The announcement today that Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice were elected to baseball's Hall of Fame is receiving its appropriate, over the top treatment, by sports folk and baseball fans. Having never seen Rice play, though I found Joe Posnanski and others' arguments against his candidacy compelling, I'm happy he got into the hall.
What perplexes me hit home while I was flipping through SI.com's slideshow of the inductees who received the greatest percentage of votes in the history of the hall. To which I ask the following questions?
Was Tom Seaver the greatest player ever?
Who didn't vote for Cobb, Ruth, or Wagner?
What racists didn't vote for Aaron?
Ripken over Ruth?!
Brett over Aaron AND Ruth?!
Schmidt and Gwynn over Ruth?!
Similarly, Posnanski's analysis of Henderson's qualifications blew my mind - I just don't get how anyone could not vote for this guy.
Now let's imagine what these guys do with today's greats, even excluding those ravaged by injury (Griffey) and tainted by steroids (McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, Bonds). How do you not vote for Maddux? Pujols (assuming future good health and maintaining his sick consistency)? Rodriguez? Mind-boggling.
Egocentrism
- egocentric
- Brookline, MA, United States
- I'll post rants here, and musings; articles and thoughts about articles. I'll keep it quite complex and yet astoundingly simple: whatever it is I am interested in at any given moment.
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