(Updated on Jan. 12, 2022)
On Dec. 5, 2011, the Golden Days Committee elected Ron Santo to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Santo, former Cubs third baseman, is deserving of election to the shrine, but voters should do the right thing and elect former Cardinals third baseman Ken Boyer, too. To elect one without the other is an injustice.
The 16-person committee failed to elect Boyer when it met in 2011 and again in 2014 and 2021.
The committee considers players whose primes were between 1950 and 1969. Boyer and Santo each won the Gold Glove Award five times (Boyer, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1963; Santo, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968).
Both were equals as fielders. The same was true as hitters.
Some give Santo the edge because he had more career home runs and RBI than Boyer, but Santo also had almost 700 more at-bats (8,143 for Santo and 7,455 for Boyer). The career numbers:
BOYER: .287 batting average, 2,143 hits, 282 HR, 1,141 RBI.
SANTO: .277 batting average, 2,254 hits, 342 HR, 1,331 RBI.
In June 1963, Cardinals consultant Branch Rickey, generally considered a top evaluator of talent, told The Sporting News that Boyer is “the best third baseman in baseball today, with the bat, the arm and the legs. He’s the most underrated fielder. Take his bat away and this big fellow still is a great third baseman.”
A cover story by Dave Anderson in the 1965 season preview edition of Dell Sports magazine also captures how highly regarded Boyer was during his prime. Boyer was named winner of the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1964 when he led the Cardinals to the World Series championship. Dell Sports assigned Anderson to do a piece about Boyer and the Orioles’ Brooks Robinson, with the angle that the duo might be the best third basemen of all-time.
Wrote Anderson:
“Take a good look this season at Ken Boyer and Brooks Robinson. Appreciate them now, while they’re at their peak. They’re two of the best third basemen in baseball history. Possibly the best ever. Surely they’re the two best ever to compete in the same era.
“Many oldtimers consider it heresy to rate any of the current stars as the best ever at their positions. But Ken Boyer of the St. Louis Cardinals and Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles demand such recognition. None of the other current stars have invaded the history of their position the way Boyer and Robinson have at third base.”
Anderson interviewed former Pirates third baseman Pie Traynor, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1948 after excelling as a fielder and hitter (.320 batting average) from 1920-37.
Traynor told Anderson, “Boyer is a steady, great ballplayer. He’s the punch of the Cardinals. If he doesn’t drive in all those runs (119 in 1964), they don’t win the pennant last season. And if he doesn’t drive in runs in the World Series, they don’t win that.”
When Anderson noted Boyer had put together 10 spectacularly steady seasons, Traynor replied, “(Brooks) Robinson must do that. He had a big season last year (1964). But can he keep it up like Boyer?”
Robinson did have a wonderful career with Baltimore and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1983, one year after Boyer died of cancer at 51.
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Not to mention Santo played in a much smaller park at Wrigley, and was not as fast or as versatile as Boyer. Santo hit 216 of his 342 homers at home. He batted .296 at home and just .257 on the road, another huge career disparity. He got the sympathy vote for playing with the Cubs and his amputation, plus he stayed in the public eye as an announcer. Meanwhile, Boyer died relatively young. Santo was good, but Boyer was better.
Well said
i always thought they were pretty equal, with boyer getting the edge … if santo deserves h.o.f. recognition, so does ken boyer … i m 72-year old lifetime baseball lover, who thinks baseball was more fun to watch and more well-rounded before all the h.r.’s and k’s, and lack of stolen bases
Thanks for commenting. Well-stated.
Hi thanks for sharing thhis
I appreciate your feedback.
I’ve never been able to understand why Ken Boyer has never received the recognition that he deserved.
It certainly is an injustice.
in the biography “Ken Boyer: All-Star, MVP, Captain,” author Kevin D. McCann, who supported Boyer’s candidacy for the Hall of Fame, speculated that among the reasons Boyer has been left out are:
_ He achieved his greatest success outside New York, Chicago or Los Angeles. “If we changed places,” his brother, the Yankees’ Clete Boyer, said, “and Ken played in New York, he’d be in the Hall of Fame today.”
_ He finished with fewer than 300 home runs. As the author notes, Boyer played most of his career in a home ballpark unfavorable to right-handed batters. Ron Santo played most of his career in a home ballpark where ordinary fly balls are home runs.
_ Boyer lost two years to military service (1952-53). If he had played at least one of those seasons with St. Louis, his career numbers likely would be better than, or closer to, Santo’s.
The Boyer biography pointed out that writer Jayson Stark, in making a case for Boyer’s election to the Hall, noted that Boyer and Santo are the only major-league third basemen with seven consecutive seasons of 20 homers, 90 RBI and four or more Gold Glove awards. Stark wrote, “Boyer’s underrated time has come. It has come because this guy was a great do-it-all player.”