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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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One man’s Hall of Fame vote

Posted Jan 6, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Jan 6, 2010 at 07:01 PM

The Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot allows voters to vote for as many as 10 players, and this year I used all my votes.

I know, seems a bit much. But as I learned in 2009, voting for the hall is not as easy as it seems. At least it’s not as easy as I thought it was until the first time I actually held a ballot in one hand and a pen in the other.

I didn’t use all 10 votes in 2009 – my first year as a voter – and I wished I had the ballot back almost as soon as I dropped it in the mailbox.

There were one or two players I felt I should have voted for in 2009. Maybe I overcompensated this time around.

But I’m of the belief if a player is Hall of Fame-worthy, he should get a vote the moment he appears on the ballot. I don’t believe in waiting a year or two or three to start voting for one player.

That’s me.

Others who have held a vote longer than I might, and in some cases, will disagree. And I might change my mind, too, over time. We’ll see.

Here are the 10 I voted for this year:

Roberto Alomar The best second baseman of his generation. Won 10 Gold Gloves and four Silver Slugger Awards. Yeah, I know he once spit in the face of an umpire, but that umpire was willing to forgive and so was I.

Bert Blyleven I know he has 250 career losses and only one 20-win season, but he threw 60 shutouts, pitched 200 or more innings in 16 of his 22 big league seasons and won more 1-0 games than any pitcher in the past 80 seasons. To me that says, “Hall of Famer.”

Andre Dawson The lone player elected this year by the Baseball Writers Association of America received my vote, as well.

Barry Larkin I listened as his former manager, Lou Piniella, made a case for Larkin at the Winter Meetings last month. A 12-time All-star, three Gold Gloves, nine Silver Slugger Awards, the first shortstop to join the 30-30 club, hit .300 or better nine times. Piniella thinks Larkin is a Hall of Famer, and I know from the years I covered Piniella with the Rays that he’s pretty honest when it comes to his opinion on a player.

Edgar Martinez Again, listened to Piniella talk about his former DH, and Piniella said Martinez was the best right-handed hitter in the AL for much of the 1990s. I’m not going to hold being a DH against the person considered to be the best DH in history. It is a legitimate position. If Martinez is the best, he should have a home in Cooperstown.

Fred McGriff One of the most consistent power hitters in baseball history, though his numbers pale in comparison to those who benefited from what we know call the Steroid Era. It’s almost as if McGriff is being punished for being clean. McGriff finished with 493 career home runs. There was a time when that total was a lock for Cooperstown. Not anymore.
Among McGriff’s numbers are: 12 seasons with 90 RBI, eight seasons with 100 RBI (tied for fourth all-time among first basemen) 10 seasons with at least 30 home runs (tied with Lou Gehrig for fourth all-time among first basemen) and 15 seasons with 20 or more home runs, 14 times as a first baseman, most all-time. He also played the third-most games by a first baseman in baseball history.
I kind of think those are Hall of Fame numbers.

Jack Morris I was told recently that if you’re going to vote for Curt Schilling than you better vote for Morris, and I plan on voting for Schilling. I always thought of Morris as one of the top pitchers during his time, and that is usually enough to get a guy in the hall. The guy had 254 career wins. I know his .390 ERA would be the highest in the hall, but 254 wins! I know one game doesn’t make a career, but his performance in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series – 10-inning, 0 runs – is a snippet of how good Morris could be.

Dale Murphy Here is one guy who I kind of hedged on placing a check next to his name. A two-time MVP, seven-time All-Star, Murphy was among the top players in the game during a significant part of his career. If I’m going to error here, I’m going to error on the side of Cooperstown.

Tim Raines Not a great fielder or hitter but there are some who feel Raines was the best player in baseball during a five-year stretch during the 1980s. I don’t think there was an American League or National League manager who didn’t want Raines in his lineup.

Lee Smith Closers don’t get much love from voters. Look how long it took Rich Gossage to reach the hall. But I tend to value the role of a closer. How many World Series titles do you think the Yankees would have won since 1998 without Mariano Rivera? When he retired after the 1997 season, Smith was baseball’s all-time saves leader with 478. That’s good enough for me.

You might have noticed I didn’t vote for Alan Trammell and that kind of bothers me. I will seriously rethink that when my ballot arrives in the mail this December.

So, that’s how I voted.

Feel free to disagree or agree.