Gammons: Bagwell deserves Hall of Fame call

[Reuben]

Bob Nightengale (sorry, I'm too disgusted still to go find it and link) says he doesn't believe in stone-walling proven OR suspected PED users, because we'll never know exactly who did what or how much or their competition was using. So ostensibly, he's voting just on what the player did, the numbers, etc.

Then, he votes for: Palmeiro and McGriff, among others.

...and does NOT vote for: Bagwell and McGwire.

How in the hell can a long-time, contemporary baseball writer be so dumb as to think that Rafael Palmeiro and Fred McGriff were both significantly better than Jeff Bagwell and Mark McGwire? Mystifying.

[Bench]

Jose de Jesus Ortiz (I always feel that I've got his names in the wrong order) will be hosting his HOF ballot discussion at Lucky's Pub today at 6:30.  If somebody is willing to transcribe the discussion, they would have all the pity in the world. 

[astrosfan76]

As far as Edgar is concerned that’s as much a vote for the DH. He was outstanding at a position that is not going away and needs to be recognized at some point. I’m very pro DH and think it needs to be adopted in the NL. But that’s another can of worms. I’ll re-evaluate Bags’ candidacy as time goes on. He has 13 more years.

I love this logic:  "I want to make a statement about the DH, so I'm going to vote for Martinez, every year that he's been on the ballot.  Bagwell, who has better numbers across the board (at least counting numbers), well, he has 13 more years.  So, no need to rush into things."

Now, Martinez was a heck of a hitter.  He hit over .320 for 6 consecutive seasons and missed having an OPS of 1.000 in each of those seasons by .006 in '98.  I'm not going to say that he's a "bad" pick.  But, using the HoF as a pulpit for pushing an agenda is shameful.  Bagwell still put up better offensive numbers while playing stellar defense.  Regardless of how he "feels", it's indefensible to say that Edgar Martinez is a first-ballot Hall of Famer while Bagwell is a third-ballot, at best.

[HudsonHawk]

Jose de Jesus Ortiz (I always feel that I've got his names in the wrong order) will be hosting his HOF ballot discussion at Lucky's Pub today at 6:30.  If somebody is willing to transcribe the discussion, they would have all the pity in the world.  

That doofus has often asked for folks to join his panel discussion, then recanted when he realized it may be folks from here, who actually have a clue.