Posted on 01/06/2010 11:22:19 AM PST by jpl
NEW YORK (AP) -Andre Dawson has been elected to the Hall of Fame, while Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar fell just short of earning baseball's highest honor.
Dawson received 420 of 539 votes in voting announced Wednesday by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, 15 more than the 75 percent necessary to gain election. The eight-time All-Star, appearing on the ballot for the ninth time, had fallen 44 votes short last year.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
Congrats Andre.
Isn’t it about time to honor Gil Hodges?
Oh, and Pete Rose may have been a bad guy off the field, sometimes o, but he was a helluva ball player. He deserves to be honored. and I’m a life-long Mets Fan!
I bumped into Andre at a grocery store, many years after his retirement. The guy was in fantastic shape, big ole arms. Very humble and kinda shy.
I predict Pete Rose will be inducted the year after he dies. He deserves to be in, but does he deserve to see himself get in?
I always hated him when he played. But that was because he was with the (National League)Reds in 75 & 76. If the Hall of Fame is for those baseball players who were famous for their baseball skills, he should be in. If it's for those who the sports writers (MSM) want in, then no. Kinda like politics. If the MSM doesn't like a candidate, should they be allowed to win?
I was/am a fan and I hope he makes it at some point. Though, that's probably not a popular opinion around here...
Awesome news. I’m happy for the Hawk.
But anyone who thinks Roberto Alomar shouldn't have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer should have his head examined. I have an ugly feeling I know why he didn't get it the first go-round, and if I'm right it's at once a disgrace and a distortion of history. I'll share with you what I wrote about the matter in late November:
"I played a lot of games and I said I would never embarrass myself on the field," said Roberto Alomar 19 March 2005, girding himself to announce his retirement. He didn't have to say it; he'd proven it playing his first major league contest in 1988. Then a San Diego Padres rookie, he whacked the first of his 2,724 major leagueh its off Nolan Ryan. Ryan was so impressed that he sent Alomar on his can the next time up.Fat lot of good that did pitchers over most of the following seventeen seasons. And fat lot of good it finally did Alomar in the end.
"I had a long career, but I can't play at the level I want to play, so it's time to retire," said the man who once said, with no false or rhetorical pride, "Whenever I am done with this game, I am going to say, 'I played all those years and did not miss a chance to play' . . . The smell of the ballpark–hot dogs, grass. This is what God chose me to do. He sent me here to play baseball."
Alomar's announcement was provoked in good portion by Alomar's day at the office the day before, a sad climax to a three-season downturn that surprised an awful lot of people for its rapidity. Struggling to stay with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, two errors in one inning of a spring training game, to climax a spring in which he was plagued by back and vision trouble. That provoked serious thought in a 37-year-old man whose lifetime range factor through the previous season's finish had been 33 points above his league's average.
"I just can't go anymore," he said, as if having stood at a crossroads he hoped could be wiped off the map. "My back, legs, and eyes aren't the same. I don't want to embarrass myself or my teammates."
There went ten Gold Gloves (except for one rude burglarly by Chuck Knoblauch, Alomar owned the award in the 1990s and the first two years of the new century), 210 home runs, twelve All-Star selections, 1,134 runs batted in, 180 runs produced per 162 games, and a lifetime .300 batting average. None too gently did he go into that good green day where memory remains sweet and hitting, hustling second basemen turn the sweetest double plays or drive the sweetest base knocks.
And if there is justice Joe Morgan will have company in Cooperstown as the greatest all-around second basemen the game has ever seen. He will, that is, on the assumption that Hall of Fame voters decline to judge the entire man, and his entire game, on the basis of one disgraceful, out-of-character incident in which Alomar was not the provocateur but the provoked.
To this day there are those, and they are wrong, who believe Alomar should be refused the keys to Cooperstown he earned robustly enough because of that single incident. We take you back to September 27, 1996, Baltimore Orioles versus Toronto Blue Jays, the Orioles needing to beat the Jays to move to the postseason, then-Oriole Roberto Alomar hitting in the first inning.
