committee members.

“Gil stood out as not only one of the game’s finest first basemen but also as a great American and an exemplary human being, someone many of us were in awe in of because of his spiritual strength.”

— Vin Scully (written before the election, from the New York Post, December 5, 2021)

However it happened, when a player has received more than 50% of the vote so many times, that player deserves to be recognized by the Hall of Fame with a plaque among the greats. The Hall of Fame circle for the Boys of Summer now has its fifth member with a plaque in Cooperstown.

Cooperstown Cred: Gil Hodges (1B)

• Brooklyn Dodgers (1943, 1947-57), Los Angeles Dodgers (1958-61), New York Mets (1962-63)
• Career: .273 BA, .359 OBP, .487 SLG, 370 HR, 1,274 RBI, 1,921 Hits
• Career: 120 adjusted OPS+, 43.9 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 8-time All-Star
• 3-time Gold Glove Award winner (1957-59, the first three years the award was issued)
• Won 2 World Series titles with the Dodgers (1955 & ’59)
• Career World Series: .267/.349/.412, 5 HR, 21 RBI
• First player in N.L. history to hit 14 grand slams
• Led N.L. 1st basemen in double plays turned 4 times, assists 3 times, putouts 3 times, and fielding percentage 3 times
• Managed the 1969 New York Mets to the World Series title

(cover photo: Sports Illustrated)

This piece was originally posted in the summer of 2021. It has been updated to reflect the news that Gil Hodges has been inducted into the Hall of Fame with the Class of 2022.

Gil Hodges: Early Years

When he was born, Gil Hodges was actually named Gilbert Ray Hodge. He was born on April 4, 1924, in Princeton, Indiana. It’s unclear when his parents added an “s” to the family name. At Petersburg High School, Hodges was a four-sport athlete, playing football, basketball, and baseball while also running track. After two years at St. Joseph’s College, at the age of 19 in September 1943, Hodges was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers. He didn’t play a single minor league game before being called up to the big club. Hodges made his Major League Baseball debut in the team’s final game of the ’43 campaign, going 0 for 2 with a walk and stolen base. Playing third base, he also made two errors. Hodges would not appear in a MLB game again until 1947.

Shortly after the 1943 season, Hodges entered the Marine Corps and was sent to Hawaii. Hodges served in Pearl Harbor, Okinawa, and Tinian. In 1945, with the rank of Sergeant, Hodges landed in Okinawa with assault troops and was later awarded the Bronze Star. His future teammate Don Hoak said that “we kept hearing stories about this big guy from Indiana who killed Japs with his bare hands.”

Hodges was discharged from the Marines in February 1946 and spent the baseball season as a catcher in Newport News, Virginia (Class B). The 6’1”, 200-pound right-handed hitter made the big league club in 1947, spending the season as the team’s backup catcher, behind Bruce Edwards, who was an All-Star and MVP contender. Hodges appeared in only 28 games, hitting a lowly .156 in 91 plate appearances. In what was Jackie Robinson‘s rookie year, the Dodgers won the N.L. pennant in ’47 and fell to the New York Yankees in a 7-game series. Hodges had just one plate appearance in the Fall Classic, striking out in the 7th inning of Game 7 against Yankees’ reliever Joe Page.

In the spring of 1948, manager Leo Durocher asked Hodges to start working out at first base, but he started the regular season once again as the team’s 2nd catcher. On June 29th, Durocher gave Hodges his inaugural start at first, with Jackie Robinson moving to second. Hodges remained the Dodgers’ primary first baseman until the end of the 1961 campaign. In his first full season as a starter, Hodges hit .249 with 11 HR and 70 RBI. The team finished 3rd in the National League.

During the ’48 season, Roy Campanella took over as the team’s primary catcher in early July, with Duke Snider securing the starting center field job in August. Hodges, Robinson, Campanella, Snider, and shortstop Pee Wee Reese would remain the foundational pieces of the Dodgers dynasty until the end of the 1956 campaign. With Hodges’ induction this Sunday, all five of those core Dodgers are now Hall of Famers.

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Perennial All-Star

Now fully entrenched in the Dodgers lineup, Gil Hodges became a regular fixture in the Midsummer Classic, earning All-Star berths every year from 1949 to 1957, missing only the 1956 game.

