Are You Not Entertained? Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's "Chain-Gang All-Stars"
PLUS: Seven players who deserve consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame
Much is made today of the so-called “Forgotten Man,” that average American who feels overlooked by a political system that they believe has been captured by special interests (i.e., the rich, the poor, some undeserving or historically aggrieved group that wants a piece of the Forgotten Man’s pie.) The catch is that the Forgotten Man’s preferences often do find expression in our politics, their numbers large enough to fuel political movements and swing elections. This is not to say the Forgotten Man has no legitimate grievances. Nor is it meant to dismiss those who genuinely do fall through the cracks. It is instead to note that whenever Forgotten Men are identified as a group, it is often because a politician hopes to take advantage of their political clout.
If you want to find a truly “forgotten” man in America today, you should visit one of the over 1,600 federal and state prisons in the United States, where over 1.2 million people are incarcerated. (When it comes to the total number of people we’ve thrown behind bars, the United States has a slight edge over China, a nation with four times as many people and a dismal human rights record.) Prisoners in the United States lack political clout. The average citizen has little sympathy for a convict, with many unconcerned with what happens to a prisoner once they’re serving time as a punishment for their crimes. Excepting Maine and Vermont, felons can’t vote, so they are of no use to politicians. Even if felons could cast ballots, elected officials do not want to be seen tending to the interests of those who have been convicted of a crime lest those politicians’ law-abiding constituents conclude their representatives have “forgotten” them. That leaves prisoners stranded in a civil no man’s land, vulnerable to mistreatment and abuse both at the hands of the state and their fellow inmates and forgotten by a political system incentivized to put them out of sight and out of mind.
It is Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s ambition to make you remember these easily forgotten Americans. Adjei-Brenyah is the author of Chain-Gang All-Stars, a novel recently released in paperback that was shortlisted for the National Book Award and named one of the New York Times’ ten best books of 2023. The book is a propulsive, wildly ambitious work of fiction that urges its readers to consider the American prison system as monstrous as the crimes committed by those it imprisons.
Chain-Gang All-Stars is set in a near-future dystopian America where convicts are given the opportunity to participate in CAPE, or the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment program. Convicts who join CAPE fight one another in gladiatorial death matches attended by thousands of cheering fans and watched by millions at home. Winners receive BP, or Blood Points, which they can use to buy more advanced weaponry, armor, higher quality food, or other perks and amenities. A convict who survives three years of fights, advancing from the rank of Rookie to Grand Colossal in the process, gets “High Freed” and wins their freedom; those who don’t get “Low Freed.” Once someone joins CAPE, there is no opting out. Combatants are required to fight and there are no ties. Someone will live. Someone will die. The crowds will go wild.
CAPE is a fully-immersive experience. Floating cameras zoom in on the bloody action. Furthermore, the Links (as the prisoners are called) are followed nearly 24/7 as they march through the countryside with their Chain of about eight fellow prisoners between fights. The cameras capture almost everything they do: Their training, their meals, their conversations, their intimate moments with other Links, their squabbles with other Links, their deaths at the hands of other Links (which can earn the killer valuable BP). Occasionally Chains are drawn into melees with other Chains that can only end with a fatality. On the eve of fights, they get to stay in hotels and perform public service activities that double as publicity events; for example, at one point, a Chain helps out at a farmer’s market where they sell tomatoes, hand out cotton candy, and sign autographs for star-struck kids. Meanwhile, fans throughout the United States obsess over the program’s drama and violence, earning its corporate sponsors (companies like Horizon Wireless and McFoods), broadcast partners, and the private prison system that conjured up this unholy blend of MMA and reality TV billions in revenue.
