Last chance to vote down Garvey

[Guest Edgy DC]

Players on the Hall of Fame Ballot (Years on Ballot)

� Harold Baines (1)
� Albert Belle (2)
� Dante Bichette (1)
� Bert Blyleven (10)
� Bobby Bonilla (1)*
� Scott Brosius (1)
� Jay Buhner (1)
� Ken Caminiti (1)
� Jose Canseco (1)
� Dave Concepcion (14)
� Eric Davis (1)
� Andre Dawson (6)
� Tony Fernandez (1)*
� Steve Garvey (15)
� Rich Gossage (8)
� Tony Gwynn (1)
� Orel Hershiser (2)*
� Tommy John (13)
� Wally Joyner (1)
� Don Mattingly (7)
� Mark McGwire (1)
� Jack Morris (8)
� Dale Murphy (9)
� Paul O'Neill (1)
� Dave Parker (11)
� Jim Rice (13)
� Cal Ripken (1)
� Bret Saberhagen (1)*
� Lee Smith (5)
� Alan Trammell (6)
� Devon White (1)
� Bobby Witt (1)

* Former Met

[metirish]

Mark McGwire will make for an interesting case.

[Guest Edgy DC]

There's got to be a dozen interesting cases there. McGwire's will be a pip.

How many big-leaguers do you think are still juicing but are successfully screening? A vote for him pretty much tells them it's OK, doesn't it?

[metirish]

Yes,and I htink some writers will look at this as the steroid era and vote for him.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

They really oughta elect Sadaharu Oh.

As usual, I'm OK with Blyleven. Goose too, prolly. Rice and Belle are two surly guys who won't get in but deserve more serious consideration than just about anyone else on the list.

[DocTee]

Blyleven for sure...though I don't really like his recent campaigning.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Negro Leagues aside, I think they're very particular about keeping the Hall of Fame a Major League thing. Japanese ball and chick ball and minor-league ball will get into exhibits, but not onto the plaques.

Ripken and Gwynn will be dramatic and automatic. I've sort of come to hate the Commissioner's Award for Outstanding Performance in the Field of Excellence or whatever it is that they stop the All-Star Game for, and those two I think were the ones they debuted it for. I guess it's pretty much a knighting thing. If you get a CAfOPitFoE, you're a first-ballot guy.

[metirish]

See is what I don't like about the voting process,Belle being a surly bollox should have nothing to do with it, plenty of worse types are in.

[Guest Edgy DC]

No doubt plenty of worse types are in, but the instructions explictly state, "Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played."

That doesn't mean nebulous things like integrity and bolloxness should be automatic qualifieres and/or disqualifiers, but it's supposed to be part of the question.

[Theoldmole]

This should be the year that Jim Rice gets his deserved enshrinement.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I'll argue here that Japanese ball is a different thing than minor league ball and chick ball.

Soon enough the Nomos (out) and Ichiros (in, probably) will force HOF voters to confront the whole Japanese question, and there's no question in my mind that Bobby V, Bud and MasterCard and other official MLB sponsors will globablize the whole magilla. And when they do, they'd be blind not to see Oh's credentials as Hallworthy.

[metirish]

IIRC Seaver is a huge fan of Oh's ,that would help his cause I think.

[nymr83]

TheOldMole wrote: This should be the year that Jim Rice gets his deserved enshrinement.

i disagree, with Ripken and Gwynn shoe-ins, McGwire on the ballot, and Blyleven and Gossage all ready to get dissed again theres just too much going on for Rice. Rice (and Blyleven/Gossage) need a year with no 1st ballot guys because like it or not there are plenty of voters who feel the need to vote for somebody but also feel the need not to vote for too many guys at once,

[Guest Edgy DC]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I'll argue here that Japanese ball is a different thing than minor league ball and chick ball.

And you're right, but the National Baseball Hall of Fame is different from some other sports in the level of control MLB has over the thing and I think they want to keep their label flying high. (The basketballl Hall of Fame, for instance, honors NBA players and coaches side-by-side with female players, college coaches, foreign players and Globetrotters who never played a minute in the NBA.)

