Hall of Famer (at least in my book)

About 1 hour from now, We will find out who this year's inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame are. Some years there is a lot of suspense - not so much this year. Three names overshadow all of the others. Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn, and Mark McGuire. Ripken and Gwynn are almost Certain shoe-ins. Both played long, illustrious carreers. Both hit more than the so-called "magic-number" (3000) of hits requisite for entry into the HOF. Both were known as "Good Guys", and even more strangely in this day and age, both stayed on a single team for their entire career. And of course who can forget the way Ripken shattered the consecutive games played record previously held by Lou Gherig. In a day where pampered Athletes complain about how hard their job is, and demand days off whether their team needs them or not (Manny Ramirez), or insist on attending their father's birthday party (which oddly is never on the same day every year, and sometimes their father even has TWO birthdays a year - Pedro Martinez), a player who showed up every day, didn't complain and seemed to recognize what a privelege it was to PLAY A GAME for a living certainly deserves to be recognized.

McGuire, on the other hand, almost certainly will not get in. Despite having tremendous power numbers and being the star of the chase to break Roger Maris' home run record that may have single-handedly done more to save the game of basebally than any other factor - he has been labled a cheater by the writers that control his fate. But I did not intend to write about McGuire because I honestly do not know how I feel about it. Some days I feel he deserves everything he gets, some days I think he should be in the HOF, and some days I simply feel bad for him. But I digress....

I would like to mention another guy who is on the ballot that is totally overshadowed by these three guys. This guy was probably the best player in the leage for an entire decade. This is another guy who played his entire career for one team. A guy who played NEARLY every game for nine years. A guy who was had over 100 RBI for 8 years. A guy who batted over 300 for 7 years. A guy who finished his career with a .298 lifetime batting average. A guy who would routinely get walked intentionally WITH THE BASES LOADED because he was so dangerous. He is not in the HOF already because he came 18 Home runs shy of the "magic" 400 threshold and only got about 2500 hits. Even though his average HR/season is higher than Ripkens, and his average Hits/season is higher than both Ripken and Gwynn, he fell short of these numbers because his career was cut short by injuries. But in an era that was not dominated by offense like the 90's and the 00's have been, he still put up very impressive numbers. And I think a guy who is one of the most dominant players in a league for an entire decade deserves to be recognized. Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer in my book.

For what it's worth, he was one of my favorite players as a kid - and one of the only ones that never disappointed me (Roger Clemens).