The biggest name in CAPE is Loretta Thurwar, a mighty combatant with a shaved head who wields a massive hammer named Hass Omaha. A reserved Black woman, Thurwar claimed the weapon during her first fight, when, armed only with a corkscrew, she Low Freed a Grand Colossal on the verge of getting High Freed. Thurwar herself is now three fights away from winning her own freedom. CAPE’s flashiest star is Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, a lithe, agile fighter with long locs who arms herself with a scythe named LoveGuile. Staxxx, who is also Black (the disproportionate number of Links who are Black is noted by Adjei-Brenyah) mugs for the camera, whips the crowd into a frenzy, and loves talking smack. Her body is covered in X’s denoting her many kills. While Thurwar is all business, Staxxx—a Harsh Reaper who is one step away from becoming a Colossal—is more playful and unpredictable, as likely to relish killing as she is to preach love. Not only are Thurwar and Staxxx on the same Chain (Angola-Hammond, or A-Hamm) but they’re lovers as well, although Staxxx slips away occasionally to sleep with fellow Link Randy Mac.
After the first round of death matches, during which Thurwar dispatches a teenaged Rookie armed only with a pot won in a game of chance during Chain-Gang Initiation Special: Wonder Wheel, A-Hamm must deal with the death of their leader, Sunset Harkless. A Grand Colossal one match away from getting High Freed, Harkless was found slain in camp before he could earn his freedom. Life on most Chains was cruel and unforgiving, but Harkless, Thurwar, and Staxxx had sought to uplift A-Hamm with a message of peace, love, and camaraderie. Harkless’s apparent murder (which occurred away from camp at a moment when the cameras were not running) not only threatens to destabilize everything Thurwar has been striving for, but also looms ominously over her own pending freedom. Meanwhile, a protest movement calling for the end of CAPE begins engaging in more direct action.
Chain-Gang All-Stars is a wide-angle novel. Short chapters move from the battleground to the stands to life on the Chain to anti-CAPE demonstrations to corporate boardrooms to prisons to life on the Chain again, sometimes cutting back and forth through time. The book is focused on Thurwar and Staxxx, but Adjei-Brenyah writes from a variety of perspectives and in different voices. He is as adept at capturing the way event emcees and CAPE bureaucrats speak as he is at giving voice to a character like Hendrix Young, an ordinary inmate who loses an arm during a riot in a prison factory, ends up on a Chain armed with a spear, and gains fame as a Link who sings prison work songs.
It is also absolutely critical for Adjei-Brenyah to capture the hysteria and vulgarity inherent to the death matches. Readers can feel the arenas rumble when a fighter steps onto a battleground with their entrance music blaring through the speakers and the crowd roaring around them. The anticipation of violent death is a thrilling but awful spectacle. But for all its build-up, death typically comes quickly and unspectacularly. As readers, we get so caught up in the rush of the fight that it’s easy to scan past the death blow. While a few fighters may get a moment before they pass, no one gets a beautiful ending in this book; their stories just end.
But usually with a footnote. Adjei-Brenyah marks the death of a Link with a brief word about them at the bottom of the page. We learn about their crimes, their families, their beliefs, their regrets, their bad breaks, their mistakes. Some are sad, some are funny. In some cases, we find there was so much more to this person than we had assumed; in others, they remain a mystery, as unknown to the world in death as they were in life.
These aren’t the only footnotes Adjei-Brenyah scatters throughout his book, though. Along with helpful details that fill in our knowledge about this world (i.e., who manufactures the floating cameras, the provisions of the law—the “Rightful Choice Act”—that made it legal for prisoners to participate in the CAPE program) Adjei-Brenyah also drops in facts about our world, like how Corrections Corporation of North America is the world’s largest private prison corporation and earns over $1 billion in annual profits. Or that the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime.” Or that the youngest person ever executed in the United States, George Stinney, Jr., (“Black in South Carolina. Of course, of course”) was at the time of his electrocution in 1944 fourteen-years-old (Stinney would be exonerated seventy years later.) Or that Cyntoia Brown was given a life sentence at the age of sixteen for killing a forty-three-year-old man attempting to rape her. Taken together, these notes suggest Chain-Gang All-Stars doesn’t take place in a twisted alternate universe but rather in an outgrowth of our own.