I'd love to see Oh go, but I think they have to wrestle with a few values first.

[Vic Sage]

[u:c5f181622c]1st Ballot HOF:[/u:c5f181622c]
� Cal Ripken (1)
� Tony Gwynn (1)

[u:c5f181622c]its about time:[/u:c5f181622c]
� Rich Gossage (8)
� Bert Blyleven (10)
� Jim Rice (13)

[u:c5f181622c]on the fence:[/u:c5f181622c]
� Dave Parker (11)
� Andre Dawson (6)
� Mark McGwire (1)
� Dale Murphy (9)
� Alan Trammell (6)

[u:c5f181622c]probably not:[/u:c5f181622c]
� Steve Garvey (15)
� Jack Morris (8)
� Albert Belle (2) (Had a high peak, but lacked longevity. no defense and no intangibles on his side, either.)
� Lee Smith (5)

[u:c5f181622c]No, but keep them on the ballot:[/u:c5f181622c]
- Harold Baines (1)
� Jose Canseco (1)
� Dave Concepcion (14)
� Orel Hershiser (2)*
� Tommy John (13)
� Don Mattingly (7)

[u:c5f181622c]one and done:[/u:c5f181622c]
� Dante Bichette (1)
� Bobby Bonilla (1)*
� Scott Brosius (1)
� Jay Buhner (1)
� Ken Caminiti (1)
� Eric Davis (1)
� Tony Fernandez (1)*
� Wally Joyner (1)
� Paul O'Neill (1)
� Bret Saberhagen (1)*
� Devon White (1)
� Bobby Witt (1)

[Guest Edgy DC]

of course, the only way to keep people on the ballot is to vote for them.

That's one of the reasons why I don't go for the idea that a player's case is closed because "the writers had 15 chances to vote him in, and didn't."

The implication is that 15 opportunities is pathetic, when it's in fact far better than the multitudes who fell off the ballot after a year. He got 15 chances because of support for his enshrinement.

[Guest Mr. Zero]

a case for OH (though not, I don't think, THE case for Oh).



http://baseballguru.com/ctomarkin/analysisctomarkin07.html

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Frank Howard telling it like it is:

] �You can kiss my ass if he wouldn�t have hit 30 or 35 home runs a year and hit anywhere from .280 to .320 and drive in up to 120 runs a year.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Dykstra.

[Vic Sage]

Are you free associating?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Dickshot just hit Dykstra level.

[MFS62]

I have this feeling (although I'm hoping I'm wrong) that Paul O'Neill will have longer staying power than "one and done".
The voters will look at his over .300 Yankee career BA and forget those 3,500 or so NL at bats when he hit around .265.
After all, he WAS a Yankee.

I remember when Bill Veeck signed a teenager named Harold Baines, he dubbed him "Hall of Fame" Baines. He will be the first real test case of how much import the voters place on his being mainly a DH for his career. If he had played the field as a regular, his numbers were good enough to get him more than just a few votes.

Later

[metirish]

O'Neill has no hope at the HOF..maybe monument park....

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Baines went in the 1977 draft, Veeck had scouted him as a 14-year-old because he grew up in Easton, Md., not far from Veeck's home before he owned the Sox.

Other 1977 drfatees: Wally Backman (1st round) and Mookie Wilson (2nd round).

[Guest Edgy DC]

I don't really care who lasts one year or who lasts four.

[Frayed Knot]

- I'd be happy enough to see just Gwynn & Ripken get in this year


- I once listened to an entire afternoon of phone calls to talk radio from Yanqui fans arguing that Barry Bonds (pre public steroid outings) shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as Paul O'Neill; the whole clutch thing don't you know.

[Gwreck]

I suspect the McGwire arguments will get pretty loud (and repetitive) soon but he's clearly a first-ballot hall-of-famer too.

The steroids thing is just stupid at this point. Was he caught? No. If McGwire doesn't get in, I guess that means Gaylord Perry gets kicked out.

[Guest iramets]

TheOldMole wrote: This should be the year that Jim Rice gets his deserved enshrinement.