He watched home plate umpire John Hirschbeck call strike three on a pitch wide enough to pass a train through unobstructed, and he objected. Then, he walked back toward his dugout, Hirschbeck trailing him with the glare of a private investigator trailing a suspected philanderer, before Alomar turned and uttered two words which got him an early night off. The two obscene words, as related by a teammate standing within earshot: "Just play!"
The Orioles probably thought to themselves that their man should have been grateful not to have said a certain two-word euphemism for fornication. Alomar might have been bound for drawing and quartering then. He was probably foolish to charge Hirschbeck, even outraged properly enough for a non-obscene comment proffered en route his dugout that got him sent to bed without his supper.
And then it happened.
Alomar's manager, Davey Johnson, could not move him away fast enough to avoid Hirschbeck calling him a four-syllable euphemism for maternal fornicator. That–--no sooner, no later–--is when Alomar gobbed the ump. "I would advise everybody," Alomar said in due course, "not to say that to the Latin guys."
He was not merely spitting in the wind. There are neighborhoods enough in which "that" has provoked many a Latin guy to replies among which assault with a deadly weapon is deemed merciful. Excusing Alomar not one degree, for the most infamous spit since Ted Williams (who is called a mere "cantankerous character" for it) sprayed upwards toward his beloved Knights of the Keyboard, there is something to be said for guys to whom motherfucker is no less obscene for having graduated from alley vernacular to mainstream moboisie rhetoric.
Alomar had only one deadly weapon following that game. "I used to respect (Hirschbeck) a lot," he said. "He had problems with his family when his son died. I know that's something real tough in life. But after that he just changed, personality-wise. He just got real bitter." Hirschbeck had lost his younger son, at age eight, to a rare brain illness known as adrenoleukodystrophy. The ump got real mad the following day, requiring a colleague to prevent him from disemboweling Alomar in the Baltimore clubhouse.
With that reprieve and the one brought by his appeal of his suspension, Alomar turned his fury toward far more beneficial destruction the following night. He merely sent the Orioles into the postseason with a three-run walk-off bomb in the tenth inning. And the umpires merely threatened to boycott the postseason rounds when Alomar's suspension was itself suspended to the following season's birth.
A federal judge, mindful of the no-strike clause in the umpires' collective bargaining agreement, told the judicial tyrants don't even think about it. "No baseball person condones what Alomar did," wrote George F. Will, the following April. "But many baseball people believe that baseball's biggest on-field problem is not the impulsive misbehavior of players in the heat of competition, but the incompetence, confrontational surliness, and premeditated misbehavior of some umpires ... Part of the problem may be .... the declining professionalism of some players–arrogance, disrespect for the game, and an inclination to blame their failures on umpires ... Still, umpires are baseball's designated grown-ups and, like air traffic controllers, are paid to handle pressure."
Having survived Hirschbeck's kind of pressure drop, Alomar told his Orioles in effect to think about nothing except meeting the New York Yankees in the coming American League Championship Series. He tied the deciding division series game, against the Cleveland Indians, with a ninth-inning single; he won the game with a solo bomb in the twelfth. Then, the Orioles met the Yankees, where another blown call—with an over-the-rail assist from Jeffrey Maier the most notorious fan in baseball until the advent of poor Steve Bartman—enabled the Yankees to send the Orioles on an early flight south for the winter.
Alomar had apologized to Hirschbeck repeatedly, when first they met following the gob heard 'round the world. And a funny thing happened on the way to the Hall of Infamy: Roberto Alomar became a Cleveland Indian in 1999 ... and John Hirschbeck became his friend. Thank Jack Efta. He administered the Jacobs Field umpires' room and had become a Hirschbeck friend himself. Hirschbeck had avoided Alomar like a process server since Alomar's on-field apology and handshake, but now he could not contain himself. What, he asked Efta, was Roberto Alomar really like?
"(H)e's one of the two nicest people I've ever met," Efta answered emphatically. "And you're the other one."