By taking us into the world of CAPE, Adjei-Brenyah asks readers who the United States’ prison system is serving. CAPE generates extravagant wealth for the prison system, the media outlets that broadcast and report on the fights, and the corporate sponsors whose logos are emblazoned on the combatants’ outfits. One might wonder if it is right to rake in profits by locking people away, but the so-called “GameMasters” justify their windfall in two ways. First, they are doing a public service by keeping society safe. “A knife is only ever so far from your neck,” Adjei-Brenyah writes in the voice of a GameMaster near the end of the book. “A man of ill intent is only ever so far from your children, your daughters, your sons.” In other words, without someone willing to do the dirty work of running a prison, the streets would be flooded with monsters. Second, the GameMasters have found a need and filled it. The American people want to feel safe. They also want to be entertained. CAPE satisfies both demands, “transforming this terrifying world into something beautiful.” Their creation, they assert, is socially beneficial.
But Adjei-Brenyah would argue the American prison system is of no benefit to the prisoner. That runs counter to the way most Americans think about the prison system, which in their mind is supposed to punish rather than benefit the incarcerated. The idea is that people who have done bad things should have bad things come their way. In the book’s universe, that means every murderer- and rapist-turned-fighter has it coming. They voluntarily signed-up for these matches. The combatants have done something awful, they know what they’re getting into, and death would be fitting. Such a fate wouldn’t trouble the minds of most un-incarcerated people. Sure, they may miss seeing a favorite fighter compete, but in the end, they’re just criminals.
Adjei-Brenyah, however, wants readers to see these criminals as human beings trapped inside a system that not only dehumanizes them but makes it extremely difficult for them to become better human beings. Thurwar, for instance, knows she did a terrible thing in the past when she murdered her lover. Other characters admit they deserve to be locked away for the rest of their lives for the crimes they have committed. But that doesn’t mean they can’t change or that they need to define themselves by the worst thing they ever did. As one character tells Thurwar at a low moment, “You love through all the people you’ve been and hope you have a chance at being better.”
Even if justice demands that a criminal lose their freedom for the rest of their time on this Earth, that person should still be able to atone for their sins and lead a personally meaningful and dignified life behind bars. Prison could—no, should—aim to improve rather than punish. Yet as Adjei-Brenyah argues with this book, our prison system today destroys souls, and we just don’t care that it does. As we see throughout Chain-Gang All-Stars, prisoners are tortured, driven mad by solitary confinement, forced into slave labor, and left to live in unsafe and unhealthy conditions. Those who participate and kill as part of the CAPE program aren’t psychopaths. They are victims of a rotten penal system, people who have lost all hope, who know nothing but violence both outside and inside jail, or who are desperate to escape whatever awful situation they find themselves in. Rather than heal or restore, prisons further corrupt the corrupted. Amazingly, Thurwar and Staxxx rediscover their humanity within a system designed to strip it from them.
The challenge Thurwar and Staxxx face throughout the novel is one of survival on both the physical and spiritual battleground. Even if one repents, it is impossible to emerge from prison or CAPE with one’s soul intact, to feel that what one needed to do to survive in such a system didn’t also result in some sort of spiritual death. Confronted with this impossible situation (and kudos, by the way, to Adjei-Brenyah for having the courage to follow through on this idea to the very last page) Thurwar and Staxxx choose to make sure those watching them fight as well as those reading Chain-Gang All-Stars will never forget them.
Signals and Noise
51% of Republicans in the Iowa caucuses declared their first choice for president was a man who attempted to use the presidency to undermine the 2020 election.
“I did not call them insurrectionists. I don’t remember using that term.”—From an appearance on Meet the Press last week by Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst, who wrote in the Des Moines Register on January 11, 2021, “Storming the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to influence elected officials — an insurrection as many have called it — is not, and will never be, a peaceful protest. It is anarchy — and America and her people cannot stand for it in any form.”
Mona Charen of The Bulwark identifies a silver lining in Iowa’s results: A not-insignificant number of Republicans who turned up to caucus in subzero degree temperatures for candidates who didn’t stand a chance of winning said they wouldn’t vote for Don Trump in the general election. That is promising, but Republicans have a history of being repelled by Trump yet holding their nose as they vote for him in the end. (“But his son’s laptop!”)
