Benny Kauff

Benny Kauff's name is seldom mentioned anymore, and when it is, there are often negative connotations. Kauff is best known as one of the first people to be banned from baseball, as he was booted by Commissioner Landis in 1921 amid charges of automobile theft. However, I think his banishment and subsequent bad reputation were unjust and unwarranted. Here is an attempt to clear his name. 
    Benny Kauff made his Major League debut in 1912, playing five games for the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees). He spent the 1913 season in the minors, batting .345, and jumped to the newly-formed Federal League in 1914. The 24-year-old centerfielder had a breakout campaign that season, leading the new league in batting average, hits, runs scored, doubles, stolen bases, total bases, and OBP. Kauff had another fantastic year in 1915, topping the league in batting, OBP, slugging, and stolen bases, which earned him the nickname "The Ty Cobb of the Feds." 
    After the Federal League disbanded in 1915, Kauff played five years for the New York Giants. Although he never quite matched the heights he reached in the Feds, Kauff remained a productive hitter and a prolific base thief. He helped the Giants win the NL pennant in 1917 and hit two home runs in the World Series. 
    Throughout his time in baseball, Kauff was generally viewed as a fair and honest individual. He once turned down a $500 bribe from teammates to throw a game, instead reporting the incident to manager John McGraw, and he served in the military during World War I. Soon afterward, however, his good name was in serious peril. 
    In February of 1920, Kauff, a car dealer, was arrested on suspicion of auto theft when a used automobile sold by his dealership in 1919 was found to be stolen. Although he was released on bail, he was traded to a minor league club after 55 games. The trade caught everyone by surprise, as did his subsequent trial on May 10, 1921. Kauff pleaded that his employees had deceived him by producing a false bill of sale, convincing him that the car was obtained legally. He also provided evidence that he could not have stolen the car because he was dining with his wife at the time. After a very brief deliberation, Kauff was acquitted on May 13, and he attempted to refund the money he had made from the sale. Things were looking up for Kauff, and he was set to return to the Giants in 1921. 
    However, despite the results of the trial, Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned Kauff for life before the start of the 1921 season. Landis claimed that the jury's ruling was a "miscarriage of justice" and thought that reinstating Kauff would be detrimental to the game for all the scandal surrounding his name. Although he scouted for 22 years, Kauff would never play again. He died on November 17, 1961, and was posthumously reinstated by Commissioner Rob Manfred on May 13, 2025, incidentally the 104th anniversary of his acquittal. 
    Benny Kauff was simply a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He had no hand in stealing the car, as seen in his fairly cut-and-dry case. However, due to crooked employees and a rigid commissioner who made a habit of banning players despite court cases finding them innocent, Kauff was banned for life and is often remembered today as nothing but a crook. This reputation is appalling and grossly undeserved, and he should instead be remembered as a great hitter, "The Ty Cobb of the Feds," and an unfortunate victim of bad judgment. 

My Stance On Controversial Players

While the majority of Hall of Fame candidates have somewhat cut-and-dry cases, consisting only of an evaluation of their on-field performance, anyone who covers the Hall of Fame needs to address more controversial players. Throughout MLB history, there have been a number of scandals that have significantly harmed the game, and there are several candidates whose roles in various controversies have polarized their Hall of Fame debates. Here is how I currently assess each controversy in the context of the Hall. 

PED Users. 

As I have stated numerous times before, I will never advocate for a steroid user to make the Hall of Fame. I have two principal reasons for this. (1), the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball is cheating and cheaters should have no place in the Hall of Fame; and (2), the career records achieved by players on steroids are not authentic - the steroids make them seem like Hall of Famers based on their statistics, whereas they were nowhere near as good without their aid. 

In response to this second point, some writers choose to advocate for certain players who had Hall-worthy careers before they took steroids, most notably Barry Bonds. However, I cannot condone steroid use of any kind because, regardless of the effect it had on the player's career, it is still cheating. The Hall of Fame is meant to honor those who had a positive effect on the game, and steroid users brought the game division and scandal. 

