The best second baseman of his era and one of the best of any era did not get elected to the Hall of Fame today. Shame on the voters.
Roberto Alomar deserved to be a first ballot entrant but there must be enough writers out there who were watching another game when Alomar played to deny him his due.
The best designated hitter in the history of the game was also denied enough votes as baseball continued its shcizophrenic attitude toward the role of the DH. It would be interesting to see how many NL writers excluded Martinez from the ballots. Going forward, only AL writers should be allowed to vote for DH's and those players who spent the majority of their careers in that role should need only half the required votes for entry. Go ahead, Bud, fix that one!
Bert Blyleven was also denied entry for the umpteenth time as a sufficient number of writers continued to believe he should indeed be punished for playing for a lot of lousy teams.
Congratulations to Andre Dawson, who was no more feared as a hitter than Martinez ever was and whose stats aren't as good as those of Don Mattingly, who got scant attention yet again.
Next summer's induction ceremonies should be the least exciting in memory.
1 comment:
It seems that the HOF often makes the right decisions, but I agree, they got it wrong with Alomar. Here in Australia during the baseball boom of the 1990s, he was very popular, as he performed at such an outstanding level. Daweson has missed out a few times, as had Gossage, and the selection of Gossage I am still perplexed by. I would love to know Kirk Gibson's opinion of Gossage's selection, and his own omission. The last few years has rewarded previous rejects, i.e. Rice and Gossage. I must admit I see no place in the HOF for Mark McGwire, and the writers likewise punish him, but Alomar, they seem to judge the guy rather than the star. Although the unfortunate incident with umpire Jim Hirschbeck is hard to forget.
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