By Joe Klein on Substack: “Iowaste” (“Iowa always seemed a classic, American place to me. I visited towns with names like Mason City and Ames and Council Bluffs and Cedar Rapids, counties with names like Linn and Story and Polk. Politics was serious business, and Iowans were stubborn about their right to question candidates, change their minds, and change their minds again. There was very little rancor. Questions were asked with respect. Rationality—sanity—was the rule. The public schools were famously good. Literacy was high. Iowa may not have reflected the diversity of America, but it was a place you could trust, even if the candidates they chose never quite made it all the way to the nomination. That ended last night. Something very terrible has happened in Iowa. Reality doesn’t live there anymore, at least among Republicans, who have come to dominate the state. [Iowa was purple when I started visiting, with liberal populists like Tom Harkin to match every stolid conservative like Chuck Grassley]. Iowa has gone nuts. How else can you explain the 62% of caucus goers last night who believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, according to the entrance polls; how else could a similar number say they would vote for Trump even if he were convicted of a crime?”) MY COMMENT AS A NATIVE-BORN IOWAN: Yes. But also, maybe Klein wasn’t looking close enough.
The Biden campaign has found that 75% of the targeted undecided voters they have contacted do not believe Don Trump will be the Republican Party’s nominee for president, underscoring the campaign’s belief that many voters have not yet factored in the likelihood of a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024 when answering polls. The outcome of the Iowa caucus may change the outlook of voters.
Jonathan Chait argues in New York magazine that the anti-Trump coalition has exhausted itself. (“Tragic though it may be, there is nothing that unique or surprising about this development. Exhaustion is a natural by-product of anti-authoritarian politics.”)
Michael C. Bender of the New York Times writes that Trump’s surge in the polls has been driven by college educated Republicans.
By Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: “Do Political Ads Even Matter Anymore?”
“We’ve never been a racist country.”—Republican presidential candidate and pathetic history student Nikki Haley, on FOX News. So was her decision to remove the Confederate Stars and Bars from the South Carolina flag a purely aesthetic choice? (She would add she “faced racism growing up.”)
Bonus Example of Nikki Haley Tying Herself Into Knots for Republican Voters: In response to a question on CNN about whether she’s comfortable with her party’s frontrunner being found liable for sexual abuse: “First of all, I haven’t paid attention to his cases and I’m not a lawyer. All I know is he’s innocent until proven guilty…” (Questioner Dana Bash pointed out he was found guilty. Also, how has she not paid attention to this stuff? What else is she willfully oblivious to? Why does it matter whether she’s a lawyer or not?)
By John Avlon of CNN: “Listen to What Trump’s Own Officials Have to Say About Him” (“A truly stunning number of former Cabinet-level Trump administration officials are trying to warn Republican primary voters that their old boss’s reelection would be a disaster for our country. Take them seriously as well as literally. There is no precedent for two dozen former White House officials coming out so strongly against the fundamental fitness of the man they served with on a day-to-day basis.”) MORE: “It’s Time for Former Trump Officials to Come Out Against Him” and “What 17 of Trump’s ‘Best People’ Said About Him” by Sarah Longwell for The Bulwark and the New York Times, respectively.
McKay Coppins of The Atlantic writes that Americans, who have largely tuned Trump out, should attend a Trump rally to see with their own eyes what the movement is really about. His reaction: “[T]here’s a reason Trump is no longer the cultural phenomenon he was in 2016. Yes, the novelty has worn off. But he also seems to have lost the instinct for entertainment that once made him so interesting to audiences. He relies on a shorthand legible only to his most dedicated followers, and his tendency to get lost in rhetorical cul-de-sacs of self-pity and anger wears thin. This doesn’t necessarily make him less dangerous. There is a rote quality now to his darkest rhetoric that I found more unnerving than when it used to command wall-to-wall news coverage.”
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger has an idea about how to take on Trump: “The reality is that when Trump is described as ‘big and scary,’ that actually feeds his peoples admiration. They love that he scares the left, they love his authoritarian tendencies. Instead, maybe he should be attacked for the weak, small, self absorbed weiner he really is.” You mean like this?
Or like this?
Or this?