Apparently, Hirschbeck was so flattened by that pronouncement that he approached Alomar himself. The two men talked the whole thing out. And each found a friend. "If that's the worst thing Robbie ever does in his life," said Hirschbeck to a reporter about the great expectoration, "he'll lead a real good life. People make mistakes. You forgive, you forget, you move on."
Among the best things Alomar has done in his life: becoming a significant bench player for the foundation Hirschbeck helped establish to cure the disease which killed one Hirschbeck son and afflicted another. Hirschbeck himself has battled cancer recently. Guess who one of his first visitors was when he got the diagnosis?
A Sports Illustrated writer, Tom Verducci, thought in 2004 that those Hall of Fame voters who will not forgive, forget, or move on, will be a small minority. Baseball's version of judicial tyranny provoked an ugly aberration between two customarily civil and diligent men. But baseball justice should demand the volume of that minority equals zero. "I wish it never happened," Alomar has said, "and I hope that's not how people remember me."
An awful lot of us prefer to remember a gazelle of a second baseman and a hell of a hitter. An awful lot of Toronto Blue Jays fans would prefer to remember those eleven hits, four runs scored, two home runs, and four runs batted in, that helped the Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics for the pennant. An awful lot of them would prefer to remember, even better, the 1993 World Series, where Alomar's 12 hits and six runs batted in did an awful lot to help Toronto Blue Jays overtake the Philthy Phillies for the ring.
Let us not judge Alomar, either, on the grounds of three seasons (with the New York Mets, the Chicago White Sox, and the Arizona Diamondbacks) worth of a too-fast downslide during which frustration was often enough mistaken for misanthropy.
"I learned a lot from him and I have all the respect in the world for him," said Jorge Cantu, then a Devil Rays second base aspirant. "I watched him when I was a kid and looked up to him all through the minor leagues. You have to respect what he's done."
John Hirschbeck isn't going to argue with him. "I sincerely hope," Hirschbeck told Bill Madden of the New York Daily News earlier this month, "the writers are able to look past that one incident. I certainly have. It's long over with, and a lot more good has come out of it than you can ever believe. If that was to cost Robbie the Hall of Fame, I would feel awful . . . All I know is, Robbie Alomar is a Hall of Fame second baseman. I only wish I had a vote, because I would certainly vote for him."
Remember: there are times when you should never argue with the ump.
For the further record, I also think Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines deserve the honour. (I bet you didn't know this: In their fifteen best seasons---the comparison is valid since they were similar players, early-in-the-order men who extorted their way on base and had a little power---Tim Raines was actually better than Pete Rose. He reached base more often, used up less outs to get there, was a better base runner, and was more run productive.)
Completely disagree with you on Blyleven. Screw the saber-numbering - Bert's claim to fame is that he averaged 14 victories and 170 strike outs for 20 years. Longevity alone should not be the basis for getting into the Hall of Fame (emphasis on Fame). Just because Sutton's in doesn't mean we further tarnish the HOF. Blyleven was good, but you wouldn't take him over Palmer, Seaver, Hunter, Niekro, Jenkins, Perry, Carlton, or several others who are not in the HOF. Never once during his career did anyone place him amongst the best in the league (and I'd bet that very few, if any, articles written about him during his career stated he was HOF-worthy). He's borderline, and IMHO, if you're borderline, you're out.
The ballot does instruct the voters that a player's character is to be taken into consideration as part of the vote. Some of the voters ignore this clause, but most of them don't. It's obviously a big part of the reason why Mark McGwire (one of the all-time great sluggers) can't get even 25%.
By the way, did you know how deadly Blyleven was in the postseason? He's 5-1 with a 2.47 lifetime postseason ERA, including 2-1 with a 2.35 in the World Series. There are a lot of Hall of Famers who only wish they had been that deadly in the postseason.
Blyleven is almost a classic career-value Hall of Famer. (By the way, "borderline" can also mean you're in: it can mean, essentially, that while you don't think he looks like a Hall of Famer at first glances you don't think he doesn't, either.)
