Sunday, January 09, 2000
Now or never for Perez?
Lack of new stars on Hall of Fame ballot gives him a fair chance for election
BY CHRIS HAFT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
For once, Tony Perez would rather shun consistency. The steadiness he displayed as a run producer for the Reds and three other teams has been matched by the disappointment he has endured at this time each year since 1992, when Hall of Fame balloting results leave him short of induction.
Perez could do anything with a bat, as he demonstrated by hitting .279 with 379 homers and 1,652 RBI in 23 major league seasons. But he can do nothing about the tenured members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) who cast Hall of Fame ballots, leaving him to awaken in helpless doubt when this year's vote is announced Tuesday.
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RBI KINGS
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Here are the top RBI men in baseball history. All on this list who are eligible for the Hall of Fame have been inducted, except for Tony Perez:
Rk. Player RBI
1. Hank Aaron 2,297
2. Babe Ruth 2,212
3. Lou Gehrig 1,995
4. Ty Cobb 1,961
5. Stan Musial 1,951
6. Jimmie Foxx 1,921
7. Eddie Murray 1,917
8. Willie Mays 1,903
9. Mel Ott 1,860
10. Carl Yastrzemski 1,844
11. Ted Williams 1,839
12. Dave Winfield 1,833
13. Al Simmons 1,827
14. Frank Robinson 1,812
15. Honus Wagner 1,732
16. Cap Anson 1,715
17. Reggie Jackson 1,702
18. Tony Perez 1,652 |
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PEREZ VOTE
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Percentage of vote Tony Perez received has received (75 percent needed for election)
1992: 50
1993: 55
1994: 58
1995: 56
1996: 66
1997: 66
1998: 68
1999: 64 |
“I've been hearing a lot of things. I don't know,” Perez said recently from his home in Santurce, Puerto Rico, as he assessed his chances. “I hope it happens. I'm just waiting.”
Experts sense that Perez will wait longer if he's not elected to Cooperstown this year. Though six of his 15 years of eligibility will remain if he's spurned again, he faces formidable competition from other legends in upcoming votes. Dave Winfield, Kirby Puckett and Don Mattingly will join him on the ballot next year. Ozzie Smith and Andre Dawson follow in 2002. Then come Eddie Murray and Ryne Sandberg in 2003.
Perez was named on at least 50 percent of the ballots in his previous eight tries. His best year was 1998, when he was named on 67.9 percent of the votes cast by the BBWAA's 10-year members. The 321 votes he garnered on 473 ballots were 34 short of the 75 percent required for induction.
Perez slipped to 60.8 percent last year (302 of 497, 71 short), when legends George Brett, Nolan Ryan and Robin Yount commanded voters' attention and gained induction in their first year of eligibility.
Fortunately for Perez, no such compelling newcomers appeared on this year's ballot. Pitchers Jack Morris and Goose Gossage, both first-time nominees, weren't expected to distract voters from Perez.
But Bill Deane, the Hall of Fame's former head librarian who's considered the leading expert on the BBWAA's voting patterns, sounded pessimistic.
“I expect him in the low 70s (in percentage),” Deane said. “I see most of the returning candidates moving to the levels of '98, which in Tony's case is not enough.”
Deane also predicted that Carlton Fisk, who caught 24 years for Boston and the Chicago White Sox, will reach the Hall with close to 80 percent of the vote. Fisk had 66.4 percent last year in his first appearance on the ballot.
“That was a pretty solid showing for that crowd (alongside Brett, Ryan and Yount),” Deane said. “There's more room for growth from the first year to second than from the eighth to the ninth.”
Yet Perez's Hall of Fame credentials are as unassailable as they are numerous. They include:
• His career RBI total, which ranks 18th all-time;
• His 1,500 RBI from 1965-81, the most in the majors during that span;
• His lifetime home-run output, tying him with Orlando Cepeda for the highest by a Latin American;
• His participation in five World Series, six League Championship Series and seven All-Star Games;
• His statistical parallel with Cepeda, another star who played primarily first base before the Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall last year.
Perez's legion of fans must grasp for theories to explain his January heartbreak.
Perhaps his failure to lead his league in any major statistical category has tarnished his feats for some voters. Said the 57-year-old Perez, now a special assistant to Florida Marlins General Manager Dave Dombrowski, “I never won a batting title, a home-run title or the MVP award. That makes it a little tougher for me.”
Perhaps the serene confidence he maintained as a player kept him in the background behind more noticeable Big Red Machine stars such as Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan.
“Maybe he should have screamed or done something that someone would have noticed,” said Sparky Anderson, who managed the Reds from 1970-78. “You know what happens sometimes. You go about your work and you do it so well but you make no noise. You're just part of the furniture.”
Perhaps a sizable number of electors assume Perez will be enshrined by the Veterans Committee after he drops off the writers' ballot.
“Some of them might be thinking that there's no urgency,” Deane said.
Perhaps Perez's gifts escape observers who understand only statistics.
“This guy was the leader,” said Anderson, lamenting the December, 1976 trade that sent Perez to Montreal and ended the Big Red Machine era. “Nobody realized it, including me, until after. And the after ain't good. (Former General Manager) Bob Howsam and I will tell you this: We have no excuses for ever letting that guy go. We were totally wrong. I'm not going to try to cover that up. We don't have enough dirt and we don't have enough bulldozers.”
Some of Perez's detractors claim that his fabled teammates enhanced his stats. But Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin pointed out that hitting behind the likes of Bench and Morgan might have muted Perez's totals.
“On a team where there weren't so many big RBI guys, he would have had more men on base,” said Conlin, who has voted for Perez annually. “There wasn't always the number of opportunities he would have gotten had he been on a lesser club.”
Bob Watson, a .295 hitter in 19 major-league seasons, marveled at Perez's technique.
“His style made it difficult to pitch to him,” Watson said. “He hit the fastball to right-center field. That meant he could pull change-ups, curveballs and sliders to left and left-center. It was hard to defense him. You couldn't stack the defense on him and you couldn't pitch him a certain way.”
Said right-hander Gaylord Perry, who was elected to Cooperstown in his third year of eligibility, “If it hadn't been for Tony, I'd have gotten into the Hall of Fame the first time around. He didn't have any holes in his swing. Perez controlled his swing about as well as anyone. If you threw him a slider outside, he'd go the other way to drive in a run. You'd get past Rose, Morgan and Bench and think you had it made. Then Tony was the toughest guy you'd face.”
Sentiment could help Perez. It prompted Reds Chief Operating Officer John Allen to send a two-page letter to voters detailing Perez's accomplishments. It led Perez's accountant, Nicolas Villageliu, to send T-shirts and a statistical breakdown to 500 BBWAA members.
“This is the first time he has had some people working in his corner,” Conlin said.
“My hope was to stop and make them think a little bit,” Allen said. “The Reds aren't going to try to tell a voter how to vote.”
Ideally, Perez's deeds should have spoken for him.
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