ESPN.com - Suggestion for the Hall: Ditch the hats

ESPN.com: ESPN

Friday, April 27, 2001
Suggestion for the Hall: Ditch the hats

By Mark Kreidler
Special to ESPN.com

The other night in San Diego, a .136-hitting Rickey Henderson, playing for the last-place Padres, drew a ninth-inning walk to surpass Babe Ruth as baseball's all-time leader in that category, promptly got caught trying to steal second base with his team trailing by two runs, came into the clubhouse and remarked that while records were nice, he was all about winning.


	Rickey Henderson and others should all take the hats off, says Mark Kreidler.

This, of course, raises a perfectly valid question:

Which hat does Henderson wear into the Hall of Fame?

It's anybody's guess anymore, isn't it, the whole cap-wearing mystery? There are no sure things in baseball, not even in the Hall of Fame. And this might be the time for the good people of Cooperstown to revisit the notion of choosing caps at all for the plaques that adorn that lovely and infinitely interesting little place.

Dave Winfield recently announced that he'd go into the Hall as a member of the San Diego Padres, a valid decision considering that Winfield broke into the majors with the Friars and became a bona fide star there. But the whole Winfield episode was bizarre and unsettling, with rumors -- well, not rumors; let's call them outright suggestions -- that the San Diego franchise essentially came in as the highest bidder for the honor.

Winfield, who achieved his greatest fame and his most lasting notoriety as a member of the Yankees, who won a World Series with Toronto and who collected his 3,000th hit for the Twins, explained that he chose the Padres because they were the team that opened the first door for him. Sounds downright sweet until you remember that Winfield was a multi-sport high school prodigy who appeared destined for a pro league somewhere no matter what, and that the Padres essentially were the franchise fortunate enough to get him.

Add to that the news that Winfield was recently given a Mercedes by the Padres, who a while back installed him as a member of their Board of Directors, and you've got the makings of a spectacularly lowbrow situation. But the question here isn't whether clubs, especially clubs with comparatively lesser histories like San Diego, would find a Hall of Fame endorsement valuable.

Pick any number of great players, those on potential HOF tracks, and you'll be shocked at how few of them will be spending a career in one place.

No, the question here is whether the Hall of Fame's directors ought to nip this in the bud, since it only has a 100 percent chance of recurring.

Have you looked at the resumes of some of your top pros lately? It's a multi-team bonanza out there. Mark McGwire meant absolutely everything to the Oakland A's, but he hit his historic 70 home runs for a St. Louis organization he loves. Ken Griffey Jr. was the personification of baseball in Seattle forever, but he's most likely going to be in Cincinnati red for the rest of his career.

We could go on all day: Roger Clemens. Barry Bonds. Randy Johnson. Mike Piazza. Cal Ripken Jr. (Okay, maybe not him.) And if you're into projections, A-Rod, Pedro Martinez ... pick any number of great players, those on potential HOF tracks, and you'll be shocked at how few of them will be spending a career in one place.

Rickey Henderson has played for the A's four different times, for San Diego twice, for the Yankees, Toronto, Anaheim, the Mets, Seattle. If this man were to feel inclined toward auctioning off his Hall of Fame cap status like a QVC special, there could be some serious, serious "board of directors" action taking place out there.

It's understandable. In some corners, it's even going to be presented to ownership as good business sense, fairly cheap publicity. And that is exactly why the Hall of Fame executives need to seriously consider abandoning the practice of cap-choosing altogether.

Put it another way: Dave Winfield goes into the Hall as a player, not as a Padre, a Yankee or really as anything else. The man was a brilliant baseball player. Don't need some interlocking letters on the cap to validate it. These days, it's only confusing the truth.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a Web site at http://www.sacbee.com/.