Blyleven also meets the criteria for an average Hall of Famer. First conjugated by Bill James, the average Hall of Fame pitcher would meet 50 percent of the Hall of Fame Pitching Standards and score 100 on the Hall of Fame Pitching Monitor. Blyleven meets exactly 50 percent of the former and scores 120 on the latter.
I think Dawson and Rice both belong in the Hall of Fame. They are probably in the bottom 10 or 15% of Hall of Famers, but somebody has to be the worst player to get in. Dawson had a great combination of power and speed, was a class act, hit 438 homers stole over 300 bases and won, I believe 8 gold gloves in centerfield.
Alomar will get in next year. For some reason a lot of writers are first ballot snobs, who believe the first ballot is only for the elite among Hall of Famers. That, along with the spitting incident kept him out last year, but he’ll get over 90% next year.
Blyleven will get in once people realize he had, I believe, 60 shutouts. In the next decade or so people will realize the pithcers they are voting in have around zero complete game shutouts.
The ballot does instruct the voters that a player's character is to be taken into consideration as part of the vote. Some of the voters ignore this clause, but most of them don't. It's obviously a big part of the reason why Mark McGwire (one of the all-time great sluggers) can't get even 25%.I wrote the following as part of a blog entry on this year's Hall results:
Yes, he has been punished enough for the evidence of things not seen. For the evidence of things seen, we might try to rememberI had a few things to say about a few of the other guys who didn't make it this time, too:a) Actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances have not really been proven to enhance much more, if anything, than muscle mass, which is not by itself equal to no-questions-asked intergalactic long ball power.
b) Androstendione---which McGwire used, by his own admission, for muscle replenishment primarily (you'd think muscle replenishment was a crime of itself, sometimes), rather than the way earlier baseball generations popped the greenies for stamina replenishment---was not illegal when he was using the sustance, which use he did cease and desist after it was first revealed.
c) McGwire was a murderous bombardier before 1998. (He isn't alone---one of the easiest things to forget about Barry Bonds was that he did have tape-measure home run power from his collegiate days; the power-speed combination he had deked baseball people into thinking he was the second, superior coming of his old man, and the Pittsburgh Pirates were fool enough to insist on seeing the combine and thinking "Bobby Jr." and to keep him locked in a leadoff role that didn't even begin exploiting the depth of his talent.)
We sure do forget that McGwire actually could do a few other things well, too. Want to carp on his strikeouts? Tell it to Reggie Jackson. Before his injuries began chipping away at him, McGwire was a good first baseman who might have bagged more than a single Gold Glove.
Mark McGwire didn't have to grovel to return to baseball as the St. Louis Cardinals' batting instructor. He shouldn't have to grovel---over using what was lawful when he used it; over being accused without trial or conviction of a chemical regimen that may or may not have done a blessed thing for him in the long run; for taking the wrong legal advice before facing the House Committee on Sending Swell Messages to Kids (thanks again, Mr. Will), all without a shred of evidence to proclaim him once and for all a chemical production, and is this about cleaning up the game for real or just a variant on the old-school cops who seemed more interested in beating prisoners than getting valuable or productive information---to get into the Hall of Fame, either.
And nobody ever accused McGwire of being a clubhouse cancer. Not even Jose Canseco. Come to think of it, nobody's ever accused McGwire or walking around moaning to anyone who'd listen that he's baseball's wronged man, either. Unlike some who actually did break baseball rules at the time they were rules.
BARRY LARKIN---He's probably hurt because his career intersected well enough to Ozzie Smith's that it's easy to forget he was the best-fielding shortstop in the National League who wasn't named The Wiz; and, because it intersected well enough to Alex Rodriguez's shortstop life that it's easy to forget he was a) one of the best-hitting shortstops in the game, who b) could hit leadoff or third with authority, and c) is probably one of the ten greatest shortstops who ever played the game. I thought he'd get in on the first ballot and I think he'll get in in due course. And he deserves to get in.Me, I'll be looking forward to seeing Alomar and the Rock on the podium next year, at least. I'd like to think Blyleven will make it at last, too, since this time he missed by a mere five votes . . .EDGAR MARTINEZ---I'm on the fence with him. He has gaudy rate stats, but Tom Verducci points out something that's going to make it tough for him to get to Cooperstown no matter what you think of his long career as a purely designated hitter: He only had four seasons in which he played 150 games or more with a 120+ adjusted OPS, which ties him since 1987 with thirty six players including . . . Richie Sexson.