During these 9 campaigns, Hodges slashed .284/.372/.515 (130 OPS+) while swatting an average of 32 HR per season (to go with 108 RBI per campaign). Hodges’ 286 home runs during these 9 seasons were the second-most in all of Major League Baseball, behind only his teammate Snider. In addition, he drove in 972 runs, which included seven consecutive campaigns with more than 100 ribbies. Using Wins Above Replacement, Hodges posted a 40.3 WAR for these 9 seasons, 11th most among all position players, behind 10 Hall of Famers.

The hitting highlight of Hodges’ career came on August 30, 1950, when he hit 4 home runs (with 9 RBI) in the Dodgers’ 19-3 victory over the Boston Braves. At the time, he was just the 4th player in the modern game (1901 and beyond) to swat 4 taters in a single contest.

The Dodgers won five pennants between ’49-’57 and, although they usually lost to the Yankees, “next year” finally arrived in 1955 with a 7-game World Series victory over the Bronx Bombers.

As a World Series performer, Hodges was a slow starter. He hit .235 in the 1949 Fall Classic and then famously went 0-for-21 in the 1952 edition. It was easy to blame Brooklyn’s 7-game loss in ’52 on their slumping first baseman. The Dodgers had taken a 3-to-2 series lead with an 11-inning win in Game 5 at Yankee Stadium. In Game 6 (at Ebbets Field), after Hodges went 0 for 3 with 3 strikeouts, manager Charlie Dressen pinch hit for his All-Star first sacker in the top of the 9th inning of a game the Dodgers would lose 3-2. Hodges went 0-for-4 in Game 7, which the Dodgers lost 4-2.

Although the Dodgers lost again to the Yankees in the 1953 World Series, Hodges’ bat boomed: he slashed .364/.440/.500.

In 1955, when Brooklyn finally won the title, Hodges was an integral part of the win. After starting slowly (going 1-for-12 in Game 1 thru 3), Hodges hit a go-ahead, 2-run HR in the bottom of the 4th inning in Game 4. In Game 7, which the Dodgers won 2-0, Hodges drove in both runs, with an RBI single in the 4th and a sacrifice fly in the 6th. Thanks to a complete game shutout by Johnny Podres, the Dodgers finally had their World Series title.

Hodges remains the only player in World Series history to have a multi-RBI Game 7 that accounted for all of his team’s runs.

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The Dodgers in Los Angeles

After the 1957 season, in which the team finished 3rd in the National League, owner Walter O’Malley moved the franchise from Brooklyn to Los Angeles (the New York Giants moved to San Francisco in the same offseason). The core members of the Brooklyn dynasty were either gone or aging. Robinson’s final year was in 1956; Campanella was paralyzed in a car accident in January 1958. Reese turned 40 in July 1958 and was now a backup. Only the 34-year old Hodges and the 31-year old Snider remained as starters in 1958; the team sagged to 71 wins, finishing 7th in the N.L. Hodges’ numbers also sagged in ’58; his OPS+ was just 98, and he only drove in 64 runs in 532 PA while injuries limited Snider to 58 RBI in 365 PA.

The Dodgers turned it around in 1959, thanks to bounceback campaigns by Hodges (125 OPS+, 80 RBI) and Snider (140 OPS+, 80 RBI) and breakout seasons by Don Drysdale, Roger Craig, Wally Moon, and Charlie Neal. 88 wins were enough for Walter Alston’s Dodgers to win the N.L. pennant by two games over the Milwaukee Braves. In what would be the last of his 7 appearances in the Fall Classic, Hodges slashed .391/.417/.609 in what would be a 6-game series win over the Chicago White Sox. His signature moment was a tie-breaking solo home run in the bottom of the 8th inning of Game 4, leading to a 5-4 victory.

Injuries and declining effectiveness limited Hodges to 231 PA in 1960 and 245 PA in 1961.

After the 1961 season, Hodges was selected in the expansion draft by the New York Mets, the franchise that brought National League baseball back to the Big Apple. He appeared in 65 games for the Mets in 1962-63 and has the distinction of hitting the first home run in the franchise’s history.

