Addie Joss and the Baseball Hall of Fame's 10-Season Rule

 

Photos of Addie Joss demonstrating his delivery.

Addie Joss is the only player in the Baseball Hall of Fame who played for less than 10 seasons. (Besides players elected for their success in the Negro Leagues, many of whom never made the major leagues at all or played for only a few years after integration.) Joss pitched for Cleveland from 1902-1910, and he died from tubercular meningitis in April 1911, 2 days after his 31^st birthday, and just before he would have begun his 10^th major league season. So, why was Addie Joss allowed in the Hall of Fame if he didn’t play 10 seasons? Join me as we examine his case in more detail.

The Baseball Hall of Fame doesn’t stipulate very much in the way of its requirements. About the only rule for eligibility is that a player must have played for a minimum of 10 seasons. But how is a “season” defined? Is it a full season? Say, a season in which a pitcher throws enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, or a season in which a batter accumulates enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title? Well, let’s look at how the Hall of Fame has handled the players with the shortest Hall of Fame careers.

Ross Youngs, 1897-1927

Ross Youngs played only 10 seasons for the New York Giants, as his career and life were shortened by Bright’s disease. Youngs’s first season, 1917, consisted of exactly 7 games. That’s 4.5% of a 154-game season. That was enough for the Hall of Fame, though. There doesn’t seem to have been much debate over his qualification, as Youngs received votes from the first election for the Hall of Fame in 1936. He was a regular on the ballot until 1956, and he was elected by the Veterans’ Committee in 1972, which included several of his former teammates.

Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Ralph Kiner

Ralph Kiner played only 10 seasons before a back injury ended his playing career. Kiner led the NL, or tied for the lead, in home runs in his first 7 seasons. Kiner averaged 147 games per season, and his lowest games played total was 113 in 1955, his final season. There’s not much of an argument about those all counting as full seasons. Despite his 7-year run of dominance, Kiner received just 1.1% of the vote when he debuted on the Hall of Fame ballot in 1960. That was before the 5% minimum rule was around, though, and so Kiner’s candidacy survived. But it took him the full 15 years on the ballot to gain 75% of the votes, and he was finally elected in 1975.

Dizzy Dean, star of the "Gashouse Gang" Cardinals during the 1930's.

Dizzy Dean pitched in 12 seasons—and 3 of those seasons consisted of a single game. That’s right, 1 game. Take away those 3 games, Dean is at 9 seasons, and presumably not eligible for the Hall of Fame. And one of Dean’s 1 game seasons was a publicity stunt—Dean’s last start, for the St. Louis Browns in 1947.

Dean only had 6 seasons in which he pitched more than 100 innings. Granted, Dean was a very dominant pitcher for those 6 seasons, as he led the NL in strikeouts in 4 of those seasons, and led the NL in wins twice, including his famous 1934 season, when he won 30 games for the St. Louis Cardinals. Dizzy then won 2 more games in the 1934 World Series, as the Cardinals won the championship. Dean also had that intangible “star quality” that no doubt drew sportswriters to his case. Diz was a good old boy from Arkansas, and as the leader of the “Gashouse Gang” Cardinals, he played that role to the hilt. He was funny, a genuine character, and as a radio broadcaster stayed very visible after his retirement. I understand why Dizzy Dean is in the Hall of Fame, despite his extremely short career.

As we’ve seen from the examples of Youngs and Dean, it seems as though 1 appearance, in any capacity, counts as a season. Dean’s 1941 season consisted of exactly 1 inning pitched, in which he faced 7 batters. This helped Joss’s case, since he attended spring training for the 1911 season, and was preparing for his 10^th season when he fell ill and died, just 2 days after the Naps began their season. Since 1 inning pitched counts as a season, you could argue that Joss was merely 1 inning pitched in 1911 away from fulfilling the minimum requirement for the Hall of Fame. Doesn’t it seem petty to keep the man out of the Hall of Fame just because he had the bad luck to die before he could throw 1 measly inning in 1911?

Momentum slowly built for Joss’s election to the Hall of Fame during the 1960’s and 1970’s, and eventually, in 1977, the Hall of Fame’s Board of Directors waived the 10-year rule especially for Joss. Joss was elected by the Veterans’ Committee at their next meeting, in 1978. This must have been something of a “quid pro quo” move, as there was no purpose in waiving the 10-year rule specifically for Joss if he wasn’t going to be inducted. And so it was that Addie Joss became a Hall of Famer in 1978, 67 years after his death.

MLB, or the Hall of Fame, has never really gotten into the weeds of what counts as a “season,” and I’m glad they haven’t. I think it’s a little ridiculous to count 1 game as a “season,” but I also don’t want MLB to engage in the minutiae of deciding seasons on a case-by-case basis, where they would decide “this is a full season, this is a partial season.” Knowing how MLB generally operates, you can bet they’d make inconsistent decisions that wouldn’t make any sense. Personally, I think it’s a little ridiculous that Dizzy Dean’s 3 seasons of 1 game each allowed him to qualify for the Hall of Fame. But really, how many players are affected by the 10-year rule for the Hall of Fame? The rule has only been amended once in the 85 years of the Hall of Fame, for Addie Joss. I’m not a huge fan of the precedent amending that rule sets—once you amend the rule for Addie Joss, what’s to stop you from amending the rule for someone else, maybe someone who only played 8 years? But that’s never happened, and I’m not unduly concerned about it happening again. Joss was elected in 1978, and the rule hasn’t been amended in the 43 years since he was elected, so it’s not really a burning issue. I can’t think of any player who played for 9 years that I would say deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

