Like a modern Mount Olympus, the National Baseball Hall of Fame's doors open only to the greatest of the greats, those remarkable ballplayers who stood out from their big league brethren the way the Greek gods towered over us mere mortals.
But for those players who didn't put together the numbers necessary to reach Cooperstown, they no longer need worry about being forgotten by time's cruel march forward. Enter: The Hall of Pretty Good.
Yes, in a world where social media seems hellbent on division and discord, there is one place on the internet that is a bastion of baseball positivity. It’s a place where fans and their ballplaying heroes can unite, sharing memories together in the Hall of Pretty Good's comment section -- a space traditionally reserved for only the foulest of trolls.
You can thank Bryce Whitlow for that. A 24-year-old special education teacher from Virginia, Whitlow actually started the account following a low point with the game. Because of COVID, Whitlow lost his senior year of high school baseball and found himself out of love with the sport that had always filled his dreams.
“I sat around for a few years being kind of angry at baseball, even though it wasn’t baseball’s [fault],” Whitlow said. “So I was like, ‘Man, I don’t want to watch baseball. I don’t care about it any more.’”
After other content creators captured his attention and got him back into it, Whitlow started the Hall. At first, he was just going to post some of his favorite players and moments from the game’s history. There would be no actual induction, it was simply for -- excuse the cliché -- the love of the game.
“The original plan was to just post a picture of a guy and just be like, ‘Does anybody remember Nick Markakis?’ That's all it was supposed to be,” Whitlow told MLB.com over Zoom. “It’s supposed to be like if we just sat in a room and just named random baseball players. I feel like everyone loves doing that with their friends, or has at least done it at one point.”
Once the algorithm got a hold of Whitlow’s content, the mission expanded. The account grew by the thousands and soon the idea of holding elections to create an actual -- if virtual -- Hall was in the offing. While the concept of a "Hall of Good" has always existed, whether in conversational hypotheticals, websites, and even museum displays -- Shawn Anderson and his Hall of Very Good has transitioned more into the podcasting realm, while The Baseball Reliquary’s Shrine of the Eternals inducts a handful of players each year -- Whitlow’s Hall of Pretty Good was able to reach a social media audience replete with both baseball fans and the players who were suddenly up for induction.
Of course, there's a very distinct kind of player being featured: They can't be too good.
“I always had the name Hall of Pretty Good just because those are the type of people I wanted to talk about,” Whitlow said. “Not Hall of Famers, not even people a tier below it, like Kenny Lofton or Carlos Delgado, but the people below that, like Adam Jones, Rickie Weeks, Kevin Pillar, those types of guys, that's what I wanted to focus on.”
There are a few rules: Players need to have been retired or inactive for three seasons and can’t have a Baseball-Reference WAR higher than 38.6 -- close to Harold Baines’ total of 38.8 -- making that an easy benchmark separating the pretty good from the truly great.
Players also can’t have earned an MVP Award or a Cy Young -- “if you were good enough to win an MVP, you’re better than pretty good,” Whitlow explained. “I feel like it would be disrespectful.”
And while the actual Hall of Fame requires players to earn 75 percent of the vote to be inducted, the Hall of Pretty Good needs only 65 percent of voters to agree.
“I made it easier than the actual Hall of Fame, because I didn't want it to be exclusive,” Whitlow said. “I wanted it to be a place to show appreciation.”
Once Whitlow opened up the elections -- and after former Phillies infielder César Hernández failed to make the cut -- relief pitcher Steve Cishek earned the distinction of becoming the first player to ever receive the honor.
Cishek was at Disney World with his family when his name – pulled from a list of about 1,000 players that Whitlow built simply by remembering some guys with his wife over the course of a weekend -- appeared on the Instagram feed.
If Whitlow was worried about players taking it the wrong way, perhaps feeling insulted by the “pretty good” moniker, that was quickly put to rest.
“I wasn’t good enough to make it to the Hall of Fame, clearly, but like the ‘Pretty Good?’” Cishek said with a laugh. “By the time the next day came around, I was inducted. I was about to go on the Slinky Dog ride. We just got a kick out of it. We thought it was so cool. [The voters] were asking for a speech and everything.”
