Tailgate Crashers Baseball Hall of Fame

The old ballgame rests in the minds of youth and the hearts of the aged. The history of baseball, through the earliest moments of the 20th Century and onward, encompasses a range of memories so grand, so vividly pure, that a shrine as worthy as the hallowed grounds in Cooperstown alone cannot contain them. Baseball is, at its core, one of the last truly Romantic institutions left in a world dominated by more pressing issues in a more complicated time. The game remains a simple blend of athleticism and passion, mixed with stories of titans amongst men amidst the smells of fresh cut grass and Cracker Jacks. And while the game itself has vainly attempted to modernize in the wake of America’s modernization, it remains at heart a throwback to the age of our fathers’ fathers.

A group of men who have made covering Major League Baseball their life are charged with immortalizing baseball’s elite by inducting them into the Hall of Fame, where both young and old can revel in the history of the game, long after those history-makers have hung up their spikes. Of course, not all of baseball’s most memorable players reside in Cooperstown. With such high standards to live up to, some players find themselves on the outside looking in, for one reason or another. Because of this, we here at Tailgate Crashers want to honor their contributions to the game we love by giving them a shrine of their own until Cooperstown beckons. Thus, we have created the Tailgate Crashers Baseball Hall of Fame.

Our Hall of Fame operates not unlike the real deal in Cooperstown, with a few exceptions. Only players who have not been inducted into the Hall of Fame are eligible for inclusion here. If a player inducted into our Hall of Fame is inducted into Cooperstown, he will be removed in favor of another baseball great that has not yet gotten “the call”. Each year, staff writers, contributors to the site, and baseball fans alike will vote for players that they feel are deserving of induction. The criteria: each candidate must have been apart of at least one Pro Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, or else have set a Major League record. This year, our voters could not narrow the field down to six inductees – there are ten, with an eleventh “manager” induction alongside. These eleven baseball figures make up the Class of 2007 in the Baseball Hall of Fame here at Tailgate Crashers.

We begin our countdown with one of the two inductees who received the highest percentage of the votes cast in the 2007 election. With 20% of the vote, he is deemed the overall first inductee because of his ineligibility for the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame. The first member of the Class of 2007: “Shoeless” Joe Jackson!

OF/1B
Brandon Mills, South Carolina
07.16.1887 – 12.05.1951

Career Statistics and Achievements
.356 AVG / 1,772 Hits / 785 RBI / 168 Triples

– Hit .408 in his first full season in the Major Leagues with Cleveland, a record amongst rookies that still stands as of 2007.
– Led the Majors with 197 Hits and a .551 Slugging Percentage in 1913.
– Hit .375 in the 1919 World Series, including the series’ only Home Run and a perfect fielding percentage.
– Jackson, along with seven of his teammates from the 1919 White Sox team, are banned from baseball for life by then-commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in the wake of the “Black Sox Scandal” during the 1919 World Series.

Along with his trademark bat (a 48 oz. monster named “Black Betsy”) and his equally famous nickname, “Shoeless”, Joe Jackson has become something of a baseball icon, thanks largely in part to his portrayal in Phil Alden Robinson’s Field of Dreams (1989), where Ray Liotta portrays the banished slugger who emerges from beyond the grave in a cornfield and reunites a deceased father and his son. The movie is a genuine classic (especially amongst baseball fans), but the real “Shoeless” Joe Jackson is deserving of the credit, even without the film. A rather tall individual for his era, Jackson was as swift on the diamond as he was graceful at the plate, leading the league in triples as well as hits at more than one point in his career. Breaking into the big leagues in 1908, Jackson floated between minor league clubs until his first full “rookie” season in 1911. It was during the interim that his nickname was coined. During a minor league game, a new pair of cleats began to blister his feet. The blisters were painful enough that Jackson played the next day in nothing but his socks. A fan supposedly hurled insults at the barefoot Jackson, branding him a “shoeless son of a bitch.” The nickname has become one of baseball’s most famous sobriquets, and has immortalized Jackson.

Though his numbers are less impressive than a man of Jackson’s reputation would lead you to believe, it is important to note that Jackson compiled these numbers in a career cut short by the Black Sox Scandal of 1919 (even though he was acquitted of any wrong-doing in a federal trial). To this date, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson is honored in Greenville, South Carolina with a statue and museum commemorating South Carolina’s most famous baseball great. It is with equal privilege that the voters induct the great “Shoeless” Joe Jackson into the Tailgate Crashers Baseball Hall of Fame!

Upcoming Tailgate Crashers Hall of Fame Schedule
January 12th: “Shoeless” Joe Jackson
January 16th: Inductee #2, Inductee #3
January 19th: Inductee #4, Inductee #5
January 22nd: Inductee #6, Manager Induction
January 29th: Inductee #7, Inductee #8
February 2nd: Inductee #9
February 6th: Inductee #10, Preview of 2008

Inductees to the Tailgate Crashers Baseball Hall of Fame are voted on by a combination of Tailgate Crashers’ staff writers, site contributors, and fans of the old ballgame. Inducted players are chosen by tallying the six highest vote getters – in the event of a tie vote, more than six players can be inducted. The opinions behind the election of these ballplayers are that they were the best representation of Major League players not currently in the Hall of Fame.