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Posted By: Chris Counts

Picking HOFers is clearly tricky business. All the Bill Jameses in the world can't measure a player's effectiveness only with stats. Still, the Hall of Fame is filled with players, who under no possible logical argument, were better than would-be HOFers like Bert Blyleven (compare him to Don Drysdale), Ron Santo (see Fred Lindstrom), Andre Dawson (see Ross Youngs), Lee Smith and Goose Gossage (see Hoyt Wilhelm and Bruce Sutter), Jim Kaat (see Rube Marquard) or Alan Trammel (see Dave Bancroft). Hell, was George "Highpockets" Kelly any better than Steve Garvey, Don Mattingly or Will Clark, all of whom played the same position and put up better stats in eras not as favorable to hitters.

The reality is that the Hall of Fame has been watered down by personal friendships since at least about 1945, when a flurry of old timers went in. It could be possibly be argued there is a place in the Hall for guys like Jimmy Collins and Tommy McCarthy, but how can the Hall explain all the ex-teammates of Frankie Frisch that made it in while he was presiding over the Veteran's Committee? (Bancroft, Youngs, Lindstrom, Kelly, Leo Durocher, Jesse Haines, Jim Bottomley, etc.) It seems to me that the bar has already been set lower than many baseball fans would like, so why not accelerate the enshrinement of players as good as Frisch's cronies? Why not require the voters to elect a couple guys at the least every year? What harm would there be in seeing the well-deserved plaques of Blyleven, Santo and Dawson hanging in the Hall?

By the way, why is Minnie Minoso not in the Hall? The Chicago White Sox should take advantage of their recent success and publicity to shine a spotlight on Minnie's unquestionably impeccable five tool credentials (look up his stats and check out his age when he was finally "allowed" to play in the majors). As far as I'm concerned, the Hall is a lesser place without Minnie ...