Should Dom DiMaggio Be In the Hall of Fame?

I read "The Teammates" by David Halberstam for the second time recently, and again I was surprised by some of the player's comments in the book that Dom DiMaggio should be in the Hall of Fame. If you're not familiar with the book, it chronicles the life-long friendship between Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Ted Williams, and Bobby Doerr. It's a great read, particularly if you happen to be a Red Sox fan.

From a baseball perspective Dom has the unfortunate circumstance of having the last name "DiMaggio". Overshadowed by his brother Joe, Dom played 11 seasons in the big leagues from 1940-1953 for the Red Sox. He completely missed the 1943, 1944, and 1945 seasons due to military service in WWII. It's made evident in "The Teammates" that Dom had the respect from his peers as a ball player, but is he Hall of Fame worthy as some players in the book suggest?

The recent passing of Phil Rizzuto prompted me to take a look back at his statistics as a player. Now, I bet you can see where I'm going with this and before you Yankee fans get all bent out of shape, I realize that Rizzuto was also a great announcer for the Yankees for many years, as well as a great shortstop. For many New Yorkers, Phil Rizzuto is the voice of baseball, period. I understand that. But there was a strong push to get Rizzuto into the Hall based on his statistics, particularly after PeeWee Reese of the Brooklyn Dodgers was voted into the Hall in 1984 with similar stats.

Neither Rizzuto nor Dom DiMaggio was a power hitter, and neither had much speed on the base paths. Both made a living getting on base any way they could and playing solid defense. Below is a look at the lifetime stats of each player:

	Dom DiMaggio	Phil Rizzuto
Seasons	11	13
BA	.298	.273
H	1680	1588
R	1046	877
HR	87	38
RBI	618	563
OBP	.383	.351
SLG	.419	.355
SB	100	149
Fielding %	.978	.968
All-Star	5	5
MVP	0	1

• DiMaggio scored over 100 runs 6 times. Rizzuto twice.
  

• DiMaggio was in the top 10 for hits 7 times. Rizzuto once.
  

Looking strictly at the numbers, DiMaggio seems to have been the better player. The thing that really stood out to me was the MVP award Rizzuto won in 1950. Let's just look at the stats of the two players for that season:

	Dom DiMaggio	Phil Rizzuto
BA	.328	.324
H	193	200
R	131	125
2B	30	36
3B	11	7
HR	7	7
RBI	70	66
OBP	.414	.418
SLG	.452	.439
SB	15	12
Fielding %	.979	.982

OK - take your pick here. Both players had a good season, and either one seems to be deserving of the award. While Rizzuto won the MVP, what is surprising is that DiMaggio finished 14^th. Fourteenth! Billy Goodman, also from the Red Sox, finished 2^nd in MVP voting that year, so it can be argued that he took votes away from DiMaggio. Well, Yogi Berra finished 3^rd and that did not seem to hurt Rizzuto.

Do I think that Dom DiMaggio should be in the Hall of Fame? Probably not. And I would say the same thing for Rizzuto. However, the results of the 1950 MVP voting seem to give some credibility to the theory from the players in "The Teammates" that Dom DiMaggio was never recognized for being a great baseball player. Maybe things would be different if he had another last name.