DON MATTINGLY---He's the Dale Murphy of first basemen, even if his home-road differential is better. His injuries buried him enough to keep him out of no-questions-asked Hall contention, but until they began chipping away at him in earnest he was probably the best all-around first baseman in the American League.
FRED McGRIFF---I think he'll make it sooner or later. In time people are going to see the Crime Dog was a better run long-term run producer than he looks at initial glances. And if you can name one first baseman who hit twenty bombs or more a season for fourteen seasons or better who isn't named McGriff, well, mister you're a better man than I.
JACK MORRIS---I'm still on the fence with Morris. I can't really reconcile his reputation as a big-game pitcher to his actuality as a pitcher who probably did pitch to the score preponderantly enough, leaving his wins to reflect his teammates' as much, if not slightly more than, his own performances.
And yet . . . and yet . . . Morris is the Andre Dawson of pitchers without Dawson's reputation for wonderfulness. One minute you think no, the next you think yes, and the dilemna is not unattractive.
The classic dumb move of Morris's career: Hitting the road on tour to feel out his market at the onset of the first collusion, then meeting with the Minnesota Twins in a rather expensive-looking fur. On the other hand, it wasn't even half as stupid as Lou Whitaker showing up for a bargaining session during the 1994 strike in a stretch limousine. Jack Morris may have behaved like a mercenary over the final half of his career but he wasn't that dim.
And though I think the world of that magnificent, surreal ten-inning, Game Seven, 1991 World Series-winning shutout, I know I saw one better: Sandy Koufax's nine-inning, Game Seven, 1965 World Series-winning shutout. And I will tell you why Koufax's was the better game:
a) His usually surreal curve ball was a dead issue by that point; his arthritically-compromised arm was exhausted enough to make gripping a forkball (his usual, periodic change-of-pace serving) problematic. Koufax was working with nothing left but a fastball that only mimicked its infamous self.It's no disgrace to say Jack Morris wasn't exactly in Sandy Koufax's league. Nobody else was, either.b) He was also working on two days' rest for the second time in just over a week. He'd pitched and won the pennant clincher on two days' rest.
c) He was medicated heavily enough, because of the arthritic arm, to leave him a little high and enough at the mercy of a line drive back up the pipe to take his head off if he couldn't and didn't react with customary swiftness.
DALE MURPHY---He's the Don Mattingly of outfielders. He was also Jim Rice without the reputed attitude problems---a home-road split too wide, with his home park during his peak seasons just too yummy a hitter's park, and he, too, was curtailed by injuries at a peak near enough to when Rice was curtailed. If you were picking a Hall of Famer on character alone, however, Murphy would win it with about a hundred nautical miles to spare.
DAVE PARKER---Cocaine use and injuries sapped him out of solidifying a Hall of Fame case. The Cobra was certainly on the proper route before those matters occurred.
But if you want to found a Hall of Fame class on good people who really do learn from their foolishness, Parker would go in the inaugural class with Tim Raines right by his side. Parker cleaned up and once again became clubhouse class, strong-arm division, especially on one of those late-1980s Oakland Athletics teams.
Where is Dave Parker when you need a clubhouse enforcer? The A's always knew, sooner or later, they'd need Big Dave to quell a cellblock riot, just as the '77 Reds desperately missed Tony Perez after they traded him. In '88 Canseco popped off about beating the Dodgers in five games. The Dodgers won in five. In '89 Parker promised to clean, stuff, and mount Jose if he spoke above a whisper. The A's swept. Now Dave's gone. Jose predicted a sweep. General manager Sandy Alderson makes a lot of good moves, but saving money on Parker may have cost him a world title.---Thomas Boswell, Washington Post, 22 October 1990; republished in "1990: Hubris, the Sequel," in Cracking the Show. (New York: Doubleday, 1994.)
