Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

Rickey Henderson in his first eligible year and Jim Rice in his last have both been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Henderson snagged 94.8% showing that Corky Simpson was not alone and should have taken my advice.

Rice made it in with 76.4 eeking in by 7 votes. This mean that other the war years Boston Red Sox had a Hall of Famer starting in left field in Fenway from 1939-1987. (Williams and Yaz being the others) a period of 43 years.

If you include Manny (who will certainly make the hall) that for the last 70 years 1939-2008 the Red Sox primary starting left fielder was a Hall of Famer 73% of the time(51 years). It would be interesting to see if any other team had a Hall of Famer for such a sustained period at one position.

Tommy John will have to wait for the Vets committee.

Update: Baseball musings mentions something about Rice that drove me nuts too:

but he would also drive me nuts in the following situation. The pitcher would be wild, walking Boggs and Barrett on eight straight pitches. Rice would come up, and he had to be thinking, “This pitcher has to throw me a strike.” He’d swing at the first pitch and ground into a double play. I really wanted him to let the pitcher fall behind in the count first, but Jim liked swinging early in that situation.

Yup that’s why I think it took the 15th ballot.

Baseball crank has thoughts and hopes it doesn’t help Dawson. I think the gold gloves speak volumes for him.