Gil Hodges’ Managerial Career

As we noted earlier, Hodges was traded to the Washington Senators in May 1963 to take over the reins as the team’s skipper. This version of the Senators was actually an expansion team as well, having started in the American League in 1961 (the previous version of the Senators had relocated to Minnesota after the 1960 campaign). If you go to Baseball-Reference and look at the roster of the ’63 Senators, only a very serious fan will recognize many of the names. The most familiar names are Minnie Minoso (at the tail-end of his excellent career), Claude Osteen (at the beginning of his), and Don Zimmer (known better for his later years as a manager and coach).

The ’63 Senators finished with a 56-106 record, putting them dead last in the American League standings. 1964 wasn’t much better; the Senators went 62-100, putting them in 9th place (out of 10 teams) in the A.L.

In December 1964, the Senators and Dodgers made a 6-player trade in which Osteen went to Los Angeles (where he would flourish), with Washington getting slugger Frank Howard as the signature player in return. The ’65 Senators improved slightly, winning 70 games, but that was still only good enough for 8th place in the Junior Circuit. 1966 was only marginally better: Washington went 71-91. In his final season at the helm, Hodges’ Senators improved to a 76-85 record.

Despite the poor records, the Senators’ brass was happy with Hodges’ performance. Another managerial opening, however, provided the opportunity for Hodges to move back home to Brooklyn, which he still made his off-season home and where he had business interests. The Mets sent $100,000 and (eventually) pitcher Bill Denehy to the Senators in exchange for the rights to hire Hodges as the team’s skipper.

The 1967 Mets were worse than the ’67 Senators: the team went 61-101 to finish 10th and last in the National League. The Mets in 1968 didn’t hit much but did have two young stud starting pitchers, Tom Seaver (who passed away in August 2020) and Jerry Koosman. Still, the two aces couldn’t cover for a team that hit just .228 (with a .281 OBP and .315); the ’68 Mets won just 73 games in Hodges’ first season at the helm.

In late September of ’68, Hodges suffered a mild heart attack. The strong and silent man had kept it hidden that he suffered from stress. Additionally, he had a poor family history (his father had died from an embolism) and had developed a smoking habit during World War II.

The 1969 Miracle Mets

Sometimes in team sports, everything comes together at the same time. So it was for the 1969 New York Mets. Although the ERAs of both men climbed, Seaver and Koosman actually pitched better in ’69 than in ’68; the league ERA rose from 2.99 to 3.59, thanks to the lowering of the pitching mound. Seaver (25-7, 2.21 ERA) would eventually be a nearly unanimous choice for the N.L. Cy Young Award. On the mound, besides their two aces, the Mets had a fantastic one-two punch out of the bullpen (lefty Tug McGraw and righty Ron Taylor) along with a young flamethrower named Nolan Ryan.

Although the ’69 Mets were still below-average offensively, they did get a career year from left fielder Cleon Jones (.340 BA, 151 OPS+, 7.0 WAR) while center fielder Tommie Agee (26 HR, 122 OPS+, 5.2 WAR) rediscovered the form that made him the A.L. Rookie of the Year in 1966.

Even so, after being swept in three games by the Astros in Houston in early August, the Mets were just 62-51 and 10 games behind the Chicago Cubs in the newly formed National League East. However, starting on Saturday, August 16th, with a doubleheader sweep at Shea Stadium of the first-year San Diego Padres, the Mets went on an incredible run in which they won 38 of their last 49 games.

While the Mets surged, the Cubs sagged. So, when New York swept a two-game series against Chicago at Shea in early September (thanks to complete game efforts from Koosman and Seaver), the Mets were just one-half game out of first place. The next night, the Mets swept a doubleheader against the expansion Montreal Expos to take over first place. Overall, the Mets won 22 of their final 26 games to easily win the division by 8 games and finish the season with an even 100 wins.

1969 was the first season of expanded playoffs (the League Championship Series). The Mets were matched up against the N.L. West Champion Atlanta Braves, who featured future Hall of Famers Hank Aaron and Phil Niekro; both Aaron and Niekro passed away this winter within a few weeks of each other. (By the way, in case you’re curious to learn how a team from Atlanta wound up in the West, it’s a long and fascinating tale; you can read about here).

