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Fame game: Picking Cooperstown's Class of 2010

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Tracy Ringolsby

Tracy Ringolsby is a Hall of Fame baseball writer. He is in his 37th year covering Major League Baseball, is a co-founder of Baseball America, and is in his fourth year as pregame and postgame analyst for Colorado Rockies games on Root Sports.

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Updated Jan 4, 2010 3:50 PM ET
     
 
The easy part is voting for players deemed worthy of being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The hard part is leaving some candidates out.

It is not blasphemy to leave a player off the ballot.

There is a slight line between great and really good, and it’s the great players who belong in Cooperstown. It’s why the Hall of Fame requires any inductee to be included on 75 percent of the ballots cast by veteran members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, not a simple majority.

It’s not about personality. Remember, Steve Carlton and Eddie Murray were elected in their first year of eligibility. Dale Murphy is back for his 12th year on the ballot, and a year ago was listed on only 11.5 percent of the ballots cast.

It is about trying to analyze the career of a player, and their impact on the game.

Did they intimidate and dominate?

Were they really good or were they great?

The 2010 ballots have to be submitted by New Year’s Day. And on Jan. 6 the inductees who will be honored the final weekend of July will be announced.

In compiling a ballot for the 25th consecutive year, it’s obvious that one vote doesn’t ensure induction, but if one vote can make a difference then there are seven who will benefit:
  • Second baseman Roberto Alomar is eligible for the first time. It should be the last. He should be on stage in Cooperstown next summer. A 12-time All-Star, he dazzled at the plate (.300, 474 stolen bases and four Silver Slugger awards) and in the field (10 Gold Gloves).
  • Shortstop Barry Larkin is eligible for the first time. An offensive shortstop who spent his 19-year big-league career with Cincinnati, he also won three Gold Gloves to go with becoming the first shortstop to join the 30-30 club when he hit 33 home runs and stole 36 bases in 1996. He even hit .338 in 17 postseason games, including a sweep of Oakland in the 1990 World Series.
  • Shortstop Alan Trammell is on the ballot for the ninth time. It’s a travesty that not only has Trammell been denied induction the last eight years, but he hasn’t even been named on 20 percent of the ballots cast. He was the heart and soul of the Tigers of the '80s. He didn’t’ do back flips, but he won four AL Gold Gloves and was a middle-of-the-lineup run producer who was a six-time All-Star who shouldn’t be penalized for playing at the same time that Cal Ripken, Jr., was dominating the position in the AL.
  • Right-hander Bert Blyleven is on the ballot for the 13th time. His support has increased in nine of the last 10 years, and he was named on 63 percent of the ballots a year ago, second most (to Andre Dawson, 67 percent) for a player not inducted. He was durable (16 seasons of 200-plus innings), and featured a curveball by which others are still judged. He was 5-1 in three postseasons, including helping Pittsburgh win a world championship in 1979 and Minnesota in 1987.
  • Right-hander Jack Morris is on the ballot for the 11th time. His detractors point to a 3.90 ERA, but what they ignore is that he was the ace in virtually each of his 18 big-league seasons. He did, after all, make 14 Opening Day starts, tied for second on the all-time list, two behind Tom Seaver. He was 7-4 in four postseason appearances, including helping earn world championships for the Tigers in 1984, Minnesota in 1991 and Toronto in 1992.
  • Outfielder Tim Raines is on the ballot for the third time. He was overshadowed as a run-producing, leadoff-hitting, base-stealing, Gold Glove outfielder by Rickey Henderson. But then who wasn’t? That shouldn’t be held against him.
  • Reliever Lee Smith is on the ballot for the eighth time. He has been a victim of reluctance to endorse relievers. He is now third on the all-time list with 478 saves, but held the record at the time of his retirement. A seven-time All-Star, he had 13 consecutive 20-save seasons, including 10 with 30-plus saves and three with 40-plus.
That was the easy part.

The hard part was drawing a line that eliminated the likes of Andre Dawson and Dale Murphy, both of whom had careers similar to Jim Rice, who was elected a year ago in a decision that went right down to the wire.

The most discussed candidate has become Mark McGwire. There is a knee-jerk reaction that questions about performance-enhancing drugs are denying him induction, but that’s not a consideration.

Bottom line is his bottom line isn’t complete enough. He was one of the game’s great home run hitters, but so was Roger Maris. And while McGwire was adequate, at best, defensively, Maris was defensively elite, but even he was never enshrined.

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