Quote:
Originally Posted by the 'stache
Thank you for your post, Mark. See, I appreciate hearing from somebody that actually saw him play.
When I came up with the idea for this thread, it was not my intention to state that any player we would be discussing definitely belonged in the Hall of Fame. It was meant to be a discussion of players that we felt had been overlooked by the BBWAA, and deserved a second look by the Baseball Veterans Committee. Unfortunately, I got a little carried away when I wrote my first post about Belanger. I'd just read a write up about his defensive skills, and the people that were writing about him probably propped him up when it came to writing about Belanger's abilities.
It's difficult to know just how he matches up against the others that might be considered the best defensive shortstops to ever play the game, because as great as he may have been, defensive statistics have always lagged behind those for offense.
I think it's likely that Belanger is one of the ten best defensive shortstops to play the game. I never saw Belanger, Luis Aparicio, Phil Rizzuto, Bill Dahlen, or Rabbit Maranville play. I have seen Ozzie Smith, Omar Vizquel, Alan Trammell, etc.
How do we reconcile these from such different eras?
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Well, you know, we'll "never" have an agreement or really reconcile players from different eras; it is fun to discuss though.
Now, while I was growing up I loved the defensive perspective of the game. It may be due to Brooksie being my hero growing up. Anyway, I saw Belanger and Ripken play and, in my view, Belanger was better defensively and of course Ripken was far better offensively. I've seen the modern shortstops play, like I said, I focused on that part of the game and defensively give me "The Blade" before any of those Ozzie, Omar, Trammell, etc. (even though they were exceptional shortstops).