Despite a .357 BA, 3 HR, and 7 HR from Aaron, the Mets swept the NLCS in 3 games, thanks to uncharacteristically strong hitting. The light-hitting Mets hit .327 with 6 HR and 24 runs scored in the 3-game sweep.

The 1969 World Series

In the World Series, the Mets were heavy underdogs against Earl Weaver‘s Baltimore Orioles, who won 109 games and boasted three future first-ballot Hall of Famers (right fielder Frank Robinson, third baseman Brooks Robinson, and starter Jim Palmer). Just as it was in 1968 when Bob Gibson matched up against Denny McLain, Game 1 in Baltimore was a World Series matchup between pitchers who would win the Cy Young Award in the offseason. It was Seaver against left-hander Mike Cuellar, a 23-game winner. Cuellar and the Orioles were the winners, by a 4-1 score.

For the next four games, however, the Mets’ hurlers silenced the mighty bats of the Birds. Koosman, Taylor, 3rd starter Gary Gentry, Ryan, Seaver, and Koosman again combined to give up just 5 runs in Games 2-thru-5. For the Mets, it was a full team effort, with key contributions offensively or defensively by virtually all position players on the roster.

Given that the Hall of Famer Weaver is known for being a pioneer of the platoon, it’s ironic that it was Hodges that utilized platoon advantages at four of the eight non-pitching positions on the diamond. Against lefties Cuellar and Dave McNally, Hodges started righty swingers at first base (Donn Clendenon), second base (Al Weis, a switch-hitter who was better from the right side), third base (Ed Charles), and right field (Ron Swoboda). Against the right-hander Palmer (in Game 3), the starts went to lefty swingers: Ed Kranepool (first base), Ken Boswell (second base), Wayne Garrett (third base), and Art Shamsky (right field).

Additionally, as John Saccoman writes in his SABR Bio about Hodges, a pivotal moment in Game 5 at Shea added to the legend of Hodges as manager. In the bottom of the 6th inning, with the O’s in front 3-0, McNally bounced a curve that may or may not have hit Cleon Jones on the toe. Hodges, allegedly showing the ball with shoe polish on it, convinced home plate umpire Lou DiMuro that the ball had hit Jones on the toe, and the Mets left fielder was sent to first base on the HBP. Clendenon then followed up with a 2-run blast to cut the lead to 3-2; the Mets would go on to win the game 5-3 and the series in 5 games. Part of the legend is that the ball that Hodges showed DiMuro might have not been the actual ball but Hodges’ reputation for being an honest straight-shooter gave him the benefit of the doubt.

The Mets had completed the impossible dream and won the 1969 World Series, a crowning achievement for the team and its beloved skipper.

“Nobody liked the platoon. It didn’t help our careers. But we did it because we respected him so much. And it was working. That was something Hodges figured out and, with our pitching, here we go. It was an incredible managerial job. He was analytics. His brain. Gil was our algorithm.”

— Ron Swoboda (New York Daily News, December 4th, 2021)

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Final Two Years with the Mets (1970-71)

The Mets would not repeat the magic of 1969 in Gil Hodges’ final two seasons at the helm. The men in Queens won exactly 83 games in both 1970 and 1971, finishing 3rd in both campaigns. In the 1970 edition, the Mets were tied for first place on September 14th, but, unlike in ’69, they sagged down the stretch, losing 10 of their final 15 contests.

In the spring of 1972, the first-ever players’ strike gave Hodges an opportunity to hit the links with three of his coaches on April 2nd. With coaches Joe Pignitano, Rube Walker, and Eddie Yost, Hodges played 27 holes at the Palm Beach Lakes golf course. Unfortunately, shortly after walking off the course, Hodges fell to the pavement, suffering a heart attack. Paramedics arrived on the scene just three minutes after Hodges fell, and he was pronounced dead 20 minutes after being admitted to the hospital. Hodges’ death occurred just two days prior to what would have been his 48th birthday.

One of the Mets’ other coaches, Yogi Berra, who had recently been inducted into the Hall of Fame due to his playing days with the crosstown Yankees, took over the team and led the Mets back to the World Series in 1973.

