Remember there’s a Heinie in the Hall of Fame
I guess I must still have some five-year-old boy in me because whenever I see the name Heinie, I still think it’s funny. I’ve always thought it was funny. I’ve never met anyone named Heinie, (and you probably haven’t either), but there are 10 players with the name Heinie who’ve taken the field as MLB players.
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Were any of those Heinies any good?
One is a Hall-of-Famer — Heinie Manush
One won an early Triple Crown in 1912 — Heinie Zimmerman
One had the highest bWAR of all the Heinies — Heinie Groh
How was one Heinie rated above all the others?
The BBWA 2025 ballot for induction into Cooperstown was released this week.
There are no Heinie’s on the list, and there hasn’t been one to play MLB since Heinie Heltzel in 1944 who made his debut at age 29 in 1943 only to play his final game (of a 40-game career) just over a year later. Apparently, some Heinies are better than others.
Over the next two plus months baseball lovers like me will discuss and argue over who should be voted into Cooperstown this time and who should not, and those that never should be! Although there are only 273 HOFers elected as players, even rabid fans have forgotten many who’ve already been inducted.
The forgettable Heinie’s
Besides Heltzel, the other Heinies, Mueller, Peitz, Meine, Wagner, Schuble, and Sand did not have much success as major league ballplayers. Five of them (Manush, Mueller, Meine, Schuble and Sand, played much of their career concurrently) but I was not tempted enough to look to find out if any of those Heinies were ever teammates.
Why Heinie Manush?
So, I often ask, why are voters and fans so committed to keeping the HOF small and exclusive? I mean, if you didn’t already know that Heinie Manush was inducted as a player, why be so concerned about protecting the ‘sanctity’ and exclusivity of the Hall of Fame? While he was the most famous Heinie, he might not have even been the best Heinie to play the game!
Heinie Groh had a higher career bWAR than Heinie Manush but apparently didn’t kiss enough heinies to be a HOFer. Manush and Groh played about the same amounts of seasons (17 to 16) with Manush having about 20% more plate appearances. Their career OPS+ were close as well, 121 for Manush, 118 for Groh. Groh had more opportunities (six) to play in the World Series compared to the one for Manush. But when it came to Groh’s turn to be considered for the Hall-of-Fame, HOF voters turned the other cheek naming him on only 2% of the 2,391 votes. The 1955 HOF ballot was not like it is today — it was a much more populated ballot with 4 players elected along with 31 future Hall-of-Famers, 29 others that were never elected, plus one Heinie.
Heinie Zimmerman was also a different kind of a heinie since he was banned from baseball in 1912, nine years after winning an unrecognized Triple Crown. He was banned for trying to fix games while a NY Giant in 1919, the year of the Black Sox! There were more heinies around than people thought about.
How did Heinie Manush manage to get into Cooperstown?
At least Manush, who was traded for another Hall-of-Famer Goose Goslin in the middle of his career in 1930, was alive when he was voted in by the Veteran’s Committee in 1964. But this Heinie was often the best player on a series of often lousy teams (except for the 1930–1933 Nationals who lost the ’33 World Series to the NY Giants). 1964 saw seven new HOF members enshrined on July 27, 1964, at the 25th anniversary of the Hall of Fame. A special election of the BBWAA resulted in the induction of Luke Appling, Red Faber, Heinie Manush and Burleigh Grimes, while the Veterans Committee elected Miller Huggins, Tim Keefe and John Ward. All three Veterans Committee selections were inducted posthumously. So maybe by including Manush that year, the Veteran’s Committee was covering its Heinie?
I am completely and unfairly, picking on Heinie Manush because it really doesn’t matter how he got in and I’m fine with him being a Hall-of-Famer. However, as I see it, the continued haughtiness of HOF voting is constantly displayed as there have been slightly more than 1% of the players who played elected makes voters look like, a heinie! Adding 36 players (something that I have written about previously), would increase the percentage of players in the Hall of Fame from 1.2% to 1.3%.
It’s not as if there aren’t any HOF members who were thought of as heinies when they played. And I can’t be talking about the late Pete Rose but only because he’s barred from election. HOFers Ty Cobb and Ted Williams also had a reputation for being heinie-like. But that did not hold back their election, nor should it have.
Thanks for reading Almost Cooperstown!
Heinie Manush had a much older brother Frank who played one season of MLB batting .155 (`17) for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1908 which was 15 years before Heinie made his debut. He called his little brother ‘Heinie’ all the time, but my guess is that he never laughed once.
About the Author: Mark Kolier along with his son Gordon co-hosts a baseball podcast called ‘Almost Cooperstown’. He also has written baseball-related articles that can be accessed on Medium.com and Substack.com.
