One of the toughest things to do is assess the Hall-of-Fame qualifications of players who played in the 19th century. To begin with, people who saw them play are either a) dead or b) liars. If somebody told me he used to have beers with, say, Tony Mullane after ballgames well ... let's just say we'd elect him president and tell the young female office staffers to keep their distance. Bill James once said, in his book "Whatever Happened To The Hall-of-Fame?" about 19th century players: "... were great in their time but I don't particularly see any point in pretending to honor them now."

I vehemently disagree.

To me, the Hall-of-Fame has two purposes; one, honour the all-time greats and two, to educate the fans who the greatest players were.

If there was a great player in any era, he should be honoured and remembered. Look at it this way ... suppose the earth had a massive nuclear holocaust. Only remnants of our civilization remained. However the survivors remember and restart baseball. Generations pass, a new order of player asserts itself, another Hall-of-Fame rises up. A group of scholars decides to enshrine pre-holocaust players. Records are a bit sketchy, mistakes are made again. Plaques are given to guys like Will Clark and Sandy Alomar. More records are unearthed. We learn more about guys like Babe Ruth, Henry Aaron, Joe DiMaggio, Walter Johnson, Greg Maddux, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sandy Koufax. However somebody writes the following: "Twentieth century guys who were great in their time but I don't particularly see any point in pretending to honor them now."

See the point?

For the sake of future generations we should always endeavour to find and identify the best players.

Now ... Bob Caruthers.

On the surface he looks like a terrific pitcher. Lifetime record 218-99, career ERA 2.83, won 40 games twice, won thirty once and won 20+ two other times. A problem quickly arises ... OK, two problems. The first is, what do those numbers mean, and two, he only played nine season ... you need ten to make the Hall. So you have to break it down thusly ... were his numbers HOF calibre and are they so good that it may be wise to waive the ten-year rule for induction?

First off, a winning percentage of .688 recommends itself regardless of era. You win close to 69% of games you play in and your trophy room will fill pretty quickly. ERA standards fluctuate so you have to see what league standards were in a given era. The AA/NL ERA's in the years Caruthers played was 3.48. So his 2.83 earned run mark appears to be well above average. His two fourty win seasons topped the league both times, he three times finished at the pinnacle in win percentage, once in ERA and once in shutouts. When you take that into consideration over a nine year career you get the impression that he was one of the best in his time.

He pitched his teams to four flags in nine years so you figure that he was of championship pedigree. He logged an inordinate amount of innings in post season play (147 2/3 IP). His won loss record is poor but his ERA on the surface looks pretty good (2.50).

But is it?

Well the winning team's staff ERA for those four post seasons was 2.69, the losers 3.37. So it appears that Caruthers' ERA of 2.50 shows that he may have victimized by a lack of run support or he coughed up a lot of unearned runs. It was a bit of both. In 1887 he lost one game in which he pitched 13 innings 2-1 when his teammates committed seven errors. He lost another game 3-1 and had to pitch the very next day, and he lost that one as well. So he had two fine starts that resulted in losses and one could well have been attributed to fatigue. He pitched on two days rest after that and won, pitched after that on two days rest and lost and came back to win the finale on one days rest.

From that I'm inclined to think that he pitched very well in the post season. The fact he got five starts in ten days in the 1887 World Series gives weight to the idea he was the best the Browns had.

It's only my opinion, but I'm inclined to think that Mr. Caruthers deserves to be remembered.