[Gil4]

RE: I think you might have gotten a particular stat confused-—Koufax with three or less runs to work with in the seasons studied was 18-1, Drysdale 8-20.

I re-checked the numbers, and Koufax was 18-4 with 3 or less runs to work with. The 18-1 was with 5+ runs, as was Drysdale’s 23-1. (They both won the games they were supposed to win. Koufax won the rest of them, too.)

I do have the HoF book, but it has been a while since I cracked it open. Still waiting for Ron Santo to go in.

[BluesDuke]

Ron Santo does deserve the honour, and there may be an equivalent case for Ken Boyer. (Clete Boyer, who may have been the greatest-fielding third baseman who ever played the game, won't get in even on the Mazeroski/Smith Rule---that a guy who has a boatload of off-the-chart defencive statistics has the same business being in the Hall of Fame as anybody else because defence, preventing runs, counts---because he was that atrocious a hitter.) And Don Drysdale would be one of the men who would launch any list of players---the list would probably have to include damn near everybody who got in when Frankie Frisch and Bill Terry ran the Veterans Committee and, as James noted, seemed mostly bent on getting as many of their St. Louis Cardinals/New York Giants buddies into Cooperstown as they could get away with---you could probably want out of the Hall of Fame.