The Hall of Fame Case for and Against Gil Hodges

What is it that made Gil Hodges a strong enough Hall of Fame candidate to earn over 50% of the BBWAA vote 11 times but not strong enough to get to 75%? First, let’s compare Hodges to his peers while he was playing and also look at other factors that make him a unique individual in baseball history:

As previously noted, when his playing career ended in May 1963, Hodges’ 370 home runs were good enough to put him 11th on the all-time list. In addition, he had the 3rd highest total among right-handed batters (behind Jimmie Foxx and Willie Mays) and the 5th most ever in the National League. It’s easy to forget today, but in 1963, 370 was a good total.

Next, by a variety of statistical categories, Hodges was the best first baseman in Major League Baseball between 1942 and 1968. Hodges played just one game in 1943 and then went off to war, not returning until 1947.  I’ve chosen to rank Hodges from five years before his true debut in 1947 and five years after retiring in 1963.

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As you can see, this is a mixed bag. While Hodges reigns supreme in most basic counting stats and the all-encompassing WAR (Wins Above Replacement), his rate stats (BA, OBP, SLG) are not enthralling. Hodges leads this group in WAR because his career’s timing makes him one of only three first basemen with more than 7,000 plate appearances from 1942-68. If you extend the event horizon to 1974 (to encompass more of the careers of Willie McCovey, Norm Cash, and Orlando Cepeda), Hodges drops to 4th in WAR (behind the aforementioned men), 4th in HR, and 3rd in RBI (behind Cepeda and Mickey Vernon).

Hodges’ Peak (1949-59)

OK, I think we can establish that there were better first basemen than Gil Hodges whose careers overlapped with his. Besides McCovey and Cepeda, who overlapped the end of Hodges’ career, there’s Johnny Mize, whose career intersected with Hodges’ on the front end. There is another way to look at a player’s career, however, and that is to see how he ranks as a peak performer against all other players during that peak. And, so, let’s look at how Hodges ranks against all hitters in baseball from 1949-59, his eleven-year peak.

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Again, Hodges’ chief credential here is that he hit a lot of home runs (for his era) and drove in a lot of runs. As a result, compared to his peers, he really suffers in the rate stats, whether you go with the basics (BA, OBP, SLG) or the ballpark-adjusted OPS+.

Regarding the basics, if you want to clearly understand why Hodges never surpassed 75% of the BBWAA vote, you can look no further than his .273 career batting average. Of the 74 corner outfielders or first basemen elected to the Hall of Fame, only Reggie Jackson, Harmon Killebrew, Willie McCovey, Eddie Mathews, Mike Schmidt, and Brooks Robinson had a career BA of lower than .273. All but Robinson hit more than 500 home runs, and Robinson won 16 Gold Gloves.

Remember, when Hodges was on the BBWAA ballot, the four key offensive statistics people cared about were batting average, HR, RBI, and stolen bases for the fleet afoot. Today, most Hall of Fame evaluators give credence to a multitude of other statistics but the fact is this: Hodges falls short not just on BA but also in OPS+, which encompasses on-base ability, slugging power, while adjusting for ballparks and eras.

Gil Hodges’ Home-Road Splits

As noted earlier, one of Hodges’ chief calling cards was that he was 11th on the all-time home run list at the time his career came to an end. It should be fairly pointed out, however, that his career offensive numbers were also positively influenced by having spent most of his career hitting at Ebbets Field, which had a fence just 351 feet in the left-center field power alley and 384 feet away in center field. In his entire career, Hodges hit 205 home runs in his home ballparks and 165 on the road.

• From 1943-57, he hit 172 HR at Ebbets Field.
• From 1943-57, he hit 126 HR in road games.

The home-road splits were mostly neutral from 1958-61 when the Dodgers played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The odd configuration of what was a football stadium had a 250-foot poke down the left-field line; that sounds positively tiny but it was mitigated by a fence that was 40 feet high.

What About Hodges Defense?

