Sports Q: Who are 3 former MLB players who should be in the Hall of Fame?
Chad Finn makes the case for three players who should be in Cooperstown.
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Who are three former MLB players that you think should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame? Not including ineligible (Pete Rose/Joe Jackson) or players currently on the ballot. I’ll start: Kenny Lofton, Dwight Evans, and Lou Whitaker. – Shane S.
I’m with you on two, Shane — I’ve been beating the drum for Evans and Whitaker — for years. The BBWAA (of which I am a member, but not yet a voter) generally does a very serious and thorough job with the balloting. But Whitaker, one of the best dozen second basemen of all time, getting just 2.9 percent of the vote in his only year on the ballot was a shame. And Evans was on the ballot for just two years, another oversight. I think both will eventually get in via the Hall of Fame committees, but they should have been in before.
Lofton has an interesting case — six-time All-Star, four Gold Gloves, over 2,400 hits — but he doesn’t quite get past the threshold for me.
My third slot would go to Luis Tiant. I don’t usually like saying that if this guy should get in, then this guy should too, because we’d all end up making cases for the 100 or so players that are better than Harold Baines and came nowhere close to Cooperstown. But Tiant was very similar to Catfish Hunter statistically, and as one of the great big-game pitchers and charismatic characters in the game’s history, the Hall of Fame would be better with him in it.
I’ll hear arguments for Dale Murphy, though he probably fizzled out too soon. Thurman Munson? Kind of shocked he was elected decades ago, actually. Don Mattingly? Fizzled out too soon because of the back injury. Dave Parker? He wasted too much of his prime, unfortunately.
So for me, it’s Dewey, Looie and Sweet Lou. But what does everyone else think? Who are your three former players that belong in the Hall of Fame. I’ll hear you in the comments.
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