Therefore, I will automatically exclude Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Andy Pettitte, Kevin Brown, and Robinson Cano from Hall of Fame consideration. Gary Sheffield, as I have stated before, is an exception. 

The Recent Sign-Stealing Scandals. 

As I have just stated with Carlos Beltran, those who were involved in illegal sign-stealing schemes will be excluded. Like the steroid users, these players not only benefited statistically from their methods (blurring their actual playing abilities), but also brought disgrace to the game of baseball, and therefore do not deserve to be immortalized among the game's greats. Therefore, I will consider neither Beltran nor Mookie Betts for the Hall. 

Some argue that the punishments enforced by MLB at the time are punishment enough and that voters are unjustified in withholding their votes for these players. To me, withholding a vote is not about punishing anyone, since they were never entitled to a place in the Hall. I merely abstain because I do not think they are worthy, and I have the full right to do so. 

Corked Bats. 

Any player caught or admitting to using a corked bat will be excluded, just as those in the other cheating scandals. 

Gambling and Throwing Games. 

Major League Baseball Rule 21(d)(2) states, 

Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible. 

This policy has been enforced since the 1919 Black Sox Scandal up to the present. In my mind, dealing with these players seems pretty simple - if you break the rules, then you're out. Not too complicated. 

The spirit of this law extends toward those players who gave or accepted bribes concerning games in which they had a part. This inherently undermines the integrity of the game, and therefore anyone guilty of fixing games should not be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. 

As a result, I will not consider the cases of Pete Rose or Eddie Cicotte, but "Shoeless" Joe Jackson is a different story. His ban was highly controversial and, I think, for good reason. For one thing, he didn't attend meetings with the gamblers involved in the fix, and for another, he played wonderfully in the World Series, batting .375 with three doubles, the only home run of the Series, and 16 plays in the field without an error. Although he and the other White Sox players were found not guilty on trial, they were banned from baseball by Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1921, only to be reinstated by Commissioner Rob Manfred on May 13, 2025. I think Shoeless Joe was innocent of any foul play and should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. 

The Pittsburgh Drug Trials and Related Incidents. 

While the Pittsburgh Drug Trials brought negative light to baseball and many of its players, I will not exclude players solely for drug-related issues (unless they were PEDs used during their careers). Nonetheless, these scandals do hurt a player's image and make me less inclined to vote for already marginal candidates, such as Orlando Cepeda, Dave Parker, and Keith Hernandez. 

Convicted Felons. 

Although I said in my post about Cepeda that I wouldn't vote for a convicted criminal, I have since changed my mind. Unless someone betrays his country, my personal opinion is that it is not the place of Hall of Fame voters to punish players by withholding votes due to incidents outside of baseball. Whatever was done is the business of the individual before the law, not the player before the voters. There are plenty of people in the Hall of Fame who led immoral lives, and I think it would be both inconsistent and improper to start judging players for outside crimes now. 

Curt Schilling. 

In the same vein, the recent controversy concerning Curt Schilling is not a deal-breaker to me. Schilling has been targeted by our cancel culture due to some controversial social media posts he uploaded a few years ago (many of which he later took down). Regardless of one's opinion on the posts or the ensuing controversy, I believe that since these incidents were completely unrelated with baseball or with Schilling's career, it would therefore be completely out of place for a voter to hold them against him. As I've said before, there are plenty of disagreeable, or even bad, people in Cooperstown, but what they did on the field and for baseball as a whole was wholly worthy of induction. Schilling is no exception. 

As an aside, I would like to point out an inconsistency with those writers who accuse others of punishing PED users by not voting for them, but do exactly that to Schilling. Which camp are you in? Abstaining due to merit or abstaining as a punishment? 

Reggie Smith. 