Yeah, we can do that.
NBC News reports that with Trump’s attorneys arguing the president can do virtually anything with impunity and not face punishment so long as Congress does not impeach and remove the president from office, people who follow the inner workings of the Pentagon are concerned about how Trump might use the military if re-elected.
Dennis Aftergut and Laurence Tribe write in Slate that Judge Aileen Cannon appears determined to sabotage Trump’s classified documents case.
The judge in Trump’s Georgia elections interference case has ordered a hearing into claims Fulton County DA Fani Willis and her lead prosecutor engaged in an improper relationship and mishandled public money.
Federal prosecutors—a.k.a., “the Deep State”—are asking a judge to sentence the IRS contractor who leaked Don Trump’s tax returns to the press to a five-year prison sentence.
Congress has for the third time in four months averted another government shutdown, this time pushing the deadlines to the beginning of March. House Republicans will once again need to rely on Democratic votes to get the stopgap passed, as hardline Republicans’ frustration with a new Speaker who they thought would get a better deal for them is beginning to boil over.
Don Trump is trying to convince the House to tank whatever immigration deal comes out of the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would like to pass the immigration bill this week. Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is encouraging House Republicans to support the bill by telling them a Trump administration would not be able to cut a better deal with Senate Democrats.
It appears the House and Senate committees tasked with writing tax law have a bipartisan deal to expand the Child Tax Credit in exchange for undoing a number of restrictions on popular tax breaks for businesses. It’s not a done deal yet, however, as it needs to overcome some procedural hurdles in the Senate.
The Biden administration cancelled another $5 billion in student loans, this time primarily for teachers, nurses, and other public servants.
In what may be the most consequential story of the week, the Supreme Court heard a case about whether it should overturn Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council, a 1984 ruling underlying administrative law that gives federal agencies rather than the courts the final say over how to administer the law. Most of the conservatives on the Court want to shift that power over to the judicial branch, but Chief Justice Robert and Justice Barrett seemed hesitant to completely overturn Chevron.
“Texans, with the freeze coming, wrap your pipes, cover your plants, stay off icy roads & keep your family safe. And, if it gets too damn cold, join me in Cancun!”—Republican Senator and Asshole Ted “Cancun” Cruz, on X
Richard Hasen writes in the New York Times “The U.S. Lacks What Every Democracy Needs”: A constitutional right to vote.
By Eduardo Porter of the Washington Post: “Forget About Securing the Border. It Won’t Work” (“Migration demands a different bargain today. It, too, must be comprehensive. It must restore discipline to the asylum process, tightening rules to ensure it remains a viable option for people truly fleeing for their lives, pursued by a predatory state or organized crime. But it also must acknowledge that a large number of migrants are driven by broader pressures — such as hunger, climate change and a desire for opportunity. Hardening the border will not keep them out.”)
According to the Mapping Police Violence project, police killed a record 1,329 people in 2023, and Black people were nearly three times more likely to be killed than white people.
Noting consumer confidence made its largest two-month gain since 1991, Gwynn Guilford and Amara Omeokwe of the Wall Street Journal observe Americans are suddenly a lot more upbeat about the economy.
Rogé Karma of The Atlantic looks at the “great normalization” taking place as various social and economic measures return to pre-pandemic levels.
Jerusalem Demsas writes in The Atlantic about how housing shortages in the Twin Cities have divided the environmental movement.
Barak Ravid of Axios reports Biden is running out of patience with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the war in Gaza. AP adds Netanyahu has told the United States he opposes the creation of a Palestinian state as part of any postwar scenario.
The New York Times reports the United States, Israel, and Iran are battling each other through proxies and have been very careful to avoid any action that would turn into direct conflict between the countries, but the danger of escalation is very real.
I’ve written a couple times about the music review website Pitchfork. This past week, it was folded into GQ. Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic writes that’s likely the end of an era.
