Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Frank Robinson, Ernie Banks, and Rogers Hornsby never had 3,000 hits. Friday night, Rafael Palmeiro did what they couldn't. Yet Skip Bayless from ESPN.com says Palmeiro isn't a Hall of Famer. Say what?

There are nearly 200 players in the baseball Hall of Fame. Just 21 of them had 3,000 hits. Every player who has made the 3,000-hit club is either in the Hall, had a slight gambling problem, or like Rickey Henderson, Tony Gwynn, and Wade Boggs, will be making a trip to Cooperstown soon. Why exlude Palmeiro? Raffy won three Gold Gloves, has hit 566 home runs, and has spent no time on the disabled list in 19 seasons. The aggravating circumstances include Palmeiro never playing in New York, never participating in a World Series, and never grabbing headlines by making a fool of himself.

There's something about the player whose career flashes white-hot and then goes on his way--Sandy Koufax, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Jackson. Baseball writers love these players. "What ifs" get filled in (always positively), and a pitcher with 165 wins suddenly gets mixed in a discussion with Cy Young and Roger Clemens. Could our infatuation with the phenom cloud our view of the workmanlike, the consistent, and the durable? Rafael Palmeiro is all of those things. He's also a Hall of Famer.

The kind of flash in the pan players you mention are theatrical. The theatrical always gets more media coverage.

Koufax and DiMaggio - flash in the plan? Yeah, okay.

I don't think Koufax and DiMaggio were "flash in the pan" players. I said their careers flashed "white hot"--meaning they were great great--but that they did it for shorter periods than, say, Steve Carlton and Barry Bonds. This is especially true for Koufax, whose numbers were quite pedestrian until his last four years--which were obviously spectacular.

Skip is a fool. Raffy certainly deserves to be in the Hall of Fame. He has the numbers, one of the sweetest swings in the game, and is a class act.

I wasn't responding to your post, Dan but rather Ben-T's.

I was just putting it out there--for you and T (and the other readers)--just in case there was some misunderstanding. Basically, my point is that there are great players who dominate for a short period and then there are great players who may not ever dominate but because they are consistently near the top over the long period of time they find themselves in the Hall of Fame. Skip Bayless seems to be shortchanging this latter type of player.

Isn't a great player who dominates for a short time a flash in the pan? I'm honestly asking, I don't want to go around mis-using the term.

Players like Joe Charbeneau, Mark Fidrych, or even Tony Conigliaro each might be described as a "flash in the pan." They showed great promise, but lost it soon. They may have lost it because of injuries, but the phrase--flash in the pan--conveys a sense of flukishness.

Besides the 3,000 hits, what other member of the 500 home run club is not in the Hall? And reading Bayless' article, it's clear he's a nitwit. He somehow confuses popularity with the fans (i.e, All-Star status) with actual baseball skills. He pooh-poohs subjective factors like statistics and instead bases his assessment of Palmeiro on his "feelings" and other objective criteris; the man is an obvious Liberal! Bayless' comments remind me of Ty Webb in Caddy Shack who, when asked by the Judge how he measures himself against other golfers is he doesn't score replies. "By height". Sorry Skip, but where I come from, "feelings" are for clairvoyants and other charlatans; give me cold, hard statistics, particularly those like Raffy's any day of the week

Thom McKee

Bayless wrote for the Trib here in Chicago for a few years. I haven't read his article on Palmiero, but it sounds like the same Skip: writing 'provocative' articles that are in fact just dismissable. He strikes me as possessing that most irritating of vices in journalism: getting all worked up over some questionable news event, then when it turns out to be hyperbole, writing in slow, heavy tones about what 'we' sports fans/Americans do in jumping to such conclusions. Having him around during the stormy Sosa years was torture (I suppose he gives Sosa the Hall of Fame nod?).

Dear Beowulf, accurate assessment of Mr. Bayliss' writing style and talents. Give my regards to Grendel!

Raffy should absolutely be in the HOF. He is what? only the 4th or 5th guy to hit over 500 HRs and 3k hits? Why is this even an argument? I suppose the real reason why is b/c of thenineties early 2ks being thought of as a steroids era now.

Or the Viagra commercials could be holding him back.

The next Hall controversey will be designated hitters. Frank Thomas has a good chance of reaching 500 career HRs. That's benchmark has always made a candidate a "sure-thing" for Cooperstown. But "The Big Hurt" has been a DH most of his career. If Thomas gets in, the gatekeepers of the Hall will feel pressure to let Harold Baines and Edgar Martinez in.

My criteria for the HOF has always been …Was the player the one of the best in the era he played. Ways of measuring this would be leading the league in the various measurable categories, World championships, MVPs - seasonal or playoff. Now there have been exceptions to this measurement. Ozzie Smith comes to mind.
Rafeal Palmiero, Don Sutton and players of this type have accumulated stats because they have played at a better than average level for a long time. They were never the best or near the best when they played. I always thought that the Hall was for the very best, not the very good.
It will not be a great injustice if Raffy or Sutton gets in. It just lowers the standard for the future.
P.S. If those guys get in then let’s put Thurman Munson in.