Part of the Hall of Fame case for Gil Hodges is that he was considered one of the greatest defensive first basemen in the history of the game, at least at the time of his retirement. During 10 seasons from his 11-year peak (1949-59), Hodges was in the top 3 in the National League in fielding percentage for first basemen. He was first or second in assists 10 times, and, as of the end of the 1963 season, only four first sackers in MLB history had turned more double plays. When the Gold Glove Award was created (in 1957), Hodges was the winner at first base; he won the award again in 1958 and 1959. If Gold Gloves had been awarded throughout this career, it’s possible that he would have 10 or 11 such honors.

Was Hodges as slick a fielder as his reputation? That’s hard for me to say definitively, mostly because I never saw him play. As a result, I can only go by the numbers, and the numbers don’t back up the reputation.

Going by “Total Zone Runs” (on Baseball-Reference), Hodges ranks tied for 22nd among all first basemen in history. Now, to be fair, as I chronicled in my piece about Andruw Jones, there is an inherent bias in many defensive metrics that favors modern players over older players. Still, Hodges ranks behind Vic Power (a contemporary who played from 1954-65) and Bill “Moose” Skowron (1954-67). Now, to be fair, Total Zone only goes back to 1953, which eliminates four of Hodges’ peak seasons.

(For the record, as a fan of the Mets, I can tell you that people often referred to another New York first baseman, Keith Hernandez, as the “best since Gil Hodges”. Hernandez, a worthy Cooperstown candidate, in my opinion, ranks #1 on this list).

Another statistic on Baseball-Reference calculates the “runs above or below average” (Rfield) from fielding (essentially, the fielding component of WAR). Hodges ranks 29th on this list. Rfield, which goes back to the 19th century, also puts Hodges behind Power but ahead of Skowron (barely). Again, there is a recency bias here. However, Hodges still ranks behind Fred Tenney, Roger Connor, Wally Pipp, Bill Terry, Frank McCormick, Cap Anson, Bill White, High Pockets Kelly, Ed Konetchy, Charlie Comiskey, and Frank Chance.

(Hernandez is #2 on this list, behind Albert Pujols).

What does this mean with respect to Hodges’ Hall of Fame candidacy? Given that it’s not easy to apply defensive metrics retroactively, you must decide if you can trust the numbers. It’s a tough call.

Gil Hodges and the Hall of Fame Vote

Before wrapping up this piece, I’d like to revisit how extraordinarily unique the record is when it comes to the support that Gil Hodges received for the Hall of Fame without making it until the vote this past December.

Hodges first hit the BBWAA ballot in late 1968, with the results revealed in January 1969. As previously noted, when Hodges’ playing career ended, he had the most home runs ever for a right-handed batter. Nevertheless, on a ballot featuring Stan Musial and his former teammate Roy Campanella, the voters were initially unimpressed by Hodges’ candidacy. He received 24.1% of the vote in an election requiring 75% for a Cooperstown plaque. In all, 12 players received more votes than Hodges.

In the January 1970 balloting, nothing about Hodges’ playing career had changed, but there was a buzz from the Mets’ World Series Championship. Even though the writers were technically supposed to vote only for the candidate’s playing days, clearly, many of the BBWAA ignored that norm. As a result, Hodges’ vote share doubled (to 48.3%); only Lou Boudreau (also a player turned manager) and Ralph Kiner got more votes, with Boudreau making it into the Hall.

Nobody was elected in 1971, even though Berra hit the ballot for the first time; the penurious writers only conferred 67.2% of the vote to the legendary backstop. Hodges’ vote share was exactly 50.0%. With Sandy Koufax hitting the ballot in 1972, Hodges’ voting support sagged to 40.7%. Koufax, Berra, and Early Wynn all cleared the 75% bar and were elected to the Hall.

The next time that Hodges appeared on the ballot (in December 1972 for the Class of 1973), writers were keenly aware that they would be choosing to cast a “yes” or “no” vote on his candidacy posthumously.

“Perhaps there is a measure of sentiment in a vote for Gil Hodges. I will not deny that. In the rules governing election to the Hall of Fame, paragraph 4 states: ‘Candidates shall be chosen on the basis of playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, their contributions to the team on which they played, and to baseball in general.’ Gil Hodges scores points in all departments.”

— Dick Young, New York Daily News (1973)

Clearly, many writers felt sentimental about Hodges: his vote share surged to 57.4%, a significant increase but not enough of one to grant him a plaque in Cooperstown.

