The Bizarro Hall of Fame: Introducing the Class of 1993

In the coming weeks, One More Dying Quail will be profiling the 182 current members of the Bizarro Hall of Fame, an organization that currently exists only in my mind. It was created in the wake of Major League Baseball’s infamous Steroid Era as a way of honoring those players whose careers were perfectly mediocre: the only requirement is that a candidate be listed on the official Baseball Hall of Fame ballot and receive zero votes.

Class of 1993
Rick Burleson – A four-time All-Star with the Red Sox and Angels, Burleson played on the losing side in two of the most memorable series in recent postseason history: he was the starting shortstop for the Red Sox in the classic 1975 World Series and an extra infielder/designated hitter for the Angels team that folded in staggering fashion in the 1986 ALCS.

Cecil Cooper – Another member of the 1975 Boston Red Sox team that came within a game of winning the World Series, Cooper blossomed after being traded to Milwaukee in the winter of 1976. He earned five All-Star nods, three Silver Sluggers, two Gold Gloves and the 1983 Roberto Clemente Award in eleven seasons with the Brewers. Those were his only two major league teams, but he easily could have been a Cardinal: St. Louis took him from Boston in the 1970 Rule V draft, but returned him before the start of the 1971 season.

Gary Matthews – Most young fans know him in passing as Gary Jr.’s dad, but “Sarge” was a successful major leaguer in his own right, racking up over 200 homeruns and 2,000 hits in a sixteen-year major league career. The National League Rookie of the Year for San Francisco in 1973, he won the NLCS Most Valuable Player award ten years later with a .429 average and three homeruns in Philadelphia’s four game sweep of Los Angeles.

Hal McRae – McRae played the last fifteen of his nineteen-year career in Kansas City, then managed the team for another four years in the early 1990s. He played in three All-Star games and thirteen postseason series, finally winning a World Series with the Royals in 1985, but he will be forever known in the baseball world for this classic 1993 rant:



Darrell Porter – The fourth overall pick in the 1970 amateur draft, Porter won the NLCS and World Series MVP awards in 1982, one of only four players to take home both in the same postseason. The Cardinals win in the Fall Classic that year earned Porter his only championship ring in three tries.

(Coming soon: the Bizarro Hall of Fame Class of 1992.)

(All Hall of Fame voting results were obtained from the official web site of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Statistical information included in postings for the Bizarro Hall of Fame was, unless otherwise noted, originally compiled by Baseball-Reference.com.)

Bizarro Player Profile: Cecil Cooper

Good article at Boston.com on new Houston Astros manager Cecil Cooper ('93), the former Red Sox and Brewers first baseman who is one of the Bizarro HOF's most accomplished members.

"The one thing you always watch when a coach gets a manager's job is, does he change?" said Astros second baseman Mark Loretta. "In Coop's case, he didn't change one bit, and I think that the guys really appreciate that."

"I believe you need to get your team on the right page, get out of the way, and let them play," Cooper said. "You have to have a firm hand. That, I believe in. I don't want guys running haywire, and you can't let them run over you. There'll be rules. The strictest of all will be what everybody should abide by: Be on time. Be professional and do it the right way. Part of my big spiel to them was play right, practice right, and they won't have any issues with me."

It will be interesting to see how the players respond to Cooper's "firm hand." Personally, I'd last about ten seconds - punctuality has never been my strong suit - but it sounds like he has the support of veterans like Loretta, which is a key detail.

One other thing that stood out from the article:

"Cooper, 58, is thus the first African-American player who came up through the Red Sox system and went on to manage in the majors. That is significant for an organization that once was considered racist by some and didn't employ an African-American player until 1959, when Pumpsie Green was called up from the minors."

Question: where, exactly, are the people that look back on the 1950s Red Sox and think for one second that the organization wasn't racist in nature? I love the Sox, I love New England sports, and I hate the ongoing "Everyone in Boston is a racist!" joke that has recently gained a foothold on the Internet, but facts are facts: the people who put together those teams did not do so by determining which players were the best fit or the most talented; their first qualification was skin color.

A bench mark for Cooper (Boston.com)