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 regularly banned 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 previously stated about 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 some writers who accuse anti-PED voters of overlooking these players' merits to punish them, while themselves doing 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 considered Alomar a Lucky Hall of Famer, 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. 

Some Thoughts About The Steroid Era

From the late 1980's to early 2000's, baseball was plagued by the steroid era, a time of massive sluggers, shattered records, and immense scandal. As such, it is very difficult to properly judge players from that era, and most people struggle to form concise opinions on specific candidates. I think it is a mistake to take players from this era solely due to performance, since for many that performance was enhanced through artificial means (which is not only cheating, but also a false sense of a player's ability), and on the other hand, it is a slippery slope to play the detective and try to determine for oneself who was innocent and who was guilty. For those who look more critically than that, but still not critically enough, there are two principal errors that many people fall into. 

    The first error is committed by those who simply discredit the entire era as tainted. They either assume that everyone who played during that time was taking steroids and is thus undeserving, or merely deplore the entire time period and opine that the period itself does not deserve to be represented by the Hall (which is a subtle way of shying away from evaluating candidates because the waters are too murky). Tony Gwynn, a clean player who won batting championships throughout the steroid era, used to complain that his accomplishments fairly achieved were devalued because of the time in which he played. 

    The second error is to discount certain batters' achievements as products of an excessively offense-laden era, such as the 1930's. They were not truly great, some argue, but were carried by the time in which they played. In my opinion, this argument makes no sense. The primary reason for the boom in offense was because players were taking steroids, contributing to home run totals unheard of in baseball history, making it harder for clean batters to compete with them for accolades and recognition (not to mention league-adjusted stats). While steroid use was evidently more of a problem on the hitting side, many pitchers were juiced as well, presenting an additional challenge for hitters who refused to jab themselves. Therefore, the statistics of clean players from this era should not be devalued, but actually valued higher. 

    Two candidates previously advocated for on this blog who are relevant in this discussion are Moises Alou and Carlos Delgado. Moises Alou had a fine career (.303 / .369 / .516, 332 homers) but doesn't appear to be a Hall of Famer on the surface. However, his career statistics could have been better if he never faced a tainted pitcher, and his 128 OPS+ could have been 20 or more points higher if not for the other batters he had to compete with. All in all, if Alou had played in an era untouched by steroid use, then he would likely be a borderline Hall of Famer. 

    Delgado, on the other hand, is at least a borderline Hall of Fame candidate as it is (.280 / .383 / .546, 473 homers), but has yet been shown little interest by the Hall, most likely because he seldom beat out the steroid users for league leadership in offense. If not for rampant steroid use during his career, he likely would have 500 home runs, and his 138 OPS+ might have been closer to 150 or 160. In a perfect world, if he had achieved these figures, there would be little discussion about his worthiness of induction.