This Jack Morris Card Left Room for Debate

But CC might fill the void

1982 Fleer Jack Morris (#274) - Card of the Day

CC Sabathia is on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time in 2025, and the general consensus among those who track these things seems to be that he won’t be back in 2026.

No, not because he’ll fall short of the 5% vote needed to stay on the ballot.

To hear the pundits tell it, Sabathia is a pretty sure bet to top 75% of the vote and mount the Cooperstown enshrinement dais this summer. For us oldsters accustomed to seeing Hall-of-Fame starters with 300 wins, multiple 20-win seasons, and ERAs around 3, Sabathia’s case might look a little less than slammed shut.

But a pitcher with a 251-161 record, 3.74 ERA, 38 complete games, 12 shutouts, 3000+ strikeouts in nearly 3600 innings pitched, and 12 seasons with 30 or more starts looks like some sort of miracle when viewed against the stats of the short-inning strikeout specialists trodding the mound these days.

That dual nature of Sabathia’s candidacy is reflected in the list of the pitchers who crafted careers most comparable to his, as measured by Baseball Reference’s Similarity Scores. At the top, we have a run of his contemporaries: Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Bartolo Colon, Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke.

Only Mussina has made the Cooperstown cut so far, but some of the others will follow suit someday. And at least a couple provide plenty of fodder for debate.

Slots seven through ten on Sabathia’s comp list are decidedly more old-school: Bob Gibson, David Wells, Luis Tiant, Mickey Lolich.

And at number six?

Well, that spot belongs to none other than Jack Morris, one of the most lit up of all lightning rods when it comes to Hall of Fame debate.

Like Sabathia, Morris racked up a lot of wins (254) but with a not-so-sterling ERA (3.90). Morris did win 20 games three times but never won a Cy Young Award or finished as runner-up. He gets a lot of credit for having the “Most Wins of the 1980s” and for his amazing performance in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.

From a Sabermetrics standpoint, Morris racked up 43.6 WAR and 38 JAWS, which ranks 164th all-time among starting pitchers.

As you might imagine, and generally speaking, advanced stats types aren’t too happy Morris is in the Hall, while the “give me one pitcher to win Game 7” traditionalists are tickled he has a plaque.

That battle played out pretty true in the Hall votes concerning Morris, too. In 15 tries on the BBWAA ballot, he topped out just under 68% and slid back to 61.7% his last time on the ticket (2014). But he sailed in on his first Veterans Committee ballot four years later.

No matter what you think of Jack Morris as a Hall of Famer, though, you have to admit that he has appeared on some pretty cool baseball cards over the years. And some, uh, interesting ones.

For my money, the most, uh, interesting of all Jack Morris baseball cards is probably his 1982 Fleer issue. That’s the one you see above. The one where Morris has a green aura emanating from his head and appears to be pitching from behind a fence (he’s in front of it).

Oh, and the one that leaves plenty of blank space for…

• Doodling

• Calculating Morris’ ERA

• Sketching in Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker behind Morris

• Tallying the many home runs Morris would allow

• Dropping your Twitter/X handle

• Writing the pros and cons of Sabathia’s candidacy

Take your pick, I suppose, and don’t be too concerned with getting it right the first time. Like Morris CGs and Sabathia mound appearances, there are plenty of possibilities to go around, even after all these years.

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