Reggie Smith, on the other hand, is a little different. On September 24, 1981, a heckler threw a batting helmet at him, to which he retaliated by jumping into the stands and pummeling him. The fan was arrested, and Smith was fined $5,000 and suspended for five days. While this incident does not completely disqualify Smith from my consideration, it is relevant to the discussion because it occurred within baseball and harmed the game. It is completely inappropriate for an entertainer (especially a professional athlete) to attack a spectator, whether or not the fan provoked it. Although this doesn't completely break the deal for me about Smith, his career is very borderline anyway, and the incident can tip the scales enough for me not to vote for him. 

Cap Anson. 

While I previously wrote that I considered Cap Anson a disgrace to baseball and said he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, I have softened my stance on him a bit. While he was an outspoken racist and did contribute to baseball's color line, there are many more racists and generally terrible people in Cooperstown. If the color line were completely his doing, I would have to exclude him, but society as a whole after the Civil War was unfriendly to blacks, and baseball still would have segregated without Anson. Things were complicated back then, and Anson sided with the racists when very few were willing to oppose the rampant bigotry. That said, it wasn't so much that Anson was a disgrace to baseball as baseball itself was acting disgracefully, but that was how things were back then, and every period of history has its evils. If one were to exclude Anson from Hall of Fame consideration, one would have to exclude the entire period of segregation, which is unreasonable. He's still not a favorite of mine, but I can't single him out. 

Roberto Alomar. 

While I initially included Alomar in my Lucky Hall of Famers section, I am inclined to backtrack that post as well. On September 27, 1996, Alomar spat in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck after a call he didn't like, and while this was clearly unacceptable, it didn't leave a lasting negative impact on the game like other scandals have. He was handed a five-game suspension for the incident and I believe that is punishment enough. 

Lucky Hall of Famer Number 63 - Carlos Beltran (And a Word on the Sign-Stealing Scandal)

    The BBWAA's official voting criteria states that "[v]oting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played." Using this as our guideline, I am willing to make the bold assertion Beltran's election to the Hall is unwarranted. 
    There is little doubting Beltran's record, but due to his involvement in the Houston Astros' infamous sign-stealing scandal, every other criterion (including playing ability) comes into question. Astros players and certain staff members would use the centerfield camera to pick up the opposing catcher's signs, decipher them with a computer monitor, and relay the signs to the batter using a series of signals, including banging on a trash can. Per the commissioner's report, this was in clear violation of MLB policy, and it resulted in a massive scandal when it came to light. For what it's worth, in what seems to have been a largely player-driven scheme, Beltran was the only player mentioned by name in the report. 
    By cheating to gain an advantage, not only did Beltran break the rules, but in my mind he forfeited all right to benefit from the integrity, sportsmanship, and character criteria, and I would be hard-pressed to find anyone making a convincing argument to the contrary. As for his playing ability, he could have benefited from similar schemes across his entire career. According to another source, he was the one who told the Astros that their sign-stealing tactics were "behind the times," conceivably suggesting that he had previous experience with sign-stealing methods of this kind, and had been using them before he even arrived in Houston. However this contributed to his overall record, it is difficult to consider his statistics untainted, and it is possible that they would be considerably worse had he never illegally stolen signs. As for contributions to the team(s) on which he played, Beltran's time with Houston brought them one championship (albeit a tainted one), but it also brought the club massive scandal, cost them draft picks, incurred the largest fine allowable by MLB, and incited opposing pitchers to relentlessly pelt Astros batters with pitches after the story broke. The infamy around his name was enough to cost him a managing job with the New York Mets in 2020. 
    The Hall of Fame is supposed to honor baseball's all-time greats who made a positive impact on the sport, including through excellent play. While Beltran's career accomplishments are comparable to those of many players in the Hall of Fame, I cannot confidently say that he had a positive impact on the sport. He brought upon the game one of the greatest scandals in its history, and through his role in the cheating, which affected championships and ruined careers, I consider him a disgrace to the game and unworthy to be immortalized in Cooperstown, where fans from every generation might look on his plaque with admiration. Any other player who had a role in the scandal, particularly a leadership role, is equally disgraceful to our National Pastime. The fact that the Hall would induct players who harmed the game so much is frankly disgusting to me. 