TIM RAINES---Don't knock the Rock. You may wish to murder me for this, but Allen Barra (in Clearing the Bases) was absolutely right: Raines's fifteen best seasons shake out as being better than the fifteen best of a should-be Hall of Famer who was practically his match, a switch-hitter with a little power who extorted his way on base and hit early in the lineup.
The player is Pete Rose.
Citing Total Baseball's estimate of the fifteen best seasons by Rose and Raines, Barra shook them out thus: it took Rose 204 more games to reach base 34 more times a season than Raines in the career shakeout, and to produce 9.3 more runs a season.
That Rose had to play in 204 more games to do that convinces me that Raines was, perhaps, more skilled than Rose in the art of producing runs. The question is, does Rose's durability automatically make him more valuable? After all, he did accumulate more total runs.Actually, the question is a great deal more complex than that. First of all, although he played alongside some fine hitters in Gary Carter and Andre Dawson, Raines had nothing like the career-long quality of teammates that was afforded Pete Rose. Rose played nearly all his best years on the Reds with teammates such as Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, and Dave Concepcion, and on the Phillies, he batted in front of Mike Schmidt and Greg Luzinski. Given Raines's greater home run total and far superior speed, I think if he batted in front of the same hitters Rose had, he would have produced not only more runs but signficantly more runs per season---and remember that's in 200 fewer games. Second, think of how many fewer outs Raines would have used up to produce those runs, and how many more runs those outs would have produced spread around the lineup.
This isn't even beginning to consider the point that Raines probably hung up an uncounted extra parcel of runs by his more consistent ability to go first to third or second and even first to home on base hits, an ability Rose didn't always have despite his reputation as diving Charlie Hustle.
The Rock's big problem is that he didn't leave a glaring statistical benchmark by which to judge him, not even the 200-hit season. On the other hand . . . so what of it? Do you think a decade of 200-hit seasons equals an automatic, no-questions-asked great hitter? Then why would you consider as mediocre hitters one Hall of Famer who had six measly 200-hit seasons; a second Hall of Famer who had three such seasons; a pair of Hall of Famers who had exactly one such season; and another pair who had exactly no such seasons? Now, tell me you plan to argue that Pete Rose was a greater hitter than Stan Musial (the six), Babe Ruth (the three), Willie Mays (one), Frank Robinson (one, too), Ted Williams (never), or Mickey Mantle (neither did he).
Better, still, tell me why you would think Pete Rose was a better hitter than a guy who was his near-equal skill-set player but, over their fifteen best seasons each, reached base more often, used less outs to get there (ponder, too, that Raines was so good at wringing out walks he wouldn't have put up three thousand hits even without losing so much time to cocaine addiction---to which he copped and sought treatment on his own---and lupus), hit with a little more power, produced quite a few more runs, and had hugely superior speed?
"Simply put," Barra concluded, "all the indications are that under the same conditions and in the same situations, Tim Raines would have produced at least as many and probably more runs than Pete Rose. That's not going to make him as hot an item on the autograph circuit as Pete Rose, but it ought to be good enough to get Tim Raines a plaque at Cooperstown."
Indeed. But you don't have to make him a might-have-been case. What was should be enough.
And, just for the record, Tim Raines also reached base more and scored more runs than Tony Gwynn.
ALAN TRAMMELL---I'm still where I was last year: a long career with a photo-finish Hall of Fame case leaves me, still, thinking that while I'm not completely convinced you can cross him over the border safely, I'm not completely convinced that you can't.
And, sorry, but since enough people insist on dragging him into the discussion in that way, still, here we go again:
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT . . . PETE ROSE---Let's get it out of the way right now, and hopefully for all time until a certain condition is changed: Pete Rose does not belong in any Hall of Fame discussion, whatsoever, period-dot-period, until or unless the Hall changes its 1990-91 ruling that no player on baseball's ineligible list can be considered eligible for Hall candidacy.
