Dissecting the Baseball Hall of Fame's Plaques: Class of 1936

When you think of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, many things come to mind. Perhaps no physical aspect of the Hall symbolizes the Hall and the inductees themselves as the plaques forever mounted on the walls of the plaque gallery.

Plaques of the Class of 2014 (Photo by the author).

Crafted for each of the Hall's 323 members (as of 2018), Hall of Fame plaques have achieved legendary status among baseball fans and historians. Their basic design has remained the same since the first group of electees of the late-1930s. Two baseball bats rest behind the honorees bust, joined by a laurel leaf in the bottom-left corner. Four screws plated with baseball-like stitching adorn each of the plaque's four corners. Below their image is the Hall of Famer's name, sometimes combined with a well-known nickname or additional moniker. This is followed by a list of the team's they played for, managed for, or were associated with. With only a few lines of text used to properly sum-up an inductees entire baseball career, this singular portrait of the honoree is meant to give future generations and accurate representation of the individual and make a solid case as to why they deserved their spot in the Hall.

While at first glance each of the plaques appear to be basically the same, following a decades-old template, there instead exists varying levels of complexity and continuity, accuracy and erroneousness, and subtle differences among the plaques aside from the obvious factors like different names, dates, teams and achievements of each of the inductees.

More simply put, each of the plaques are both beautiful works of art, and flawed representations of the humans who crafted the designs and the institution that houses them. I will attempt to evaluate and grade each of the 323 Baseball Hall of Fame plaques, shining light on the faults and perfections of the plates, a task which has never been seriously attempted before.

Part I: The 1930s.

The plaques of the first five members of the Hall of Fame. (Wikimedia Commons/User:Friejose).

While the Baseball Writers Association of America announced its first class for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, the museum itself did not open its doors until June 12, 1939, welcoming with it members of the classes of 1936, 1937, 1938 and 1939. 25 players, managers and pioneering executives made up the Hall's first four classes, plus Lou Gehrig who was elected in a special election on December 7, 1939.

Looking back at the plaques from this era, it is a bit obvious that this was the Hall's first attempt at issuing them. Most plaques have just a few sentences of text, a far cry from the modern, novel-length paragraphs of today's plaques. It is also here that we run into the first of the plaques really obvious problems, incorrect information, specifically statistics. This is to be expected, as there was no readily available baseball encyclopedia or Baseball-Reference.com for fans and researchers to go off of. The first real attempt to create an encyclopedia came in 1951 with the The Official Encyclopedia of Baseball, which had only a limited number of stats. The numbers which were included in books of this period were often inaccurate, thanks to poor record keeping and differences in official numbers gathered by leagues, newspapers, and other official sources. 

That is why most of the plaques from the Hall's first few decades include data which does not correspond with the numbers you might look up online. RBI totals, win-loss records, strikeout numbers and even a person's full name have to taken with a grain of salt, with a lack of accurate information making it difficult to etch something like this in history. At some point decades later, the Hall placed a small plaque in the gallery, warning visitors that the information on plaques was gathered from the best available sources of the time, squashing any plans for the hall to tear down dozens of old plaques and edit the mistakes as new information comes about. This has happened a few times, however, which we will get to down the road.

I will evaluate each plaque based on four primary elements:

Image: What is the quality of the Hall of Famer's portrait? Was the logo on his cap appropriate, if there is a logo at all?

Name: What route did the Hall go with when displaying the person's name? Did they use their full name, or did they include any nicknames?

Teams: How well did the Hall do at accurately recording their teams played/managed/worked for? Are their any errors?

Text: Probably the most complicated to judge, based on the lengths of the text on each plaque. The room for error on many older plaques was so large. Do any obvious mistakes jump out? Did they tell enough about the Hall of Famer, or did they reveal too much pointless information?

Let's start simple, with the first class of 1936:

Ty Cobb 

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/User:RasputinAXP)

Image: A+. We're starting strong with the man with the highest vote total of the first class. Ty Cobb's plaque image is among my favorite of all-time. Featuring a clear Detroit Tigers' cap logo and a highly-detailed bust of Cobb's smiling face, this should have set the standard for every plaque image going forward.

