Tim Raines @ 22%? What a joke…I’m losing faith in the Hall of Fame voters. This one is so painful obvious its ridiculous.

Tim Raines got screwed. His vote count actually went down. How does that happen?

who the two jackasses are that voted for Jay Bell.

were the first left fielders voted in since 1989.

Also, I’m happy that Rice got in. The Boston fans really needed some kind of a pick me up after going seven months without any of their teams winning a championship. And no, it doesn’t count that the Bruins are the best team in the Eastern Conference.

Shit, I know you warned me to put them on, but I was NOT expecting THAT from their website. I think you need a welders mask to look at it.

does the BBWAA need a bright green background for all of the pages on its website?

I don’t understand why that position is so undervalued by the HOF. I wonder if there’s a way to determine how many wins a season Lee Smith was worth.

why do i feel like the BBWA website was designed on a MAC SE?

If the position wasn’t relevant or working LaLoser wouldn’t use a closer. Wins for a starting pitching these days are often (almost always) predicated on the closer’s consistent ability to end the game with the starter’s team in the lead.
300 wins gets a starter in the Hall…how many of those wins are dependent on the closer. Why is Lee Smith in the HOF.

He was the player who blocked Bubba when he was coming up in the Dodger organization. Bubba was rather irate. Not that he didn’t respect Henderson, but the guy was 44 years old at the time.

A friend of a friend has put together a great post in honor of Rickey “Rick” Henderson.

http://www.unlikelywords.com/2009/01/12/appreciation-of-rickey-henderson-stories-thoughts-and-links/

It’s a fantastic read, though it does remind me how devastated I was when I first learned that the Olerud story was apocryphal. Worse than Santa.

vote for the HOF. Rickey was a no-brainer. Only other deserving guys were Blyleven and Raines……MAYBE Trammell. Rice is not deserving….gotta love the East Coast media pushing him in (Gammons, Shaugnessy, etc)/

My prediction for first to get 100 percent of the vote: Greg Maddux. There’s no justification whatsoever to leave him off the ballot.

the A’s traded Rickey to the Yankees for (among others) Jose Rijo and Tim Birtsas. One of the others was Jay Howell, who started his career as a Red. The other two were Stan Javier (who I swore was a Red at some point) and Eric Plunk.

But yeah…I didn’t realize that the A’s got the guy who would kill ’em in ’90 for Rickey.

It’s not that Rice doesn’t belong per se; it’s that if he belongs, there are at least 5 other outfielders (Raines, Dawson, Parker, Dale Murphy, …one other, it’s on the tip of my tongue…) who won’t ever get in who deserve to be there at least as much.

But many of the writers create their own definitions of HOF caliber: “Most feared hitter/pitcher of his generation”. You don’t have to be able to back up a statement like that; all you have to do is find one player who will agree with you, and quote him in your story about your ballot.

Jack Morris is a perfect example of this. “Best pitcher of the 80’s (some expand it to "his generation”)". Well, yea, if you count it as only “most wins in this arbitrary 10 year period”, he’s the best. It would be very easy to argue, though, that even with a 6 year head start Clemens had a better decade than Morris; Ryan was at the end of his career, and was clearly a better pitcher than Morris in that decade. But thanks to lots of run support, a guy whose ERA was barely above average (his ERA+ from ‘80-’89 was 110) is considered “best of the decade” (that, and one magical World Series game (but other than that game, he wasn’t that good – 6-4, 4.28 ERA)).

So Rice was “the most feared hitter of his generation”?

	         Born	Debut

Mike Schmidt	1949	1972

Dave Parker	1951	1973

Dave Winfield	1951	1973

George Brett	1953	1973

Jim Rice	         1953	1974

Andre Dawson	1954	1976

Jack Clark	1955	1975

Dale Murphy	1956	1976

Eddie Murray	1956	1977

But whatever. No matter what a bunch of internet dorks think, the BBWAA will always have their biases, some of which are “illogical” (just like every other voting block – remember, Ted Stevens was almost reelected).

I really don’t believe Rice is a Hall of Famer. The things I remember about him the most were that he hit into a ton of double plays and he never really played “great” on the big stage, i.e. World Series and playoffs. I think Raines, Trammell and Dave Parker would have been better, and more worthy, choices.

To me, the love of all things Boston by the media pushed him over the top.

Trammell’s finish this year is troubling but I have the feeling that Larkin will be perceived as being much better. Mostly because of all the ASGs (12; Trammell had 6), plus his accomplishments are fresher in our minds by about a decade. Larkin also fits the mold of an ideal SS better – he hit for a higher average and had a lot more steals. He had one less GG but the voters will remember who stood in the way of more.

But they’re pretty similar in a lot of HOF-superficial ways (one ring, one MVP, same team), so we’ll see. I’d add Alomar but I think enough voters will punish him for the spitting incident by not giving him a first-year vote.

and went to the gynecologist.

Eventually he’ll squeak in…I predict it will be very close. However I reserve the right to tell why I so predict.

He came off as a whiny bitch.