Vegas Watch has compiled a list of reasons voters have offered in support of their selections for the Class of 2008. Some of them are pretty funny if you’re willing to separate yourself from the fact that these folks are entrusted with something that a lot of people hold sacred.
Jeff at Brew Crew Ball goes so far as to claim that he hates the Hall of Fame. That’s a bit strong for my taste, but I totally understand it.
Here’s how I look at the situation. For me, baseball is almost like religion. The ballpark is my church, and Cooperstown is …read more

Dan McLaughlin has a nice article up at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) on the Hall of Fame worthiness of Tim Raines. In it, Dan compares Raines to other great “tablesetters” — guys whose skills were best suited to the top of the order — throughout baseball history.
The most important finding is that Raines hangs pretty well with his contemporaries — Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Paul Molitor. I didn’t get to see Henderson and Molitor play much until later in their careers, but I watched a lot of Gwynn and Raines. As a huge Gwynn …read more

As I’ve mentioned on several different occasions, I drove from San Diego to Cooperstown in July to see Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. At long last, I have photos — 158 of them, in fact — to prove it. Click on the montage below to view the entire set. Enjoy!

I teased last week with a brief recounting of my trip to Cooperstown to see Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. enshrined in the Hall of Fame. Now I’ve got something a little more fully formed up at Hardball Times. Enjoy!

Okay, I’ve attended some crazy events in my day, but Cooperstown was complete madness this weekend. I got to watch a few outs of the annual minor-league game played at Doubleday Stadium on Saturday before the rains hit (Aberdeen ended up beating “hometown” Oneonta for those interested), wander around the museum, and see a little of the “red carpet” event that evening — basically a bunch of Hall of Famers and their families get together for dinner and arrive via trolley, then enter the museum on a red carpet to the cheers of thousands. Not exactly my thing, but it …read more

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m driving from San Diego to Cooperstown to see Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. inducted into the Hall of Fame. Transmissions may be sporadic for the next 10 or so days, but I will try to check in as often as possible with updates from the road. Wish me luck…

Center fielder Ichiro Suzuki has signed a 5-year, $90 million contract extension that will keep him in Seattle through 2012. I expected him to get somewhere in the $18-20 million per year range on the open market, for 5 or 6 years, so this seems pretty reasonable to me.
Ichiro often draws comparisons to Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, and although Gwynn was a much more productive player throughout his career, there is one area in which both players are very similar. Both are severely overrated by a certain contingent of the fan base, and severely underrated by another. This is …read more