Davis was inducted in 2017, in his 11th year of eligibility. For years, the debate around Davis centered around, as you note, whether he had been good enough, for long enough*. And, the fact that Gale Sayers was in the HoF, with a similar injury-shortened career, was regularly referenced by Davis’s supporters as justification for his inclusion.
he had a good rookie season, then three exceptional seasons, including breaking the 2000-yard-season milestone, then finally three seasons in which he played little, due to the injuries.
I was thinking about racing drivers, but trying to match with the criteria is tough. If 6 seasons in Formula 1 is short enough, then Senna, if “everyone is expecting big things out of him once he gets out of the minors” then Adam Petty.
If guys like Jim Brown and Gronkowski are being nominated…
I’ve got to go with 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis.
He played for eight seasons, the last limited to six games due to injury. In his seven full(ish) seasons he was 1st-team All-Pro five times, 2nd-team once, was voted to the ProBowl all seven, led the league in tackles twice, including his rookie year in which he won Defensive Rookie of the Year.
He was certainly the best 49ers linebacker in my lifetime, likely ever. He was probably the best inside linebacker in the league for most of his career.
Senna’s F1 debut was in 1984, so he had 10 full seasons before he was killed near the start of his 11th.
A better candidate, looking back a bit further, would be Jim Clark, whose first F1 race was in 1960, giving him 9 active years to his death in 1968. Both Senna and Clark are definitely in the pantheon of all-time greats.
Then there was Fangio, who had 24 wins in 51 starts between 1950 and 1958, with a year out in 1952.
You could always Google it but for the record Starling played Rugby League, a Balmain boy.
Herb Elliot
The dominant middle distance runner of his age, running sub four minute miles 17 times. Never beaten over 1,500m or the mile.
In 1958 aged 20 he broke the world mile record by nearly 3 seconds (3:54.5) then shortly after broke the 1,500m record by a similar margin (3.36.0)
At the Rome Olympics 1960 Elliot won the 1,500 breaking his own world record. (3:35.6)
That time would have won gold in 10 of the 14 Olympic finals run since.
Fidrych is an interesting case. He absolutely had a wonderful season in 1976.
I do not believe he would have ended up being an all time great had he stayed healthy - at least, I think the odds were stacked heavily against him. Fidrych in his big rookie year pitched 250 innings and in those 250 innings struck out just 97 men, which is 3.5 men per nine innings. That was very low even for 1976. I cannot think of ANY modern starting pitcher who was successful for a long period of time who struck out so few men. Batters’ batting average on balls in play against Fidrych was 27 points lower than the AL norm, which isn’t a sustainable skill.
There are other pitchers who’s had big success in their rookie and sophomore years with low strikeouts rates. Virtually all of them blew up in a few years.
I thought of Senna and Clark, too. I knew each died in his prime, but had to look up how long their careers were.
I’ll check on Mark Donohue when I have some time. He raced in several different series so I’m not sure where to consider the beginning of his career. If you just count Can-Am, it’s probably only a few years.
He’s widely regarded as one of the greatest athletes of his era.
He is most famous for his his performance in the 1912 Olympics, the only Olympics he ever competed in. He won gold in the pentathlon, and he dominated the decathlon, the first one he had ever competed in, including the first javelin event he had ever competed in. Then he dominated the decathlon in the AAU championships later that year. Then had his amateur status revoked due to having played baseball in a semi-pro league. Never competed in track and field again.
After that, he bounced around several Major League Baseball teams, playing parts of 6 seasons between 1913 and 1919. He also bounced around a number of semi-pro American football teams between 1913 and 1920, before the NFL was founded. He was a founding member of the APFA in 1920, which became the NFL in 1922. He played only 52 games in the APFA/NFL between 1920 and 1928. He also played for a semi-pro barnstorming basketball team during the 1920s, but few details of that are known.
Prior to all of that, he also played four years of collegiate football, where he was widely regarded as a dominant player at several positions, and two years of collegiate track and field, where he also excelled.
Although his total athletic career was fairly lengthy, that was because he played so many different sports. He’s in the halls of fame for Pro Football (only 52 games over parts of 9 seasons), college football (a full collegiate career but that’s only 4 years), American Olympic teams (was only on one), and the national track and field competition (only two years of collegiate track and field competition and one AAU appearance).