My opinion: Carlos Beltran does not deserve his Hall of Fame plaque. 

Lucky Hall of Famer Number 62 - Jim Leyland

I've complained about Leyland before, and with good reason. His career winning percentage of .506 is way too low to be considered Hall-worthy. Unless there is something remarkable to offset such a winning percentage, such as a considerable impact on baseball history or a plethora of World Championships, it simply isn't a number that should earn a manager a place among baseball's all-time greats. With 1,769 wins, three pennants, and one World Championship, I don't think Leyland did enough to make up for it. 

    Don't get me wrong - Leyland had his moments as a manager, but I don't think his results are enough to merit induction. I love the guy, but there's no way he's a Hall of Famer. 

My opinion: Jim Leyland is not a Hall of Famer. 

Guy Hecker

Guy Hecker is one of my favorite players of all time. While he only played parts of nine seasons, he achieved so many odd and incredible feats that an entire book could be written about him. As it is, Hecker is the first player to be featured twice on this blog, as I previously advocated his Hall of Fame case in 2020. While I must attribute that post largely to excitement over his bizarre career and not to merit, I nonetheless enjoyed writing it and am happy to go through his career again, as he should not be forgotten. 

    Guy Jackson Hecker (that was his real name) began his MLB career in 1882 as one of the founding members of the Louisville Eclipse, an American Association club that has connections to today's Pirates. He pitched 13 games that season, compiling a 1.30 ERA and topping the AA in several pitching categories. Hecker had his greatest season in 1884, when he captured a pitching Triple Crown and set American Association records for wins (52), innings pitched (670 2/3), starts (73), and complete games (72). Hecker had his enormous workload trimmed a bit in 1885, resulting in "only" 30 wins, and won 26 games in 1886. Incidentally, he led the AA in batting with a .341 average that year, becoming the only pitcher in history to win a Batting Title. 

    Hecker played his last game in 1890, but not before accomplishing a remarkable number of eyebrow-raising feats. In his very first Big League at bat, he smacked an inside-the-park home run. Still a rookie, Hecker tossed a 3-1 no-hitter against Allegheny City on September 19, 1882, which was the first no-hitter in history not to result in a shutout. Later, on August 15, 1886, he became the only player in AA history to hit three home runs in a game, scoring a Major League record seven runs against Baltimore. With that performance, he became the first of only three pitchers to hit three home runs in one game, the others being Jim Tobin and (surprise) Shohei Ohtani. As if all this weren't enough, he accomplished perhaps his wildest feat on October 9, 1887. In a game against Cincinnati, Hecker became the only man to play an entire game at first base without handling a single chance. 

    While Hecker's career was brief, he made an impressive impact on the history books. Out of all the players who ever reached the Majors, he is perhaps my favorite to research. While he is not a Hall of Famer, he was an exciting player whose career should not be forgotten. 

Lucky Hall of Famer Number 61 - Bid McPhee

Bid McPhee played second base for the Cincinnati franchise (later the Reds) in both the American Association and the National League from 1882 through 1899. A defensive wizard, McPhee was the last professional player not to wear a glove in the field, holding out until 1897. A quiet and unimposing man, McPhee was forgotten for over a century before the Veterans Committee inducted him into the Hall of Fame in 2000. 

    While McPhee was a truly stellar defender, his offense leaves a lot to be desired. His slash line was a fairly modest .272 / .355 / .373, good for an OPS+ of 107. While this number is usually no detriment for a second baseman, it is important to realize that second base was an offensive position until around 1920. Once the live-ball era kicked in and bunts became a smaller part of the game, first base became an offensive position and second base a defensive one. 

    In addition, McPhee played the first eight years of his career in the American Association, which is typically considered inferior to the National League. He led the AA once in triples and once in home runs, but never led the NL in any offensive categories. 

My opinion: Bid McPhee is probably not a Hall of Famer. 

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