- Sports radio loves to bring up Pete Rose. They love to get callers talking about his artifacts residing in the Hall. What neither likes to talk about is the fact that in MLB dugouts the first thing you see a sign posted that there is no gambling in baseball. He did, as a manager, a manager has a great impact on the game. He broke the #1 rule and it almost killed the sport. That’s why he’ll never get voted in.
- Mike Mussina brought up all his deficiencies, doesn’t have 300 wins, didn’t have 3.000 strikeouts and he basically proved the point of the writers who didn’t vote him in.
- Mariano Rivera is the great closer in the history of the game. He would go more than one inning on many occasions. He was great in the postseason, not infallible, but great. He is not the greatest pitcher of all-time. A closer can never be that. He learned about that when he attempted to be a starting pitcher. A starting pitcher is a much tougher job over the long haul.
- Ted Simmons is the biggest omission from the Hall. So are Fred McGriff, Gil Hodges, Dummy Hoy, and many others. Here is why I would fight for Simmons.
Simmons – 8-time all-star. Six seasons in top-ten hitting. A silver slugger. Five seasons in the top-10 OBP. 2,472 hits. He caught 1,771 games. More than Johnny Bench, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, and Mike Piazza.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_C.shtml
He’s 10thon this list. Other players behind him are in the Hall.
5. The Baseball Hall of Fame isn’t perfect. I really miss when the major league teams played the “Hall of Fame” game there. I attended that and Tom Seaver’s induction. Every baseball fan should attend at least one induction weekend. It’s tremendous but it takes a lot of planning.
