This Bobby Grich Card Capped a Too-Early Career
The Silver Fox is way out in front in the race to Cooperstown
1987 Donruss Bobby Grich (#456) - Card of the Day
Chase Utley is on the Hall of Fame ballot for the second time in 2025 after debuting with 28.8% of the vote in 2024.
That total was surprising to lots of folks, on two ends of the Cooperstown spectrum.
At one end are diehard Phillies fans and Sabermetrics supporters who point to Utley’s .358 OBP, 64.5 WAR, 56.9 JAWS (12th among second basemen) and key contributions to World Series teams in Philadelphia and Los Angeles (including the 2008 champion Phillies). They wonder how he ranked so low among BBWAA voters.
At the other end are the fans of more traditional stats, who point to Utley’s “measly” 1885 hits, mild .275 batting average, lack of Gold Gloves, and scant MVP votes. They wonder how he ranked so high among BBWAA voters.
No matter which way you look at the debate around Utley’s candidacy, you have to admit it’s shaping up to be much different than the treatment received by one of his strongest comps a couple generations ago.
According to Baseball Reference, not only is Bobby Grich the sixth most similar batter to Utley in big league history, he also ranks as the eighth best second baseman in the annals of the game by measure of JAWS.
And yet, in his only run at the Hall of Fame ticket, in 1992, Grich received just 11 votes, appearing on only 2.6% of ballots. That’s a far cry from Utley’s first-year performance and a universe away from the 75% needed for enshrinement.
Heck, Grich’s vote total was barely half the number he needed just to stay on the ballot a second year. And so he didn’t. Not only did the BBWAA never consider him again, but Grich has never appeared on a Veterans’ Committee ballot, either.
Yet Grich has an even stronger Sabermetrics case than Utley, amassing 71.1 WAR and checking in with a 58.7 JAWS score. And Grich’s more traditional stats have been there for everyone to see, on the back of his final baseball cards, for decades.
The long-time Orioles and Angels second baseman kept his retirement plans under wraps until after Game 7 of the 1986 American League Championship Series. That game culminated a heartbreaking finish for the Halos, who led the series three games to one before the Red Sox stormed back to win the final three contests.
At the presser following the final loss, Grich announced his retirement.
That was already too late for card makers to pull him from their 1987 sets, so collectors were treated to a full suite of Grich career-cappers. His 1987 Donruss card (above) is the only one to show him in the batter’s box, though.
Flip the card over, and you get his career totals (the Topps and Fleer cards show all his seasons):
Utley has the edge in most of these categories, though Grich came out on top in games played, RBI, and walks, and he also nabbed four Gold Gloves during his career.
So how does Utley grab nearly 30% of the vote on his first ballot with some ground swell behind him for even bigger returns while Grich slipped into a quick oblivion?
Different eras, mainly. For example, it was unthinkable for a player with fewer than 2000 hits to get into the Hall in 1992, the same year Pete Rose received 41 write-in votes despite already being ineligible for the vote.
Will the case for Utley eventually boost Grich and Lou Whitaker, too? Hard to say at this point, but it can definitely remind us of some great careers from the past, and send us digging for their often long-forgotten baseball cards.