Baseball Mortality Stats

By Aaron on June 4th, 2007

Death makes us reflect on our mortality.

With the passing of the Yankees’ 3B Clete Boyer today, I got to wondering about another fan-mortality milestone to join the Orosco Number (which is the count of active players younger than you), a statistic to indicate the number of living baseball Hall of Fame players older than you.

No, Clete never merited being close to the Hall of Fame, nor did his stats make the case he deserved to. But he played incredible defense for some amazing Yankee teams.

Here’s a list of living Baseball Hall of Famers:

Name	Inducted	By	Category
Bob Feller	1962	Baseball Writers	Player
Stan Musial	1969	Baseball Writers	Player
Yogi Berra	1972	Baseball Writers	Player
Sandy Koufax	1972	Baseball Writers	Player
Monte Irvin	1973	Negro Leagues Committee	Negro Leaguer
Whitey Ford	1974	Baseball Writers	Player
Ralph Kiner	1975	Baseball Writers	Player
Robin Roberts	1976	Baseball Writers	Player
Ernie Banks	1977	Baseball Writers	Player
Willie Mays	1979	Baseball Writers	Player
Al Kaline	1980	Baseball Writers	Player
Duke Snider	1980	Baseball Writers	Player
Bob Gibson	1981	Baseball Writers	Player
Hank Aaron	1982	Baseball Writers	Player
Frank Robinson	1982	Baseball Writers	Player
George Kell	1983	Veterans Committee	Player
Juan Marichal	1983	Baseball Writers	Player
Brooks Robinson	1983	Baseball Writers	Player
Luis Aparicio	1984	Baseball Writers	Player
Harmon Killebrew	1984	Baseball Writers	Player
Lou Brock	1985	Baseball Writers	Player
Bobby Doerr	1986	Veterans Committee	Player
Willie McCovey	1986	Baseball Writers	Player
Billy Williams	1987	Baseball Writers	Player
Johnny Bench	1989	Baseball Writers	Player
Red Schoendienst	1989	Veterans Committee	Player
Carl Yastrzemski	1989	Baseball Writers	Player
Joe Morgan	1990	Baseball Writers	Player
Jim Palmer	1990	Baseball Writers	Player
Rod Carew	1991	Baseball Writers	Player
Fergie Jenkins	1991	Baseball Writers	Player
Gaylord Perry	1991	Baseball Writers	Player
Rollie Fingers	1992	Baseball Writers	Player
Tom Seaver	1992	Baseball Writers	Player
Reggie Jackson	1993	Baseball Writers	Player
Steve Carlton	1994	Baseball Writers	Player
Phil Rizzuto	1994	Veterans Committee	Player
Mike Schmidt	1995	Baseball Writers	Player
Jim Bunning	1996	Veterans Committee	Player
Earl Weaver	1996	Veterans Committee	Manager
Tommy Lasorda	1997	Veterans Committee	Manager
Phil Niekro	1997	Baseball Writers	Player
Lee MacPhail	1998	Veterans Committee	Pioneer/Executive
Don Sutton	1998	Baseball Writers	Player
George Brett	1999	Baseball Writers	Player
Orlando Cepeda	1999	Veterans Committee	Player
Nolan Ryan	1999	Baseball Writers	Player
Robin Yount	1999	Baseball Writers	Player
Sparky Anderson	2000	Veterans Committee	Manager
Carlton Fisk	2000	Baseball Writers	Player
Tony Perez	2000	Baseball Writers	Player
Bill Mazeroski	2001	Veterans Committee	Player
Dave Winfield	2001	Baseball Writers	Player
Ozzie Smith	2002	Baseball Writers	Player
Gary Carter	2003	Baseball Writers	Player
Eddie Murray	2003	Baseball Writers	Player
Dennis Eckersley	2004	Baseball Writers	Player
Paul Molitor	2004	Baseball Writers	Player
Wade Boggs	2005	Baseball Writers	Player
Ryne Sandberg	2005	Baseball Writers	Player
Bruce Sutter	2006	Baseball Writers	Player

I wonder who’s the youngest. I wonder who will be the first player younger than me will be inducted.

The baseball death that still haunts me was that of Thurman Munson. I was an all-star catcher in Little League and Babe Ruth League in the mid-1970′s. Munson was my role-model, well-deserving of the largest portion of Annie Savoy’s baseball shrine.

Any baseball players make you think of your own mortality?

UPDATE: Wikipedia has a list of 2008′s eligible Baseball HOFers:

Luis Alicea, Brady Anderson, Alex Arias, Andy Benes, Mike Benjamin, Dennis Cook, Delino DeShields, Shawon Dunston, Chuck Finley, Darrin Fletcher, Travis Fryman, Rich GarcÃ©s, Chris Haney, Dave Hollins, Bobby J. Jones, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Tom Lampkin, Darren Lewis, Mike Magnante, Dave Mlicki, Mike Morgan, Robb Nen, HipÃ³lito Pichardo, Tim Raines, Armando Reynoso, Henry RodrÃguez, Lee Stevens, Todd Stottlemyre, Greg Swindell, Mike Trombley, John Valentin, Randy Velarde, Ed Vosberg, and Mark Wohlers.

It’s not a rich field of prospects. Tim Raines is the closest to HOF, but he’s older than me. Chuck Finley would qualify for me, as he’s a month younger than I am, but I don’t Finley’s HOF material.

I’m probably looking at Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, David Cone or Fred McGriff. Martinez is a DH and McGwire is an asterisk. Maybe I can hold out for David Wells?

Nah… as much as I love Boomer (233-151) and even though his stats are better than Cone’s, he’s not going to be a sure HOFer unless he can hold on for 250 wins… and I hope he does.

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One Response to “Baseball Mortality Stats”

Charles on Jun 4th, 2007 at 5:08 pm

I was born in ’58, Sandberg in ’59. So my Sandberg Number is 60. The number of Hall of Famers older than me and still alive.

George Kell is still alive?? Has anyone checked on him?