Not for nothing, but Gordon has a 120 career OPS+, and a certain 2B with an OPS+ of 127 (for the year) won the MVP this year.

I'm just sayin'.

Not for nothing, but Gordon has a 120 career OPS+, and a certain 2B with an OPS+ of 127 (for the year) won the MVP this year.

I'm just sayin'.

Bret Boone's career OPS+: 101

Yeah, he's exactly like Joe Gordon.

"It's probably not the worst choice the veterans committee ever made."

True, but they've made some pretty horrible choices over the years.

No Mickey Vernon? Compare his career numbers to Gordon's. And an even better defensive player. It's all about the New York Hype Machine.

Great 1940s arguement, whose better at 2B, Joe Gordon or Bobby Doerr. Except for HR, Doerr beats Joe at all other stats incl being second to Mazeroski for DPs per game.
Jim Casey above has it right for Mickey Vernon. Re:NY Hype Machine & Dan Daniel control of writers in '40s-Gordon in 1942 led AL in GinDPs & errors at 2B & got MVP over Ted W first Triple Crown.

Gordon clearly belonged--so did a number of the other guys passed up today (Santo, Oliva, Carl Mays, and Joe Torre certainly come to mind). This every other year crap--along with the fact that the Hall of Famers aren't actually meeting to discuss the post WW-II players--is keeping some worthy players out of the Hall.

Vernon was wildly inconsistent from season to season (probably due to injuries, but true nonetheless). Doerr's stats were inflated by Fenway, while Gordon's--like those of every other right-handed hitter in Yankee history until recently--were dragged down by the Stadium. Gordon was a much better player than Doerr or Vernon (though he didn't deserve that MVP in 1942--it should have gone to Ted Williams).

Because Eiland above says so, Joe Gordon was a much better player than Doerr or Vernon. Gordon played exactly 11 seasons. In 1946 he hit a robust .210 & a career .268 to Doerr's .288 & Vernon's .286. I saw many games in Yankee Stadium in late 1930s on and it was 301 ft down left field line with a 3 ft fence and many a pulled hit made it for a HR down that line. J DiMag had 46 HRs in 1937 & he was a pronounced pull hitter. There was left CF & CF Death Valley, but the foul line was close.

Bobby Doerr's lifetime fielding avg at 2B .980(15 yrs)
Joe Gordon's lifetime fielding avg at 2B .970(11 yrs)

At the risk of being disrespectful to someone who was apparently watching Yankee games well before my father was born (and I'm not exactly young any more myself), I feel the need to inject a bit of reality here:

To paint an accurate picture on how affected DiMaggio was by Yankee Stadium; He hit 148 home runs in 3,360 at-bats at home. In contrast, he hit 213 home runs in 3,461 at-bats on the road.

I can't find the similar splits online for Gordon, but Bill James broke down the numbers for Doerr and Gordon years ago in his excellent book The Politics of Glory and demonstrated that on the road over their careers, Gordon was a significantly superior hitter to Doerr, even with Doerr running up his career numbers with a huge season in 1944 against wartime opposition while Gordon was overseas.

Bob S,

BA and fielding percentage are two of the worst possible metrics you could possibly use to compare players.

Joe Gordon had a higher career OBP and SLG percentage, both of which are considerably better indicators of value then BA. He also had a better career OPS+. As for fielding percentage as a legitimate stat, that is laughable and is the reason a guy like Nate McLouth won a gold glove this year, despite accordingly to all possible sources, being a terrible, terrible outfielder.

Bob S,

BA and fielding percentage are poor choices to evaluate and compare players with.

Gordon had a higher career OBP, SLG and OPS+. All of which are superior indicators of value then BA. He hit the ball harder, and got on base more often.

As well, fielding percentage is an even worse metric to use in comparing defence of players. It is entirely the reason a by all accounts terrible terrible outfielder in Nate McLouth won a GG this year, because he made only 1 error and had a .997 fielding percentage.

I don't doubt that Doerr was a fine, fine 2B man. But to say he was better then Gordon and to cite BA and fielding % as reasons why does not make a strong argument.

That is really weird... I posted and closed the page and came back and it wasn't their, so I reposted... and then my original post showed up!

About 25 years ago Baseball Digest interviewed Ted Williams and asked him to pick his all-time team based on his own opinion of players from 1939 when he was a rookie until the day he was interviewed in the early 1980's. He picked his 9 players. What struck me at the time was that 8 positions were filled by HoFers. The only position that wasn't filled by a HoFer was 2nd base. He said it was hard not to pick his long time team mate Bobby Doerr but that Joe Gordon was the best 2nd baseman he had ever seen including the guys who had been inducted into the HoF. He was quoted as saying you had to see Gordon play to truely understand greatness. I remember thinking Ted must know something.

I'm glas to reignite Joe Gordon vs Bobby Doerr, it was the best arguement of the '40s. For Zep above Doerr's career OBP was .362 to Gordon's .357. Doerr once held the ML 2B consecutive chances w/o error mark (1948). Of course that's not an indicator of sure fielding. They didn't manicure infields every 3 innings then. For HP above, Ted W was the leader of an old timers committee that put Doerr in HofF, how come Ted didn't pick Gordon?
As for Bill James, one of his arguements that Gordon was better was a letter in Sporting News from Bklyn that Gordon was the better player. Is that a guage of superiority? Now that James is a Red Sox employee, it is Doerr was a smooth fieder with a huge DP presence. James knows so much about the Red Sox that in one of his books on leadoff batters and discussing Pee Wee Reese, James states that actually Johnny Pesky had better stats as leadoff than Reese. Pesky leadoff batter-where was Dom DiMag batting for Sox before, during, & after Pesky's time (Pg 598 James Abstract)

Bob S,

You're right - thanks for the correction on the OBP, I was a little quick.

I can't speculate as to why Williams didn't put Gordon into the HOF but can suggest maybe he did push for his induction and there were others who shot him down, or maybe there were other players whose absence from the hall was more glaring and these players were righted first.

It is a good debate. Both players would have been a welcome addition to any club, I think.

I'm thankful that this venue let me shoot my mouth off on a subject that used to light up street corners in the '40s in Boston & NYC. Ted W helped Doerr get into H of F exactly as Yogi Berra helped Phil Rizzutto & mostly for one reason, cronyism.

There's another factor that probably got Doerr in well before Gordon--Gordon died in 1978, while Doerr was (and still is, thankfully) alive when the Veterans voted him in in 1986. There's an understandable tendency when evaluating players with similar credentials to favor the guy who's alive and able to appreciate it (which is why most of the other pre-1943 guys who got passed up this year are probably royally screwed in the future--they really don't have many advocates now).

I, FINALLY (along with the Veteran's Committee), got it right, Joe Gordon deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. checkout the latest at www.thebaseballzealot.com