“I did not think that players were going to care at all,” Whitlow said. “But then they see that 30,000 people thought they were good at baseball. I think they just genuinely enjoy being appreciated. I mean relievers, they don't get a lot of love. And so I think just him seeing that, he gets all that love and [sees that] people still really remember him.”
Inductees include a wide range of players, from beloved former pitcher Dontrelle Willis to Jason Kipnis to 1966 World Series winner Eddie Fisher -- even Czechia pitcher and electrical technician Ondřej Satoria made it in as an honorary member following the World Baseball Classic.
Now, players like Jonathon Lucroy and Pillar -- both members of the HOPG -- talk about it on podcasts and stump for others like teammate Cody Allen to get in. Current players even dream of adding the honor to their names. Davis Schneider revealed his wish to make it to the Hall before a World Series game last year, while Pirates slugger Ryan O’Hearn commented that it “would be an honor to make the HOPG one day.”
“I love it, because there's so many players that people don't realize how good they actually were,” Cishek said. “Unfortunately, there's a lot of those guys I got to play with or against, and so for them to be recognized, it's really cool. I love it. Those guys get appreciated for their careers.”
Of course, that doesn't mean players won't use it to banter with friends, too.
“I told my teammate, a good friend of mine, Brandon Kintzler, if his name comes up, I'm not voting for him,” Cishek joked.
Former closer -- and noted Oscars prognosticator -- John Axford even helped get his vote over the line by jumping into the comments and pleading his case.
When his Hall of Pretty Good vote was first presented last Thanksgiving, he was sitting around 45 percent after the first few thousand votes. That’s when he got to work, commenting and replying to everyone who said something nice about his career. The numbers slowly started creeping up, eventually cresting 70 percent when the 24 hour voting period was over.
“It was really cool to see a player care so much about it,” Whitlow said. “He offered to give everyone who voted for him a hug or something in the comments. People loved it and so he basically willed himself into the Hall.”
“When that time came for me, it was just like, ‘Well, I might as well also just have fun with it,'" Axford said. "That's when I started getting involved in the comments, which maybe was controversial, I don't know."
The fact that the HOPG is one of the relatively rare positive places on the internet, where the readers and commentators are fans of the sport and all of its players, is something that helps it connect with the MLB fraternity.
“Just playing this sport in general, if you're on social media, you're gonna get some not great views and not great comments about things. And as a closer, I experienced that a bunch. I tried to have fun with some of it here and there when I could. But this seemed like an overwhelmingly positive thing,” Axford said. “It was a good time on the internet, which I think is few and far between at times right now.”
Axford also enjoyed some of the playful banter, too, like the ones who posted things like “John Axford: 2018 Dodgers Legend.”
“I pitched like five games with them because I got hurt and broke my leg in my third game. Or, you know, ‘2014 Pirates legend’ after I was traded at the latest possible second at the trade deadline, and only pitched in 10 games or something,” Axford said. “So things like that are actually pretty funny and great that either people look it up or they actually remember those moments.”
Of course, there are a few biases among the electorate. While the Hall of Pretty Good voters have supported close to 73 percent of all players put up for election, there is one blind spot:
“Big home run hitters with low average do well, and middle infielders do horribly,” Whitlow said. “I can name Eric Sogard, Nick Punto, Darwin Barney -- they all got slaughtered on the votes. I’m not sure why. But then we get people like Adam Dunn and Billy Butler getting close to 90 percent.”
Orioles legend and Team USA hero Adam Jones currently holds the record for the highest percentage, receiving a remarkable 99 percent of 49,000 votes. That Jones is so beloved is a sign that this is a place to share the love of baseball, no matter whether you’re a fan or a ballplayer.
“I think nowadays, guys see it and think, ‘This is awesome. I hope I get in there,’” Cishek said. “But there's a serious aspect to it. Those guys that get voted in are better than pretty good. Like, I'd say I was good, but there's some like Adam Jones -- he's one of the best teammates I ever had. I got to play with him on Team USA, I don't know how I'm in the same ballpark.”