Name: A-. Tyrus Raymond Cobb was indeed his name. However, not only is the plaque missing his famous nickname, "The Georgia Peach," but his primary name of "Ty" isn't present anywhere. This is probably a matter of preference for some, but the Hall's lack of consistency when it comes to including shortened versions of inductee's names is troublesome. Ty Cobb is only referred to as "Tyrus Raymond Cobb," Joe DiMaggio is solely listed as "Joseph Paul DiMaggio," and Ernie Banks only has "Ernest Banks, 'Mr. Cub,'" on his plaque. Now, almost every baseball fan alive today knows that these three went by Ty, Joe and Ernie, and not Tyrus, Joseph and Ernest, but what if this is not the case in a few hundred years? This is why I always prefer to have the inductees primary name somewhere on the plaque. See Hank Aaron, Mike Piazza and Joe Torre as examples. Or what if they are not that well known? How would someone who knows nothing about baseball history who finds themself in the plaque gallery know that James Collins went by "Jimmy" and not "James" or "Jim," or that Thomas F. McCarthy was "Tommy," and not "Tom?"

Teams: C. Both of Cobb's teams, the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Athletics, are mentioned right below his name. However, they appear in a different format than the one used on modern plaques. The team's cities, league and years Cobb played are all on one line, separated by bullet points, and the years played (1905-1928) are group together so that you have no idea when he played for each team. The modern template is usually as follows:

Team city, League abbreviation, Years played with that team  

This often isn't the setup for plaques from the first few decades, but it should have been. I hate the layout on Cobb's team list. He only played two seasons with the Athletics, but his plaque certainly doesn't tell you that. Solely looking at the plaque, even though a Tigers' logo is on his cap, that doesn't necessarily mean Detroit was home to the majority of his exploits. Now, in reality, that is certainly the case, but the plaque doesn't separate the teams and years played to let people know that.

Text: B+. I'm not going to rehash every biographical detail on everyone's plaque, but I will point out the major points on each one. Let's start with Cobb. Here's the main things mentioned on his plaque:

1. 12 American League batting titles 
2. Holder of more major league records than anyone in history (as of the late-1930s)
3. 4191 career hits.

That is the only information given about one of the top handful of MLB players in history, nowhere near the lengthy praise listed on plaques of today. It is enough to tell you immediately, however, that this guy was amazing. Cobb does have 12 batting titles, despite the controversial finish to the 1910 batting race between he and Nap Lajoie. So that checks out. The second point is extremely vague, but its certainly true. At the time of his retirement, he was the all-time leader in hits, batting average, batting titles, games played, stolen bases and more, and still claims many these marks. His career .366 (or .367 depending on the source) batting average should have been mentioned on the plaque, as it is a record that will likely last forever, unlike the third bullet point mentioned, his 4191 hits. In fact, later research revealed that Cobb's likely hit total was only 4189, but official sources like MLB.com still list the former as his number. Cobb had the luxury of having so many accolades that listing only three for his plaque was tough. All in all, not a bad start for the text entry, but it could have had a little more info.

Babe Ruth

(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons/User:WTCA)

Note: Ruth's plaque is actually one of a few to have actually been replaced over the course of history (See Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente and Pete Hill for their plaque stories). Ruth's original plaque had his career beginning in 1915, not 1914, and was apparently changed, along with Warren Spahn's hardware, at some point around 2005 (See this New York Times article on Hall of Fame plaques). 

Image: A-. Ruth's image did not change when the Hall gave him a new plaque, but the new bust always looks extremely shiny in photographs compared to other plaques, even ones that were created after it. This is just an odd thing I've noticed. The image itself is rather uninteresting, especially compared to that of Cobb. Ruth isn't smiling, and isn't even looking forward, which isn't something that is necessarily a bad thing, but it could be when the photo isn't that appealing to begin with. The Babe looks uninterested, which I think is also how I feel when I try and judge this image. 

Name: A. Good. It features his full name, as well as his well-known nickname of "Babe." Ruth also had several, longer monikers, including the Sultan of Swat and the Great Bambino, and while it would have been nice to include them all, sometimes less is more when dealing with an overabundance of nicknames. 
Teams: C. Same with Cobb, the years should be separated to correspond with the teams, as you have no idea how long he spent with the Red Sox, Yankees or Boston Braves from just looking at the plaque.
Text: Minimal information, much like Cobb, but again, impactful nuggets of info appear. "Greatest drawing card in history of baseball," is probably one of the top statements made on any of the plaques. Mentioning his 714 career home runs is accurate and obviously worth mentioning, as is his World Series accomplishments, but it would of been nice to quickly reference that he began his career as one of the top left-handed pitchers in baseball.

Honus Wagner

Image: A. I like this picture of Wagner. While he's not looking dead-on like Cobb, you see enough of his highly-detailed face. 