Garbage Time: Seven Players Who Deserve Consideration for the Baseball Hall of Fame
(Garbage Time theme song here)
The Baseball Hall of Fame will announce its class of 2024 this week. According to bbhoftracker.com, which tabulates the selections of voters who have disclosed their ballots (43.8% of all voters so far), third baseman Adrián Beltré (3,166 hits, 477 home runs) is a lock for induction after appearing on 98.8% of all known ballots. Two other players—Minnesota Twins catcher/first baseman Joe Mauer (.306 batting average, 3X AL batting champ) and Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton (.316 batting average)—each appear on over 82% of the ballots, which should be enough. (A player needs 75% of the vote to get in, and the tracker tends to slightly overstate the final tally.) Closer Billy Wagner (422 saves [sixth all-time], 33.2% strikeout rate, .187 batting average against [both best in MLB history for pitchers who threw at least 800 innings]) is close with 79.8% of the vote, as is outfielder Gary Sheffield, who doesn’t quite crack the 75% threshold (74.4%). Outfielders Andruw Jones (72.0%) and Carlos Beltrán (66.7%) are the only other players on track to net more than 50% of the vote.
Players become eligible for the Hall of Fame five years after they retire, and they can only appear on the ballot for ten years before they are removed from consideration. Yet that doesn’t mean they’ll never get in. Special era committees review the cases of players whose eligibility has passed. That’s how first baseman Fred McGriff—whose 493 home runs were overlooked by voters when he was first on the ballot—finally made it into the Hall of Fame this past summer.
This year, the era committee considered managers, executives, and umpires and selected former manager Jim Leyland for induction. Over the next two years, the era committee will return its focus to players. So what veteran players merit induction? Let’s set aside players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens whose stats definitely recommend inclusion but whose steroid use has disqualified them thus far. We’ll also ignore the special cases of Pete Rose (banned for gambling) and Curt Schilling (a top 70 career WAR player and a top 30 career WAR pitcher who voters don’t want to platform.) It turns out there are no glaring snubs, but there are a few overlooked players with interesting cases who deserve a second look. Consider:
Dick Allen: Allen, a corner infielder who had notable stints with the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox in the 1960s-70s (including his 1972 AL MVP season) is often cited as the best position player not yet in the Hall of Fame. He fell a vote short a few years ago, so he’s probably on the precipice. Allen’s basic stats, accumulated over a somewhat short career, aren’t eye-popping (1848 hits, 351 HRs, 1119 RBI, .292 BA) and even his WAR (wins above replacement, a statistic often used to reliably compare players with different skill sets) won’t blow anyone away (58.7, although it gets him in the same neighborhood as Yogi Berra, Vladimir Guerrero, Sammy Sosa, and Willie Stargell.)
But Allen peaked as a player during an era that was notoriously tough on hitters, and he can stake a claim to being one of if not the best slugger of that era. His case depends on OPS+ (on-base plus slugging plus, which tracks a player’s ability to get on base while also hitting for power while adjusting for ballpark-specific factors that might increase or decrease home run numbers.) Allen’s career OPS+ is 156, which ties Willie May for 12th place all-time while putting him behind people with names like Ruth, Mantle, Gehrig, Williams, and Musial, and just ahead of the likes of Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, and Frank Robinson. During his 1964-1974 prime, no one—not Willie McCovey, not Willie Stargell, not Carl Yastrzemski—exceeded his 165 OPS+. Some have said they have never seen a player hit the ball harder with greater frequency than Allen.
It’s likely Allen didn’t make the Hall of Fame when he retired because he had a reputation as a prickly player, but his peers and managers have said that reputation is completely misplaced. He came up as a player in a city with notoriously tough fans at a time when Black baseball players were expected to keep their heads down and just play ball. (He caused a stir for insisting the press refer to him as “Dick” rather than “Richie,” which he considered a boy’s name, and often took the field in a batting helmet to protect himself from objects thrown at him by fans.) Allen played in an era that was tough on both Black athletes and power hitters. Hall of fame voters should take that into account the next time he’s up for consideration.
