{"id":1920,"date":"2010-01-07T18:53:46","date_gmt":"2010-01-08T01:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/blog\/?p=1920"},"modified":"2010-01-07T18:53:46","modified_gmt":"2010-01-08T01:53:46","slug":"wheres-robbie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/07\/wheres-robbie\/","title":{"rendered":"Where’s Robbie?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Roberto Alomar, arguably one of the greatest second basemen to ever play the game didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t garner the necessary 75% of voters needed.<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Before I begin, I mean what follows to be in no way a slight on the career of Andre Dawson.\u00c2\u00a0 When I was growing up, Dawson was one of the first players who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t play in my hometown that I became aware of.\u00c2\u00a0 I loved watching his power. \u00c2\u00a0It was an incredible sight when he uncorked that cannon of an arm.\u00c2\u00a0 He retired in 1996, and, knowing that he was a borderline Hall-of-Fame candidate, I waited patiently for the day that he would take his rightful place in Cooperstown.<\/p>\n

This past Tuesday, that day came.\u00c2\u00a0 The Baseball Writers of America voted to elect Andre Dawson to the Hall of Fame.\u00c2\u00a0 The only problem?\u00c2\u00a0 He went in alone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Roberto Alomar, arguably one of the greatest second basemen to ever play the game didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t garner the necessary 75% of voters needed.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it.<\/p>\n

As a Yankee fan, Alomar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unique combination of speed, power, and defense terrified me.\u00c2\u00a0 Rightfully so.\u00c2\u00a0 In his seventeen seasons, Alomar batted .314 against New York.\u00c2\u00a0 He amassed a .375 OBP, knocked 148 hits, scored 89 runs, knocked in 67, and popped 32 doubles.\u00c2\u00a0 His success against the Yankees was a microcosm for the type of achievement that characterized Alomar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entire career.<\/p>\n

Over seventeen seasons, Alomar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s numbers speak for themselves: .300 batting average, .371 OBP, 2724 hits, 1508 runs, 210 HR, 504 doubles, 1134 RBI, and 474 SB.\u00c2\u00a0 On top of all that, Alomar was voted to twelve All-Star games.\u00c2\u00a0 He won ten Gold Gloves, four Silver Sluggers, and two World Series titles.\u00c2\u00a0 In 1999, Roberto Alomar led the American League with 138 runs scored.\u00c2\u00a0 For a decade, Alomar was the best second baseman in baseball.<\/p>\n

Yet, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s somehow not a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Take a look at how Alomar stacks up against his historical peers.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of the recent second basemen inducted into the Hall of Fame are Ryne Sandberg, Joe Morgan, and Rod Carew.\u00c2\u00a0 Sandberg retired after the 1997 and was inducted in 2005.\u00c2\u00a0 Compared with Alomar, in 16 seasons, Sandberg only accrued more homers (282), while totaling a lower batting average (.285) and OBP (.344), less hits (2386), runs (1318), RBI (1061), doubles (403), and stolen bases (344).\u00c2\u00a0 In 19 seasons, Carew, a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, built up a higher batting average (.328), OBP (.393), and number of hits (3053), but he accumulated less runs (1424), homers (92), doubles (445), RBI (1015), and stolen bases (187).\u00c2\u00a0 In his twenty-two seasons, Morgan surpassed Alomar in runs (1650), homers (268), stolen bases (689), and OBP (.392), while falling short in the categories of batting average (.271), total hits (2517), doubles (449), and RBI (1133).<\/p>\n

Perhaps Alomar\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lack of an MVP award separates him from the list of second baseman above?\u00c2\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>Sandberg won his MVP in 1984, Carew in 1977, and Morgan garnered two consecutive titles in 1975 and 1976.<\/p>\n

To this argument, I submit Bill Mazeroski.\u00c2\u00a0 Alomar far exceeds Mazeroski in all categories: .260 average, .299 OBP, 2016 hits, 769 runs, 138 HR, 294 doubles, 853 RBI, and 27 stolen bases.\u00c2\u00a0 Mazeroski may have won a World Series game with a home run, but he never won an MVP.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, after waiting 29 years, he can add \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hall-of-Fame baseball player\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to his r\u00c3\u00a9sum\u00c3\u00a9.\u00c2\u00a0 Roberto Alomar can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n

Maybe the incident where Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck blocks the second baseman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s path to Cooperstown?\u00c2\u00a0 However, men of questionable ethics and character proudly line the venerable walls of the Hall of Fame.\u00c2\u00a0 Ty Cobb, who received more votes than any other man on the inaugural Hall of Fame\"\"<\/a> ballot, was a dyspeptic and violent bigot, equally famous for using his spikes to tear up the shins and calves of opposing middle infielder as he was for his excellence as a ball player.\u00c2\u00a0 Juan Marichal, often touted as a bastion of pitching excellence, beat an opposing pitcher with a bat a la Robert DeNiro in The Untouchables<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase Denzel Washington in Philadelphia<\/em>, explain this to me like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a five year old.\u00c2\u00a0 Roberto Alomar is generally agreed to be one of the greatest second basemen of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 His career numbers exist on a level either equal to or above those of Hall-of-Famers who played his position.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, he falls short of the Hall by less than 2% of the votes?<\/p>\n

Ultimately, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure Alomar will make it to Cooperstown.\u00c2\u00a0 He just shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to wait 29 years to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Roberto Alomar, arguably one of the greatest second basemen to ever play the game didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t garner the necessary 75% of voters needed. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[43,41,42,40],"class_list":["post-1920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-alomar","tag-hof","tag-mlb","tag-robertoalomar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}