[Archive]

Posted By: Chris Counts

There are few subjects that get me more fired up than who should be in the Hall of Fame. And there few more deserving players than Cecil Travis. My uncle played on a team with him in Germany during the war, so perhaps I'm a bit biased, but was Travis really any less a player than most of the Hall of Fame shortstops? Was he really less a player than Joe Tinker, Rabbit Maranville, Bobby Wallace, Phil Rizzuto, Arky Vaughan or Dave Bancroft? The real tragedy, like that of Buck O'Neil, is that baseball fans never had the chance to see Travis standing at the Cooperstown podium with his plaque in hand. And for that, I resent those who make the decisions at the Hall ... get it together, you guys! By the way, Minnie Minoso is still alive, and there are few things I'd rather see than him standing at that podium ... But back to Travis, the man with the third highest batting average lifetime among all shortstops to ever play in the major leagues ... Rest in peace, Hall of Famer ...