Name: B+. We reach our first test of accuracy when it comes to a player's name. Quick, what was Honus Wagner's full name? A check of Google or reference books will likely turn up two answers: John Peter Wagner and Johannes Peter Wagner. Baseball-Reference and the Hall of Fame itself both list his first name as John. Even his grave has John on it. However, his SABR biography states that Johannes was his birth name. It is likely that he was born Johannes and this eventually evolved into John, while the majority of the population called him Honus. Either way, if they were going to take the easy way out and only call him "Honus Wagner," they could have at least included one of the top nicknames in baseball history, "The Flying Dutchman," below his name, which they saved for the text paragraph. 

Teams: A. This is part of the reason why I think this type of project is necessary. Look at how his teams are listed:

Louisville, N.L., 1897-1899

Pittsburgh, NL., 1900-1917

This is not the same template used by Cobb and Ruth, who both had their years of play combined, so that you couldn't separate which seasons they played for each team. Wagner uses the preferred method, so he gets an A here, but what is up with the inconsistency? We haven't even gotten to a new class yet, but already the Hall has used two different templates for listing teams on plaques.

Text: C+. Wagner's plaque bio begins unlike almost any other. "The greatest shortstop in baseball history," was a statement that was true in 1936, and is possibly still true today, so that's fine. It's the next sentence that is so odd. "Born Carnegie, Pa., Feb. 24, 1874." Um, why is this listed on his plaque, when birth date is absent on almost every other plaque going forward (except for our next inductee)? Some plaques will list country of origin if its important or odd, like the Dominican Republic for Juan Marichal or Canada for Ferguson Jenkins, but Pennsylvania? By 1936, an unbelievable 835 players had made their MLB debut who were born in PA. Rather than list their nicknames below his name, the Hall tried and squeezed it in the text. Also, the text mentions that he retired in 1917, which is something that you already know when you look at his team's played for. Definitely one of the weirdest plaques ever when you really look at it. 

Christy Mathewson

Image: A-. I've never really cared for this particular image of Mathewson. He looks to be at the end of his career in this one, something that I never like to see on a plaque. Using an earlier photo of him, from when he was in his prime, probably would have been better. It's certainly not a major issue, as the photo itself is fine.

Name: B+. Much like Honus Wagner, Mathewson's plaque neglects his actual first name of Christopher, and never brings up his well-known nicknames "Big Six" or "The Christian Gentleman."

Teams: A. All good here.

Text: C+. Remember when I said that Wagner's mention of his birth date and hometown was so odd, and almost never appeared on any other plaque? Well, Mathewson is the only other example of this happening. Maybe the plaque artist was from Pennsylvania, because Carnegie and Factoryville getting shout-outs for eternity is truly a mystery, as is noting both of their birth dates. Mentioning his three shutouts in the 1905 World Series was necessary, but the claim of "greatest of all the great pitchers in the 20th century's first quarter," is up for debate. Mathewson ranks third in WAR among all pitchers from 1900-1925, behind Walter Johnson and Pete Alexander, with both Mathewson and Alexander pacing far behind Johnson. Also, the "Matty Was Master Of Them All," line is odd, especially because it's given in quotes. It's like this was a well-known and often-repeated saying, which I don't think is the case. 

Walter Johnson

Image: A. No real complaints here.
Name: A. Could have used the "Big Train" somewhere on here, especially given the lack of text on his plaque, which I'll get to in a moment.
Teams: A-. It should have been hard to mess this one up, with Johnson only playing for the Washington Senators, but I found a problem. It does not give a league designation for Washington. It should say (A.L.), especially because Washington previously had teams in the National League (1886-1889 and 1891-1899), along with short lived clubs in the National Association, American Association and Union Association.
Text: B. If they would have given him a few more lines of text, this might have been the easiest plaque to grade. Alas, they struggled to do Johnson justice in the text portion. Here's what you get out of his plaque:

1. Threw very fast
2. Won 414 games
3. Did so while mainly playing for bad teams
4. Holds records for strikeouts and shutouts

I'll give them a pass for the incorrect win total, as it was long believed he won 414 games, not 417. The other points are valid, but really, your'e only going to give him three lines of meaningful text, with a fourth being devoted to a line about how bad his teams happened to be more often than not? Maybe mentioning his strikeout and shutout numbers and his two MVP Awards could have helped this grade.

Well, that wraps up the Class of 1936. Only about 80 more to go.