Usually, when a player approaches 60% of the vote, momentum is created that pushes them over the proverbial finish line in the ensuing years. But that didn’t happen for Hodges. His level of support remained above 50% for 9 of his final 10 years of ballot eligibility, but he never got higher than the 63.4% he earned in 1983. (The one season in which he dipped below 50%, to 49.4%, was, not coincidentally, in 1982, when Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson hit the ballot for the first time).

As previously noted, Hodges appeared on 19 versions of the Veterans Committee ballot from 1987 to 2015. The actual results of all of those votes are incomplete, but we do know that, on several occasions, Hodges got more than 50% of the vote but less than the required 75%.

The closest call came in 1993 when Hodges actually got 12 out of 16 votes (75%). However, one of those votes was from his former teammate Roy Campanella. Because Campanella was hospitalized and did not cast his vote in person, by the rules, committee chair Ted Williams disallowed the vote. That gave Hodges 11 out of 15 (for 73.3%, which is close but no cigar per the rules).

BBWAA History: Over 50% but less than 75%

In the history of the BBWAA voting, virtually every candidate who has received over 50% of the vote but never made it to 75% has eventually been inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. The only candidates who have made it to 50% with the BBWAA but still aren’t in the Hall are Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Omar Vizquel.

Excluding those players, who were on the 2022 BBWAA ballot (it was the 10th and final year of eligibility for Bonds, Clemens, and Schilling), this is a list of all players who reached 50% of the BBWAA vote but never made it to 75% from 1948-2017. The players are ranked by the number of times their vote tally exceeded 50%.

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A couple of notes about this:

There are six other players who received over 50% of the BBWAA vote but never above 75%: Ed Delahanty, Ed Walsh, Roger Bresnahan, Rube Waddell, Frank Chance, and Johnny Evers. All six were elected by the “Old-Timers Committee” in 1945 or 1946 when the Hall of Fame decided that the BBWAA was no longer qualified to vote for players from the 19th century or the first decade of the 20th.

Take note of the two columns to the right, the “wait” time for each player between their last turn on the BBWAA ballot and when the Veterans Committee decided to put them into Cooperstown. I can’t remember who wrote this but I recall a writer applauding the Hall of Fame’s decision to shorten each player’s BBWAA eligibility from 15 years to 10 so that players like Jack Morris wouldn’t be tortured for too long. As you can see, besides the eternal wait of 39 years for Hodges supporters, the longest wait was for Nellie Fox, who was elected to the Hall 12 years after he came just two votes shy of a plaque from the BBWAA.

Jim Bunning reached his peak in 1988 when he finished four votes short of the magic number of 75%. Bunning had three more years of eligibility left but saw his vote share sag as more accomplished starting pitchers started to hit the ballot in 1989 and 1990 (Gaylord Perry, Fergie Jenkins, and Jim Palmer).

Anyway, the point of this long and boring story is that the Hall of Fame voting story of Gil Hodges is truly unique. No other player had his family and fans disappointed for so many years, until that all changed last December.

Final Thoughts

Although the point is moot now that Gil Hodges has been inducted into the Hall of Fame, I’m going to re-visit my thoughts from last summer when I originally posted this piece and contemplated my answer to the question, whether it should be “yes” or “no” for Hodges for the Hall of Fame.

If you’ve read through the entire article, you would probably assume that my personal opinion is that Hodges wasn’t worthy. The answer, in fact, is that I was on the fence, which is consistent with the longtime trend of more than 50% but less than 75% support.

The reasons against are obvious and well-documented. While Hodges was a premier power hitter in his era, he benefitted from playing in Ebbets Field, and his rate stats weren’t quite up to snuff for Cooperstown. You don’t need to understand or believe in sabermetrics to get it; he had a .273 career batting average. Hodges was a highly regarded player but never came close to winning an MVP trophy. His highest finish was 7th (in 1957), and he only finished in the top 10 on two other occasions.

Hodges won 3 Gold Gloves (and would have, by reputation, won many more if the award had existed before 1957), but his defensive metrics are merely excellent, not “best ever.”

As a manager, he did win the 1969 World Series with the Mets, but his teams never won more than 83 games in any other season, giving him a career winning percentage of .420, an average of 68 wins per 162 games.

