Hard to take seriously a baseball pundit who doesn’t know that Phil Rizzutto was a shortstop.
I agree with him on 3 of the 5, but I think the case can be made fairly strongly for Jim Rice based upon his prime seasons.
We would go to the Feller museum when he was alive and he would tell my now 20 year old son stories about having a steak dinner with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth.
He also told us that there were a lot of players who didn’t belong but he refused to name names. One I’v heard mentioned is Hal Newhouser. At least with baseball, it has the appearance of rarity compared with football.
The metrics for pitchers eligibility are changing. Three hundred wins was the magic number for automatic induction, just as 3000 hits is the magic number for hitters. However, there isn’t a single pitcher in the majors right now who will get 300 wins, and there won’t be very many from now on. The closer has become just as important, and based on that, I have no problem with Bruce Sutter’s induction.
I have always felt that it is better for the HOF to leave out a qualified player than to admit someone who doesn’t belong. I also don’t like the base-lining that many do for the HOF. Voting someone in because he has similar statistics to someone who is already in has the possibility of compounding an earlier error. The HOF is for great players, not the really good ones. Some really good players should be kept out in order to keep the standards high.
Jim Rice has no business in the Hall. And I watched his entire career as a kid. We called him the greatest double-play machine in baseball history. He was washed by by the age of 34 or so.
One player who would’ve made the HOF would have been Tony C, if he didn’t get beaned by the Angles pitcher in 68...
Ron Santo didn’t and doesn’t belong in the HOF
Writer doesn’t address why the always over rated Santo does belong. Mediocre would be a compliment to Santo
Maz was one of my favorite players growing up a Pirates fan. But he’s a stretch for the HOF. I think the voters were swayed by Bill James’ declaration that Maz was the greatest defensive player of all time, at any position, plus one of the greatest home runs of all time.
I have a ball signed by the entire Pirates team back when Maury Wills was with them, so it has 4 HOFers original signatures (Wills, Maz, Clemente, Stargell). Wonder what it’s worth today?
FYI BD
If Ozzie Smith, Phil Rizutto, PeeWee Reese and Luis Aparicio are in the HOF, then it is long past time Davey Concepcion be enshrined. His career long records meet or exceed practically every record of those four. He defined “shortstop” for the decade of the `70s and was a vital part of the Cincinnati dynasty of that decade.