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ee3
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MCR
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CockAtLaw
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MCR
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Goo99
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MCR said...
I disagree about Murphy. Sometimes it's not about career numbers but about whether a player was the best in the game at any point.
Take Sandy Koufax for instance. From 1955 to 1961, Koufax was 54-53 with just under a 4.00 ERA. Then from 1962 to 1966 when he retired, Koufax was superhuman. He went 111-34 with a 1.98 ERA. He won 3 Cy Youngs and 1 MVP during that stretch.
He was a no-brainer Hall of Fame lock.
Dale Murphy was good at the beginning of his career. He hit over 20 HR his first 2 full seasons but he wasn't an All Star yet. Then during a period from 1980 to 1987, he was awesome. During those years, he hit .282 and averaged 33 HR and 96 RBI a season. He led the league in HR twice, RBI twice, had over 100 RBI five times, made the All Star Game 7 of 8 seasons while winning the NL MVP Award twice. Meanwhile, he played all 162 games in 4 straight seasons from 1982 to 1985 on bad teams and altogether he played in 154 or more games in 9 seasons. In 1983 he was a 30-30 guy before anybody made a big deal about being a 30-30 guy.
I'm not saying he should've been a first ballot HOFer, but his numbers, especially during the middle of his career, were as good as anybody's. Jim Rice was a great ball player who had to wait many years to get in near the very end of his eligibility. Let's compare and discuss how the numbers don't always tell the entire story.
Rice hit only 382 home runs to Murph's 398 and Rice's claim to fame was the long ball. His numbers in other categories were better than Murph's except Murph won 2 MVPs and Rice only won 1. Murph's detractors like to mention that he led the league in double plays a couple of times, although Rice actually led the AL 4 straight years in that category and for his career hit into 315 DPs, whereas Murph only hit into 209.
I'm not knocking Rice. He was one of my favorites growing up since the Sox were my favorite AL team and I knew Rice was a South Carolina native. However, his career and Murphy's were similar and he got in while Murph didn't. There was a time when Murph was almost undoubtedly the best player in the NL and I don't know that was ever the case with Jim Rice. It's a shame than Murph got snubbed, and I can only hope the veteran's committee will rectify this omission in the future.
"People always ask me if I wish I were bigger. I tell them no. I always wanted to be a miniature badass." Dustin Pedroia
El Guapo
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cockfool
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cockfool said...
Exactly right. The HOF is full of "cheaters". How many guys made it thru long stretches of their careers with aid of "greenies" to keep them going. Baseball has since banned the use of those things. Why? Because players were using a chemical substance to gain a competitive advantage on the field. Wow, sounds a lot like steroids doesn't it? Wonder how many of those things Ripken popped to help him play 12000 straight games? IF we learn that Cal was using those, will the holier than thou baseball writers demand that his bust be removed from Cooperstown?
Are they going to demand that Gaylord Perry be removed? I mean, that guy was the biggest cheat in the history of baseball. Only his cheating was whimsical and funny so we laugh at it instead of listening to grandstanding, douche bag writers bloviate about the integrity of the game.
Everybody stood by and pretended the juicing wasn't going on. Fine, but don't grow a conscience now and keep well deserving players out of the HOF when the hall is filled with cheats, reprobates and jerks, along with some wonderful human beings and genuinely good people.
The steroid era happened whether we like it or not and we can't pretend it didn't. Barry Bonds is the all time HR leader. Sorry, but he is.
SoCar2001
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cockfool
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SoCar2001
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cockfool
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Macklin
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CL4170
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cockfool said...
Baseball sat on their butts for years and willfully ignored a problem that was glaring and obvious. It was no big secret that baseball players were juicing. But baseball didn't care. "Chicks dig the long ball" remember? When Sosa and McGuire, who were all roided up and we all knew it, went on that magical summer long ride back in 1999 it was great for baseball. Everybody loved it because it made the game relevant again. All of these pious, sanctimonious baseball writers that are now refusing to have the HOF stained by the scurge of allowing a steroid user in were the same lapdog sycophants that sat in front Big Mac's locker everyday slurping at him like a school girl while he had bottles of Andro sitting there in plain view. But nobody cared. Baseball was cool again.
It was only when Barry Bonds started doing it AND it became obvious that he was going to chase down the most hallowed record in sports that they suddenly became the self appointed guardians of the games honor. He's an ass. They didn't like him. So all of a sudden, steroids mattered. Before Bonds, nobody gave a crap so I find it to be amazingly hypocritical of the baseball writers to now have this no steroids rule when they turned a blind eye to it for years. -
CL4170 said...
Tell me you aren't this naive.
His testimony about his personal use of banned substances was so intentionally evasive he took a felony obstruction of justice conviction as a result. His drug dealer spent almost 2 years in prison rather than testify against bonds. Recorded conversations between the dealer and bonds' agent specifically reference supplying him with steroids and masking agents.
I really don't care much if he was able to avoid detection by the intentionally worst drug testing system ever concocted. Guy was a cheating bastard and doesn't deserve a single accolade, much less the Hall.
cockfool
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MLB HOF sad day...