Ross Youngs - Legacy

Legacy

Over his abbreviated ten-year career, Youngs posted 812 runs, 42 home runs, 592 runs batted in (RBI), 153 stolen bases, a .322 career batting average, and .399 career on base percentage. He batted .300 or higher in every season until 1925, and higher than .350 twice. Youngs scored 100 or more runs three times and posted a career high 102 RBI in 1921 and 10 home runs in 1924. During his tenure with the team, the Giants went to the World Series four consecutive years (1921–1924) and won twice (1921, 1922). Youngs was a favorite of McGraw, who kept only two pictures in his office: one of Christy Mathewson and one of Youngs. Rosy Ryan, a teammate with the Giants, and Burleigh Grimes, who played against Youngs as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, considered Youngs the best player they ever saw.

Youngs was included in the inaugural balloting for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, but received less than 5% of the vote from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). Youngs remained on the ballot every year through 1956, receiving his highest vote total in 1947 with 22%. Ford C. Frick, Commissioner of Baseball, and former teammate Bill Terry both championed Youngs' candidacy.

Former Giants teammates Terry and Frankie Frisch joined the Veterans Committee in 1967 and aided the elections of several of their former teammates, including Youngs in 1972. In addition to Youngs, Terry and Frisch shepherded the selections of Giants teammates Jesse Haines in 1970, Dave Bancroft and Chick Hafey in 1971, Kelly in 1973, Jim Bottomley in 1974, and Freddie Lindstrom in 1976. Youngs died at the earliest age of any current Hall of Famer. Youngs is the only member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame from San Antonio and was inducted into the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame in 1998. Shiner, the town in which Youngs was born, hosted a baseball tournament in his honor at Clipper Field from 2001 through 2003.

Youngs' selection, along with some of the other selections made by Terry and Frisch, has been considered one of the weakest in some circles. According to the BBWAA, the Veterans Committee was not selective enough in choosing members, and charges of cronyism were later levied against the committee. This led to the Veterans Committee having its powers reduced in subsequent years. Baseball statistician Bill James recognized this and wrote that Youngs does not belong in the Hall of Fame. In 1981, however, Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig included Youngs in their book The 100 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time. They explained what they called "the Smoky Joe Wood Syndrome," where a player of truly exceptional talent but a career curtailed by injury or illness should still — in spite of not owning career statistics that would quantitatively rank him with the all-time greats — be included on their list of the 100 greatest players.