Do you remember why the Hall passed the rule? I do. There was a very real chance the Baseball Writers Association of America in 1990-91 was going to elect Rose to Cooperstown in spite of his being banned from baseball, an election that would have traduced a long-standing tradition (it was never a formal rule before that point, but it was honoured among generations of voting writers) that those on the ineligible list wouldn't be elected to the Hall of Fame or even considered as candidates. (I can think of two such players prior to Rose, both teammates on the infamous 1919 White Sox, who would have been no-questions-asked Hall of Famers except for the scandal: Joe Jackson and Eddie Cicotte.)
Do you really want to explain why someone who isn't eligible to wear a uniform or hold any job in organised professional baseball anywhere, for anyone, or who needs special dispensation just to show up in a ballpark, should be eligible to receive the highest known honour in the game, even if the Hall of Fame is not in and of itself a division or branch of formally organised professional baseball?
Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame. His overall record supports it, even if I happen to agree that there but for the grace of breaking Ty Cobb's lifetime hits record should he have waited a couple of years past year one to get in. Absent Cobb, I'm not completely convinced he would have been or should have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Second? Perhaps. Third? Surely.
But should Rose be in the Hall of Fame in spite of being banished from baseball?
No way.
"Pete Rose isn't banned from baseball just because he's a bad person. He's banned because he broke the rules," Bill James has written. "As Tom Heitz says, the problem with Pete Rose isn't that he gambled. The problem is that he broke the rule against gambling . . . [y]ou don't begin the rehabilitation of [Pete Rose] by putting him in the Hall of Fame. That's where you end it."
And that's where you end the discussion. That's where the discussion should have ended, long enough ago.
Blyleven will get in once people realize he had, I believe, 60 shutouts. In the next decade or so people will realize the pithcers they are voting in have around zero complete game shutouts.He did throw sixty shutouts and in a time when conditions began favouring hitters quite a bit more. But you don't have to point to his shutouts to make his Hall of Fame case, aside from which you could show me Blyleven had half that many shutouts and he'd still have a Hall case. Blyleven's sixty shutouts are comparable to Greg Maddux's thirty-five: they pitched in eras that favoured hitters (and Maddux pitched most of his prime in hitters' parks as his home parks, too), and Maddux's era favoured hitters quite a bit more than Blyleven's even without the question of actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances.
To me, the Hall should be for no-doubters. For example, Randy Johnson. He clearly belongs. Greg Maddux clearly belongs. The problem nowadays with hitters of course is the PED issue. Set that aside for the sake of argument, and it's clear who belongs and who doesn't. Dawson? Gimme a break. Why not elect Al Oliver, then? Or Dave Parker? The Hall is supposed to be for the elites. As for Alomar, he's probably the best 2nd baseman since Joe Morgan. He belongs in the Hall.
None of the guys you mention belong in the Hall. If it’s debatable, the answer should be no. The Hall should be for the no-brainers only, imo. If you have to ask, the answer is no. Randy Johnson? In. Greg Maddux? In. Jack Morris? Nope.
. . . but somebody has to be the worst player to get in.
You could choose from among all those players strong-armed in when Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry ran the Veterans Committee and seem to have made it their mission in life to get as many of their St. Louis Cardinals and New York Giants cronies into Cooperstown as they could get away with . . .
I agree that Alomar belongs and he will definitely make it easily next year. I’ve never really understood the “he’s a Hall of Famer, but not a first ballot HOF “ thing, but clearly that kept him out this year.
Dawson was one of the very best players of his era and deserves to be in. In his prime, Rice was the one of the top, if not the top hitter in baseball. His prime was a little short, but he did enough to get in.
I don’t agree with the idea that if there is any doubt at all, a player does not belong. You need to closely examine borderline players and decide which side of the border they belong on.
I kind of like Bill Simmons idea of a pyramid shaped HOF, with 5 tiers with bordeline guys on the ground floor, working up to a top floor with only the most elite, all-time greats. (I think he only listed about 14 players in his top tier).
This would allow a few more debatable guys to get in, while not diminshing the accomplishments of the even greater players.
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