The 16-member Contemporary Baseball Era Committee on Sunday elected former big league first baseman Fred McGriff to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Whenever I hear McGriff's name, the first thing I think of is the Tom Emanski defensive drills video, which, of course, has McGriff's "full endorsement":
The irony is, McGriff was not a particularly good defensive first baseman. He's been elected to the Hall of Fame because he could hit the damn ball.
In 19 seasons, he totaled 493 home runs and collected 2,493 hits. He finished in the top 10 of MVP balloting six times and was chosen to the All-Star team five times.
McGriff had 10 seasons of 30 or more home runs, and he hit 30-plus homers for five different franchises. He was a member of the 1995 World Series champion Atlanta Braves. He had 1,550 RBIs in his career, and finished with a .284/.377/.509 career slash line.
In order to be elected by the Contemporary Baseball Era Committee, a player needs 12 of 16 votes, or 75% of the ballots. McGriff was unanimously chosen.
Don Mattingly (8 votes), Curt Schilling (7 votes) and Dale Murphy (6 votes) were others who received consideration and fell short.
Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Albert Belle and Rafael Palmeiro were also on the ballot, but all received less than four votes.
No comments:
Post a Comment