Sunday 4/21/24
Let's say that in your career as a major leaguer, you did the following:
Led the league in home runs six times
Led the league in RBI twice
Led the league in runs scored once
Led the league in hits once
Led the league in OBP twice
Led the league in slugging twice
Led the league in OPS+ three times
Led the league in total bases twice
Had a career OPS+ of 151
Definite Hall of Famer, right? Not if you were Gavvy Cravath.
Cravath was a Dead Ball-era power hitter who came within nine batting average points of winning the National League Triple Crown in 1913, when he also led the league in offensive WAR. To give you an idea of how difficult offense was to come by back then, Cravath's career OPS was .858, which got you to that 151 OPS+.
He was a pre-Ruth (well, mostly) big bopper of a right fielder, who only played for eleven years, and by the time the Hall of Fame was a thing, he was mostly forgotten and there hasn't been anyone in all of the years since to rescue him from a kind of anonymity. I've always known who he is, but most baseball historians have no idea.
Cravath was born in Escondido, California March 23, 1881 and died in Laguna Beach on May 23, 1963. So that means he was born in the Wild West and his life ended the same week that Bob Dylan--who you can go see now--released his second album.
The name Gavvy was derived from gaviota, the Spanish word for seagull, because a Cravath blast killed one during his time in the Pacific Coast League.
He broke in as a twenty-seven-year-old rookie in 1908 with Boston, where the locals were agog over how much slower this man was than their star center fielder, Tris Speaker. Cravath was notorious for his lack of foot speed. It was said later on in this same city that David Ortiz was a veritable Vince Coleman comparatively. It was not said. But I am saying it.
He was moved to the White Sox and then Washington, before landing in the minors with the Minneapolis Millers for the 1910 and 1911 seasons. This team was stacked. Cravath was a right-handed hitter, but he took one look at the 297-foot distance to right field, and said, "I'm going the other way, boys," and that he did.
Come 1912, he was back in the bigs, in the National League this time, with the Phillies, who played at the Baker Bowl. And guess what the Baker Bowl had? A 272-foot right field porch. "Time to launch," said this man who was all about going the other way--when at home, anyway. If anyone had ever gotten ready to play in a particular park, it was Cravath with the Baker Bowl. Installed in Philly, Cravath's run of dominance commenced.
You look at Cravath's cumulative numbers, and on the face of them, they don't help the cause--rather the opposite. 119 career homers. 1134 career hits. 719 career RBI. 575 runs scored. Cravath only played for eleven seasons, but he filled up the stat sheet and was all over the league leader board during his time.
I dare say that as a slugger, Cravath, during this era of station-to-station baseball and small ball in the extreme, that Cravath would have been feared. He's a little like Jim Rice with the big slugging numbers and the relative brevity of his run as a top player.
Hall of Fame voting rules were different when Cravath came under consideration in the 1930s--that is, you weren't booted off the ballot because you failed to garner at least five percent of the vote. Cravath never got higher than the 1.2% he had in his final year on the ballot in 1947, and that was pretty much that.
But if you lead the league in homers six times, you should be in the Hall of Fame. It's too many times for you not to be. I don't care what era you played in. Or what ballpark. As for that lofty 151 OPS+: That's good for thirty-seventh all-time. And while people had all kinds of jokes for how slow of foot Cravath was--he was dubbed both "wooden shoes" and "piano legs"--he finished in the top ten in triples in three seasons (and remember, his career was basically his thirties), placing as high as second.
"I can get around the bases with a fair wind and all sails set," Cravath said in his defense. "And so long as I am busting the old apple on the seam, I am not worried a great deal about my legs."
Nor should you have been, sir, nor should you have been.
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