Lou Whitaker: With shortstop Alan Trammell, Detroit Tigers second baseman Lou Whitaker formed part of the longest-running double play combo in baseball history (1,918 games over 19 seasons from 1977-1995.) They also won a World Series together in 1984. The era committee inducted Trammell in 2018 but have never gotten around to enshrining Whitaker despite very similar career stats:
Trammell: 2,365 hits, 185 HRs, 1,003 RBIs, .285 BA, 6X all-star, 4 Gold Gloves
Whitaker: 2,369 hits, 244 HRs, 1,084 RBIs, .276 BA, 5X all-star, 3 Gold GlovesTrammell and Whitaker both rank in the top 100 when it comes to career WAR as well, with Trammell (70.6) coming in at 97 (two spots below Derek Jeter, BTW) and Whitaker (75.1) landing at 83, where he’s tied with Johnny Bench. But let’s not just compare Whitaker to Trammell. Whitaker’s career WAR is also higher than other second basemen who have recently entered the Hall. If you think Craig Biggio (65.4, #140) and Roberto Alomar (67.0, #130) are sure-fire Hall of Famers, then you should feel the same way about Whitaker. Whitaker’s WAR is even better than the player who is most often remembered as the best second baseman of Whitaker’s era, the Cubs’ Ryne Sandberg (67.9, #123). Among second basemen, Whitaker ranks eighth overall in WAR. He’s overdue for induction.
Bobby Grich: Bobby Who, you ask? Hey, I don’t blame you. Up until a few years ago, I’d never heard of Grich, a six-time All-Star who played for both the Orioles (1970-76) and the Angels (1977-86). Perhaps the most memorable thing he did was dump a can of beer on Richard Nixon’s head in 1979 when Nixon visited the Angels’ clubhouse after the team made the playoffs for the first time in club history. But if I’m making the case for Lou Whitaker, I have to make the case for Grich, whose 71.1 WAR places him one spot behind Whitaker all-time among second basemen. That also means, of course, that Grich ranks ahead of Biggio, Alomar, and Sandberg. With a top 100 WAR (one spot behind Jeter, BTW) he’s the best modern-era player no one knows.
Grich really tests the idea of relying on WAR to gauge a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness. His stats aren’t impressive (1,833 hits, 224 HR, 864 RBI, .266 BA, 4 Gold Gloves) and I can’t say he was acknowledged as an elite player in his era. But WAR is designed to measure a player’s ability to positively affect the outcome of a game while removing subjective biases that can overrate players with gaudy numbers and flashy highlights. He’s the sort of player GMs today would treasure. Let me put it this way: Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Chase Utley, who will end up on about 40% of the ballots this year, is on track to become a hall of famer one day. Utley was a professional’s professional, the very good but maybe not great player successful teams lean on. Utley compiled 1885 hits, 259 HR, 1025 RBI, and a .275 BA over the course of his fifteen-year career, good enough for 144th all-time WAR and 16th in WAR among second basemen (right behind Biggio.) If Utley’s destined for the hall of fame, then Grich should be too.
Keith Hernandez: Hernandez, who won a World Series title with both the St. Louis Cardinals (1982) and the New York Mets (1986) as well as the NL MVP Award in 1979, was a smart player with solid (he hit over .300 seven times) but unspectacular offensive numbers, particularly for a first baseman. But it was Hernandez’s play in the field as a first baseman that set him apart from his peers. The recipient of eleven consecutive Gold Gloves, Hernandez is considered by many to be the best defensive first baseman to ever play the game.
No one has ever been able to replicate what Hernandez did at first base. He had tremendous range, which allowed the rest of the infielders to shift to their right. His accuracy prompted the Mets to route their relays through him, which in turn encouraged third base coaches to throw up stop signs to runners looking to score. Most significantly, in an era of small ball and speed, Hernandez took away his opponents’ ability to bunt. Not only was he able to play in, but he also had a sixth sense for when a batter was going to bunt, allowing him to charge home and make a play on the lead baserunner or, as the clip below demonstrates, initiate a double play.
Most would argue Hernandez has a weak case for induction. Not only does his lack of power set him apart from other Hall of Fame first basemen, but the position itself does not place a premium on good defense, which is what his reputation is built upon. Furthermore, Hernandez’s defensive talent would matter little in today’s game, when so few players bunt. Yet Hernandez is one of the few players in all of baseball history who was able to alter the shape of the game with his defense. In his time, he was a truly unique player. If there is room in the Baseball Hall of Fame for defensive marvels, Hernandez is a shoo-in.
