Does Jack Morris belong in the Baseball Hall of Fame?


As a native Detroiter I certainly want to say yes, but Jack Morris has a couple of big red flags on him. The first was his relationship with the press. Had he been a nicer fellow he would have been elected all ready. However, Jack does not have any of the magic number to get him automatic enshrinement into the Baseball Hall of Fame. While he may have been the winingest pitcher the 1980’s, he does not have 300 career wins and his career ERA is quite high on 3.90. Sure some of that comes from the ball park he played the majority of his career in, but as Bill Parcells says you are what your record says you are.

In my mind, as a guy who watched Jack for the good part of his career, I would have to say that yes he was a very good starting pitcher, but he falls just short of the numbers needed for enshrinement. Jack never won a Cy Young award, and he was never the MVP of his league. For me that is a non starter. How can a guy make the Hall of Fame if he was never one of the best players in the game any one year? Furthermore he never finished higher than third in Cy Young voting in any season.

Even though I was a big Jack Morris fan, I feel the need to take this argument one step further. If Jack had not had that memorable display in Game Seven of the 1991 World Series, Jack would not be a serious candidate for enshrinement. He has only 254 wins, not quite good enough and behind other candidates for enshrinement. Jack did get picked on 52.3% of the ballots a year ago, so he may yet get in, but I do not think he belongs there.

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