So, after all of that, why was I still on the fence? First, I will be honest: for me, it starts with being a native New Yorker and fan of the Mets since 1975. Hodges’ uniform number (14) is one of only seven retired by the franchise. The others belong to Casey Stengel, Tom Seaver, Mike Piazza, Jerry Koosman, Keith Hernandez (retired just a few weeks ago), and Jackie Robinson (whose #42 is retired by all MLB teams). On this team, having your number retired means something. Now, of course, I’m not saying that just because a team decides to honor a man, that the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown had to do the same. It means that one should think about why the team decided to retire that number. In this case, Hodges’ overall contributions to New York National League baseball in general and the Mets, in particular, were deemed worthy of that honor.

As a Mets fan, it’s been in my DNA for decades that Gil Hodges belongs in Cooperstown. However, now that I am a writer who breaks down Hall of Fame candidacies in exhaustive detail, I have to look at the case more objectively. Although I am delighted that he was finally elected to the Hall of Fame, I did not feel that Hodges was one of the top four candidates on the Golden Days ballot. In particular, Dick Allen’s case was much stronger. Allen had similar counting stats but a vastly superior slash line (highlighted by a 156 career OPS+, compared to Hodges’ 120). As it turned out, Allen fell one vote shy, getting 11 votes for the second consecutive time on the Eras Committee ballot.

Still, it boils down to this: the Eras Committee balloting process limits a voter to four choices. I felt that Allen, Jim Kaat, Minnie Minoso, and Ken Boyer were better choices. However, the committee members clearly didn’t feel strongly about Boyer’s candidacy, focusing on the other three men, plus Hodges and Tony Oliva. Four out of the five matched or exceeded the 75% minimum, with Hodges, Kaat, and Oliva making it right on the nose (12 out of 16 votes, for 75%). Minoso was the leading vote-getter, with 14 votes, and a long-overdue Hall of Fame selection.

Conclusion

If the choice were a binary choice (“yes” or “no,” without limitation on how many candidates one could vote for), I would have voted “yes” on Gil Hodges. When considering the worthiness of a Hall of Fame candidate, I always consider the statistics but also the man’s relevance to the history of baseball. Hodges was a key factor in three World Series titles, two as a player and the big one as the manager for the Miracle Mets.

“He would’ve had the Mets as a dynasty for many years to come if he had lived. You can’t really talk about the ‘69 Mets or any of our careers without thinking or talking about Gil. He left a lifetime impression with each of us… He shined. He made us all shine.”

— Jerry Koosman, Mets pitcher (New York Daily News, December 4th, 2021)

And then there’s this: I normally shake my head when somebody says or writes that it’s an “injustice” that someone is not in the Hall of Fame. A plaque in Cooperstown is baseball’s highest honor, and most men who don an MLB uniform aren’t in it. But I also am looking not just at the history of baseball but at the history of the Hall of Fame and, in particular, the history of the voting for the Hall. As we’ve seen, every player who ever got at least 50% of the BBWAA vote was eventually ushered into Cooperstown, with Hodges being the eternal exception of that rule until he was voted in last fall by the Eras Committee.

And, to add insult to the injury for Hodges’ supporters, there was that case where he did get 75% of the vote (in 1993) only to have the 12th vote (out of 16) discarded because his former teammate (Campanella) was in the hospital and couldn’t vote in person. So, 28 years later, fans and members of the media were still debating the Hodges case for Cooperstown because of that technicality.

Now that Hodges has finally been granted the ultimate honor of having a plaque with his visage on it in Cooperstown, the Hall of Fame has not been diminished; it is enhanced. As Tom Verducci wrote 8 years ago, “the Golden Era Committee is instructed to consider the entirety of Hodges’ contribution to baseball. That means weighing his record as a player and manager, which differs from the 15 years on the writers’ ballot in which he was considered only as a player. The committee should ask itself this important question: In what ways did Hodges stand out from his peers as a player and manager? We are talking about a great American life.”

Gil Hodges had a great baseball life and a great American life, even if it was far too brief. His plaque is a welcome addition to the Hall of Fame.

Thanks for reading.

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