Rogers Hornsby
Nap Lajoie
Joe Morgan
Jackie Robinson
Ryne Sandberg
Roberto Alomar
Craig Biggio
Lou Whitaker
Willie Randolph
Chuck Knoblauch
Chuck Knoblauch but not Eddie Collins? Is that possibly defensible?
This one was way tougher than the first basemen:
Rogers Hornsby
Nap Lajoie
Jackie Robinson
Eddie Collins
Joe Morgan
Rod Carew
Ryne Sandberg
Bobby Grich
Roberto Alomar
Charlie Gehringer
The first seven were gimmes, as far as I was concerned. The last three spots were a toss-up among the three guys I actually put in there, along with Jeff Kent, Cupid Childs, Joe Gordon, Biggio, Tony Lazzeri, and Larry Doyle.
Rogers Hornsby As a general rule if your career batting average is over 350 and you had power, I’ll vote for to the hall of fame.
Nap Lajoie: Hitting 338 with speed generally works too.
Eddie Collins: Or 328. We will find the lower limit eventually.
Charlie Gehringer: Still looking
Jackie Robinson: The dude could play some ball.
Joe Morgan: He probably doesn’t understand why he was great, but he was.
Craig Biggio: If you are unsure on Biggio’s candidacy look at two numbers. HBPs and GIDP. The amount of extra times he got on base with HBPs (the most ever) and the lack of times where he caused double outs on his at bats (In 1997 in 744 PA he grounded into no double plays) put him over the top. Perhaps the best player ever at the little things that generally go unnoticed.
Roberto Alomar: Has there been anyone else who has been a star for so many teams. Just an all around great player until he reached New York.
Rod Carew Good enough of a hitter to make up for other faults.
Ryan Sandberg Tenth sounds about right.
That had me laughing, well played sir.
Without reading anyone else’s list, I submit the following choices (bolded names indicate players I actually saw in person or during live broadcasts, while others are based on reputation):
Roberto Alomar (most Gold Gloves and second-most Silver Slugger awards at the position make him hard to overlook, although it would be interesting to see where he’d rank if these honors both had been around since 1900 or thereabouts)
Rod Carew (crowded out at first, he should make it as a keystone sacker)
Eddie Collins
Bobby Doerr (my dad, who considers the 1948 Indians the ultimate baseball team, has convinced me of this Red Sox star’s worthiness for the hall)
Frankie Frisch
Rogers Hornsby
Napoleon Lajoie
Joe Morgan
Jackie Robinson
Ryne Sandberg
Since Biggio played significant numbers of games at several different positions, I look forward to voting for him in a “Wild Card” round.
Just missed: Joe Gordon, Bill Mazeroski, Davey Lopes
Jackie Robinson only got 1500 hits. That is way short of hall stats.
If you want special cases baseball owes McWire and Sosa a bunch. They brought the game back when it needed help. They have been tossed down the crapper. But I think baseball should recognize what they did for them. If Mark would have fessed up in front of congress he would have gotten love. He tried to skate and paid big.
I think we have to agree to disagree here. Baseball did not need the McGwire-Sosa home run chase; attendance was fine. There’s no comparison at all between an attendane bump in St. Louis and Chicago for one year versus the desegregation of the entire sport.
The exclusion of blacks from baseball was a disgrace to baseball and its end, in my humble opinion, was the best thing that has ever happened in the entire history of the major leagues.
As a smarter man than me once said, there’s a lot of players with more hits than Jackie Robinson, but there aren’t many players with their own postage stamps.
And yet John Olerud is one of the ten best first basemen to ever play the game?
Yes that proves Jackie is in the top ten. Well argued.
Would you like to compare Robinson’s stats and skillset to Olerud’s relative to other players at their respective positions?
Did Grich’s 300 hits in 7 more seasons somehow put him over that magical number?
One more hour to vote, and it’s REALLY CLOSE.
Joe Morgan
Nap Lajoie
Charlie Gehringer
Frankie Frisch
Craig Biggio
Ryne Sandberg
Jackie Robinson
Rod Carew
Eddie Collins
Rogers Hornsby
Our results are in, and ladies and gentlemen, we have a tie, and we will be inducting eleven new members into the SDMB Baseball Hall of Fame!
Although I didn’t think this was likely, it happened; Craig Biggio and Frankie Frisch tied for tenth (and just barely missed tying Robbie Alomar at that) and since there’s no tiebreaker rule, they’re both in. Since this means we’re ahead a second baseman… well, that’s okay. Jusat one less great second baseman available for choosing in the wild card,
In all 26 players got a vote, but here are your Hall of Fame inductees:
Rogers Hornsby
Ryne Sandberg
Jackie Robinson
Joe Morgan
Rod Carew
Eddie Collins
Charlie Gehringer
Napoleon Lajoie
Roberto Alomar
Frankie Frisch
Craig Biggio
This vote includes our first two genuine dead ball era inductees, which is nice to see. In case you are wondering the closest runner up was Bobby Grich.
Congratulations to all our inductees, who recieve a nice plaque, provided they or their living relatives come to my house and ask for it and pay me for it besides.
And thank YOU for creating our SDMB Baseball Hall of Fame. Vote #4, for shortstops, begins now:
Please keep voting!