Roger Maris: Hall of Famer?

There is quite literally NO legitimate argument for keeping Ichiro out of the HOF.

 

Right, but he was managing terrible Washington Senator teams a lot of the time.

Look, the guy isn't Tony LaRussa or Joe Torre. I think we all can concede that.

But when you combine his playing record, including 370 home runs, eight All-Star games, three Gold Gloves (albeit at first base), and two World Series titles in which he played a huge role, plus the fact that he managed an inner-circle iconic team, the HOF feels incomplete without Hodges. Which is the same way I feel about Maris.

In other words, the parameters have become too rigid when you are excluding these types.

 

I'm for Hodges, not for Maris. But there is no way the Hall parameters are too tight. A hundred years from now, people are going to wonder what the hell we were thinking with some of the selections.

 

Cough... Tony Perez...

 

Every time I see his name, I think back to an old Sporting News cover, circa 1967, with a fiery red head: "PEREZ IS BURNING".

 

Every time I think of Tony Perez, I think of the 1986 Topps card of him where he's high-fiving Eric Davis. That card sold all over the place when Davis had that crazy start to the 1987 season. In the Beckett, the Perez card was listed as Tony Perez (Eric Davis).

So that future Hall of Famer was overshadowed by someone who had been in the league for three years.

Fuck Tony Perez.

 

Those 1986 cards were awful.

 

No kidding... Any of the years with black edges. They were impossible to keep in decent condition.