Kenny Lofton: Lofton was one of the most exciting players to watch at the plate, in centerfield, and on the base paths in the 1990s. He helped anchor a very good Cleveland team that decade that never was able to win a World Series. Over his career, Lofton compiled 2,428 hits, 1,528 runs, and 622 stolen bases (leading the league for five consecutive seasons) and posted a .299 batting average. Yet by the time he retired, Lofton’s Rickey Henderson-inspired style of play had fallen out of vogue. His WAR (68.4) is good enough for 116th all-time, though, and just a few tenths of a point below fellow speedster and hall of famer Tim Raines. More notably, however, Lofton posted the same WAR as the Seattle Mariners’ Edgar Martinez, whose Hall of Fame career nearly overlapped Lofton’s. The catch is that Martinez spent most of his stellar career playing DH while the far more multi-dimensional Lofton was making a difference with his bat, glove, and cleats.
One other thing: Voters should note Lofton’s Hall of Fame candidacy may have been a victim of circumstance. Needing 5% of voters to check his name to stay on the ballot, Lofton barely got 3% during his first year of eligibility, when he appeared alongside ten future hall of famers, five big names linked to steroids, and notable non-inductees Don Mattingly, Dale Murphy, and Curt Schilling. Lofton never had the chance to build his support over multiple ballots the way other hall of famers like Larry Walker and Jack Morris did.
Dave Stieb: Like Bobby Grich, few probably remember Stieb. I know who he is because as a kid I’d quickly shuffle past his baseball card to see who else I may have gotten in my $0.45 pack of Topps. I vaguely knew he was a pretty decent pitcher for some good Toronto Blue Jays teams in the 1980s and early 1990s. I’ve learned since he was a great power pitcher who could throw a nasty breaking ball. But Stieb is another player whose career has gotten a second look thanks to advanced metrics. According to WAR, Stieb—not Nolan Ryan, not Roger Clemens, not Jack Morris—was the best pitcher of the 1980s. Now, was the 1980s a great decade for pitching? No. Is “the 1980s” an arbitrary period in baseball history? Yes. Were there far better pitchers at times in the 1980s? Absolutely; their names were Fernando Valenzuela, Nolan Ryan, Dwight Gooden, Bret Saberhagen, Roger Clemens, and Orel Hershiser. But when sabermetrics discovers that random guy in your baseball card collection was actually way better than you remember, maybe he deserves a second look. If Bert Blyleven can make it to Cooperstown, so can Stieb.
Sadaharu Oh: We’ll end with arguably the Baseball Hall of Fame’s biggest oversight. Unless you’re a fan of the Beastie Boys (see Exit Music) you may not be familiar with Oh, who is widely considered the greatest Japanese baseball player of
all-timethe twentieth century. (Accommodations must be made for Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani.) During his twenty-one year career with the Yomiuri Giants, Oh hit .301, collected 2,170 RBI (a Nippon Professional League record) and slugged 868 home runs, a world career record. He also led his league in batting average five times, won the triple crown twice, earned nine MVP awards, and played for eleven championship teams. He is the Babe Ruth of Japanese baseball.Some may insist Oh doesn’t merit inclusion because Nippon Professional League players were inferior to Major League Baseball players. That’s probably true: Numerous Japanese players have crossed over to MLB since the 1990s, but few have become superstars. Others will point out that Oh hit all those home runs off inferior pitchers in ballparks with shallower dimensions. Also true.
But my guess is the greatest Japanese baseball player of the twentieth century would have at least held his own against MLB pitching. More importantly, though, it just seems important to recognize baseball’s international imprint. Oh is a baseball titan who deserves the honor, which in turn would honor the legacy of Nippon Professional League and Japan’s love for baseball. It would make all the sense in the world for the Baseball Hall of Fame to pay tribute to him next year alongside Suzuki, who will almost certainly be a first-ballot honoree that year.