I suppose a team could attempt to bend the rules by giving a player token appearances in order to enable him to qualify for the 10-year rule. It’s such an unlikely scenario, but imagine Mike Trout suffered a terrible, career-ending injury after the end of his 9^th major league season. Everybody agrees Trout is one of the best players ever, and his election to the Hall of Fame will merely be a formality. (2020 was Trout’s 10^th major league season, so don’t worry, this is purely hypothetical.) But let’s say the Angels give Trout one pinch-hitting appearance, he looks at 3 strikes and sits down, and presto, you’ve got his 10^th season in the books! Would anyone complain about that? It’s doubtful, given Trout’s impressive statistics, but it doesn’t set the best precedent if you’re giving guys who really can’t play token appearances just so they’ll qualify for the Hall of Fame. That being said, it’s very unlikely that anyone with a career of less than 10 years would be a serious enough candidate for the Hall of Fame for a team to resort to this kind of stunt.

I find it odd that it took so long for Joss to be elected. The Hall of Fame had been around for 40 years by 1978, so if Joss was so deserving of election, why hadn’t they bent the rules before then for him? What was the point in electing him in 1978? By that time, Joss’s widow and 2 children were already dead. (His widow and daughter died in the 1950’s, and his son died in 1977.)

Addie Joss was an interesting guy, and an excellent pitcher. He’s certainly not the worst pitcher in the Hall of Fame. Joss is the all-time leader in lowest WHIP, minimum of 1,000 innings pitched, with a mind-bogglingly low 0.968. Joss pitched during the Dead Ball Era, so you must look at his statistics through the lens of that era. Still, his numbers are impressive. Fun fact: in 1909, Joss pitched 242 2/3rds innings and gave up zero home runs. I know, I just told you that he pitched during the Dead Ball Era, when no one hit home runs, but still, that’s extremely impressive that no one homered off of him, even an inside-the-park home run.

Joss was a college man, attending the University of Wisconsin at Madison. College baseball players were still a rarity in those days, and Joss was a man of keen intelligence. Joss worked as a sportswriter during his playing days, covering the World Series from 1907-09. He was also interested in engineering, and he worked on designing an electric scoreboard, which Cleveland eventually installed at League Park.

From the moment he debuted in 1902, it was clear that Joss was something special on the mound. He fired a one-hitter in his first major league start. Joss threw a perfect game during the heat of a pennant race in 1908, and a no-hitter in 1910. Although ERA was not an official statistic during Joss’s career, he twice had the lowest ERA in the American League, in 1904 and 1908. Joss hurled 325 innings in 1908, ending the year with an ERA of just 1.16, the 7^th lowest ERA posted since 1900. A torn ligament in his right elbow ended Joss’s 1910 season after his start on July 25^th. Unbeknownst to anyone, that would be Addie Joss’s final game in the major leagues.

Joss attended spring training with the Naps in 1911, and it was only during the last 10 days of his life that he was ill. He died on April 14, 1911. Joss was held in such high esteem that the very first “all-star” game was held as a benefit for his family on July 24, 1911. The Naps invited players from other American League teams to play them, and stars like Ty Cobb, Eddie Collins, Home Run Baker, Tris Speaker, and Walter Johnson took the field against the Naps. The all-stars beat the Naps, 5-3.

Joss received votes for the Hall of Fame starting in 1937, on the second Hall of Fame ballot. His highest vote total was 14.2% on the 1942 ballot. Did the sportswriters realize that they were voting for a player who technically wasn’t eligible for the Hall of Fame? I’m guessing probably not, since this was an era where the HOF rules that we know today hadn’t been established yet. Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg received votes for the Hall in 1945, when they were both still active players. Lou Gehrig received a whopping 22.6% of the vote in the first election in 1936, when he was still an active player who would lead the league in runs scored, home runs, walks, OBP, and slugging percentage that same year.

Back in 2014, I included Joss on a list of players I didn’t think deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. I’ve softened my stand on Addie Joss since then. I’m fine with Addie Joss being in the Hall of Fame. Unlike most of the other Veterans’ Committee selections that I included on my list from 2014, Addie Joss didn’t make it into the Hall of Fame because the Committee was comprised of his former teammates. By the time Joss was elected, almost all of his former teammates were dead. He didn’t make it into the Hall by cronyism. Yes, he was granted an exception by the Board, but it was more than 65 years after his death. The story of Joss’s eventual election to the Hall of Fame is a remarkable one. I’m not a huge fan of the precedent of making an exception for someone who really only played 9 seasons. But it’s not Joss’s fault that he died before he had a chance to compete in his 10^th season. And as I mentioned, making an exception for someone who played in fewer than 10 seasons has only happened once in 85 years of the Hall of Fame, and I think it’s extremely unlikely that it would ever happen again. So, Addie Joss gets to be this weird footnote in the history of the Hall of Fame. And maybe he gets a little more attention and fame because of his exceptional status. Addie Joss sounds like he was a remarkable fellow, and the next time I go to Cooperstown, I’ll make sure I spend a moment in front of his plaque, paying homage to an unlikely Hall of Fame story.