"What comes out of a Chinaman's ass?"

"Rice, Rice, Rice, Rice!"

(old chant at UTexas/Rice football games).

[Guest cleonjones11]

Gwynn, Ripken and Dawson

Whoever doe these things Jim Kaat before Blyleven

Rice=Parker nyet

[metirish]

The real reason why Wally is a journalist....

] Me vote for Big Mac? Hall, no! Now writers have power: Delete him November 28, 2006 At this stage of my life, the arrival of the mailman generally means bad news, but starting Friday, I will be waiting by the mailbox like a kid on his birthday. Any day after that, my Hall of Fame ballot will arrive in the mail, and this year, I wouldn't miss filling it out for the world. Or should I say not filling it out? Cal Ripken Jr. will get a vote, and so, I believe, will Tony Gwynn. I'll vote for Jim Rice, as I always do, and maybe Jack Morris. I might even break down and vote for Don Mattingly, even though he falls just a tad short of the generally accepted standards because of his chronically cranky back. But the real reason I am looking forward to this year's ballot is more for the name I will not be writing down than for those I will. Under no circumstances will the name "Mark McGwire" appear on my Hall of Fame ballot, and I'm hoping that at least 96 percent of my comrades in the Baseball Writers Association of America think the same way. That would mean that not only would McGwire not get to take his 583 tainted home runs to Cooperstown next year, but that his name would come off the ballot, never to reappear until some future Veterans Committee, probably made up of some of the guys he shared a chemist with, try to backdoor him into the Hall. At that point, it's out of my hands. But for now, and until Newsday follows the lead of The New York Times and some other papers in prohibiting its writers from voting for the Hall of Fame, it is my obligation to do the right thing for a sport that refuses to do right by itself or its history. A general rule of thumb in voting for a Hall of Fame is the sniff test. If it doesn't smell immediately like a Cooperstown-quality career, it probably isn't. McGwire's career smells like a lot of things, none of them good. It doesn't matter to me that he never failed a drug test, because in baseball's wink-wink drug policy, there was no test to fail. Nor does it matter that at the time McGwire "admitted" to using androstenedione, the substance was not on baseball's banned list. All I know is, the guy was Dave Kingman until 1998, King Kong afterward. Anything he did from 1998 on, I have to suspect, was aided, if not caused, by performance-enhancing drugs. That doesn't smell right to me. In fact, it stinks. At the time, a lot of us suspected McGwire, but shamefully, few wrote about it, out of naivete or worse, getting caught up in baseball's manufactured feel-good Summer of '98. Some guys even wrote books about it without once mentioning the word "steroids." Those of us who did were branded party-poopers, witch-hunters, mudslingers. It is not satisfaction enough to know we were right. Now is the time to slam that pitch too many of us fouled off or looked at eight years ago. In a way, it's easy to leave McGwire off this year's ballot; it boasts so many more deserving candidates. Next year will be more of a test, when the only real new blood in the race will be David Justice, Tim Raines and Shawon Dunston, a Hall of Fame good guy. But that doesn't matter, either. I wouldn't vote for McGwire if the only other candidates on the ballot were the Seven Dwarfs. To honor McGwire is to dishonor Roger Maris and Frank Robinson and Harmon Killebrew and Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Schmidt and Mickey Mantle and everyone else who hit their home runs using pine tar and real, not manufactured, muscle. In five or six years, it will be the same story with Barry Bonds, who already has been allowed to spit on Willie Mays and Babe Ruth and by then may even have besmirched Hank Aaron. But at least in Bonds' case, his pre-steroid era numbers are good enough to warrant serious consideration. If only I could cast half a vote for Natural Bonds and deduct half for Bionic Barry. But that's a quandary for another day. Next week, the problem will be McGwire, and for me it is no problem at all. I went into journalism with the idealistic belief that somehow I could change things, that I could expose the bad guys and elevate the good guys. Over the years, I have learned it often is just beating your fists against a steel door. However, we must continue to try. Leaving McGwire off a Hall of Fame ballot is my try. If enough guys feel the same way, that steel door will finally come down.