Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
He's made all of one all star team, this year.
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Bit of an old post but this has the makings of an interesting conversation in itself.
Do you think its possible that a player could make the HOF based on his playing career without having ever appeared in an all star game (obviously limited to those who played since the All star game was introduced)?
I think Tim Salmon, Kirk Gibson and Eric Karros are the names that come to mind off the top of my head among "best careers of guys who never made an all star team" and they are not even remotely HOF worthy. At the same time though I think they could all reasonably qualify as members of the Hall of Very Good and to have put together decent careers like that without making an all star game suggests it might be possible for someone who, say, played a few more years than they did to amass enough hits or wins or home runs to meet the usual Hall cut offs.
It could happen two ways I think. One way is you have a guy who is consistently good but not great over a very long career and just piles up enough numbers to get the nod (Bert Blyleven comes to mind, having only made 2 all star appearances and never really having been considered among the top pitchers in the game for most of his career).
The second route would be a guy who has a lot of great seasons but is always overshadowed by an even bigger star at the same position whose career by coincidence happens to overlap with his. I'm not really sure who the prototypical player meeting this description would be, but probably there are a lot of first basemen out there who fit the bill.
But do you think this is even a possible accomplishment?