re: Andre Dawson elected to HOF

You make an excellent argument. You're obviously passionate about this and I appreciate that. I could be wrong on Blyleven. I'm just of the opinion that when dealing w/ "borderline" guys, Halls of Fame should always err on the side of exclusion.

And I didn't say contemporaries are the ONLY ones who could judge greatness, I just think they're the BEST judges. We can know how great Willie Mays was, but ask someone who actually watched him in his prime, they REALLY understand. (I think the best example of this is ppl who saw Clemente play in person) And there's no way numbers can quantify a moment a player creates or a feeling a player inspires when he plays.

quote:

---

You make an excellent argument.

---

it's what he does

I already linked that exact article.

quote:

---

If I can look at numbers to figure out if Blyleven or Morris was better, why can't I look at them to see if Blyleven was comparable to Whitey Ford?

---

By "short term" I meant numbers are less likely to lie if you're looking at a short span of time, like a season or 2. But If you're looking at a career a long time later, it's hard to tell how the player assembled those numbers. I shouldn't say numbers "lie," but they can deceive.

quote:

---

You make an excellent argument. You're obviously passionate about this and I appreciate that. I could be wrong on Blyleven. I'm just of the opinion that when dealing w/ "borderline" guys, Halls of Fame should always err on the side of exclusion.

---

I sympathize with this argument and can understand it. On the flip side, we're long past the "small Hall". The idea that only Lou Gehrig types get in just isn't sustainable.

Look, I agree that we should not find the weakest guy in the Hall and say "look my guy is better". That's a horrible argument that weakens the Hall. My point about Blyleven is that he is the equal or better than MANY if not MOST of the pitchers enshrined. He's not borderline. Jim Rice was borderline (and his numbers aren't as good as, say, Albert Belle's)

I think we both care about the Hall, and that's the most important thing. I fully sympathize with wanting to protect the Hall from Frankie Frisch and his cronies cramming in the entire 1910's Giants into the Hall. But what the result of this effort to "reclaim the Hall" has done is 1) elect some unworthy/borderline guys and 2) keep the stars of the 1980s out.

No one loves baseball more than when they did when they were 8. Those are your heroes for life. And, essentially, my players, MY HEROES, are been systematically excluded from the Hall so we can cram in more borderline guys from the 1970s and 60s (at least Dawson is the 1980s). The 1980s greats are sorely underrepresented: Raines, Trammell, Larkin (tho he's more 90s), Murphy... these were my heroes. Yet the Hall would rather enshrine Jim Rice and Tony Perez. And, yeah, it hurts to be told the heroes of your youth weren't as good as the heroes of someone else's youth. It's also not true. I'll put 1980s baseball up against ANY era. It's my favorite era and I really think the best given the multiple styles and that the game was "fair" between pitching and hitting.

I went to Andre Dawson bobblehead day in Montreal in 2002.