Thursday, August 5, 2010

Will A-Rod make it into the Hall of Fame?

I wrote something for The Faster Times about Alex Rodriguez's 600th homer, and whether A-Rod will make it into the Hall of Fame. Eighteen months ago, I thought there was no way Rodriguez would make it into Cooperstown, after he admitted to using steroids. Now, I'm not so sure.

After all, who would have thought fifteen years ago that people would talk about how George Steinbrenner should be a Hall of Famer? And just five years ago, it was more likely to see Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden honored at Yankee Stadium's Old Timers' Day, as opposed to anything connected with the Mets. Now they're the latest members of the Mets Hall of Fame.

Anyhow, I think A-Rod will eventually make it into the Hall. Read my piece to see my thoughts on the issue.

What do you think? Tell us about it!

17 comments:

Uncle Mike said...

Lisa, this is a difficult subject, and worthy of a solid and thorough examination, which is why I provided my answer in Uncle Mike's Musings, rather than give you blog-clog. I've been accused of many things in my time, but making a long story short is not one of them.

Basically, my answer is that he will get in, and probably should, but that I won't celebrate it the way I did for certain other Yankees.

Anonymous said...

If Gay-rod gets into the HOF, then he better be preceded by Pete Rose.

Anonymous said...

No, just based on PED'S and flaw in his character. The latter should be used to deny other players as well

Anonymous said...

LET"S ALL GO THE MOVIES TOMORROW, for the opening of "The Other Guys" part of it filmed at Nathan's in Coney Island. Starring, Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, and guy named Derek jeter. YES, he has a bit part as homeless man. WOW!!

kcourtsclayton said...

Yes, Alex will get into the Hall of Fame. Regardless of the PED admission, he will go down as one of the best to ever play the game.

Alex is an easy target right now. Negative headlines are really simple to write. Two weeks ago, the headlines stated that "No one cares about the chase for 600." One week ago, the headlines blared, "A-Rod fails again." Now, the headlines read something like, "Congrats* (on your tainted milestone)".
So, in the current climate, Alex will never win; however, many years down the road, he will be looked at very differently. None of us can say what will be going on in baseball in 15 years but I feel certain that it won't be full of hand-wringing by the BBWA over Alex Rodriguez. He will be held up as a giant of the game. Count on it.

Anonymous said...

Derek plays a homeless man. I guess some things you see in the movies IS based on the truth.

Uncle Mike said...

Well, they were going to get David Wright for the part, but then they remembered the character is homeless, not clueless.

Anonymous said...

If you want clueless, hire Joe Torre. You guys named him yourself: Clueless Joe.

Uncle Mike said...

Yankees under Joe Torre: 12 seasons, 12 postseason appearances, 6 Pennants, 4 World Championships -- 1 by beating the Mets and clinching at Shea Stadium.

Mets under all of their managers, including Joe Torre for 4 years: 48 seasons, 7 postseason appearances, 4 Pennants 2 World Championships.

Who's clueless, Freshy?

Lisa Swan said...

Uncle Mike, feel free to post direct links to your articles. Unlike those wacky spammers we sometimes get stuff from, I'm not worried about links from your site!

BTW, I wrote an article a few years ago about Tom Seaver's 300th win -- and that whole Holy Cow incident!

http://www.nydailynews.com/features/thestadium/the_greatest/notsogreat-holy-cow.html

Anonymous said...

Clueless Joe had nothing to do with it. All he did was sit in the dugout, pick his nose, sip tea and wait for George to sign another check.

Uncle Mike said...

So I guess someone else was the manager back then? If Joe really was "clueless," then what does that say about every manager the Mets have ever had?

Anonymous said...

Gee, I don't know Mikey, what does it say? We're not talking about the Mets managers here, we're talking about clueless Joe and his sleepwalking sidekicks. Clueless Joe did absolutely nothing to affect the numbers you mentioned. What did? Cash, briefcases full, buckets full, dump trucks full, lots and lots of cash. Torre was the beneficiary of excessive spending, he was just in the wrong place at the right time. A say "wrong place" because no one really WANTS to be associated with the Yankers, but when you're getting that much cash thrown at you, it's hard to say no.

Want further evidence that clueless Joe sucks as a manager? Just look at the wonderful job he's doing in Dodgerland. 4th place, 7 games out of first, wow that man is all-World! He should have his own wing in the Hall of Fame, yeah.......

Uncle Mike said...

Every Met manager since the Wilpons bought the team in 1980 has had buckets of cash. Peter Angelos dumped buckets of cash on the Orioles. First Fox, then the McCourts dumped buckets of cash on the Dodgers. How's that worked out?

It's not how much you spend, but how. You need a good scouting system, or you're going to buy $135 million worth of junk. Really, for a Met fan to complain about how much money the Yankees spend is like Fidel Castro calling Winston Churchill an authoritarian who smoked too much.

And as anybody who knows anything about baseball knows, the real reason Torre hasn't won a Pennant in Los Angeles is because of the Curse of Donnie Baseball. But he must've done something right there, because he got the Dodgers to win two postseason series, something they hadn't done since... oh, I have to bring this up... 1988, when your Flushing cokeheads and boozehounds choked in October. And who had baseball's highest payroll then? Or even New York's highest payroll? Think it was the Yankees? Are you sure?

Anonymous said...

"It's not how much you spend, but how". Really? Maybe the Yankers should try to impress everyone, and silence the critics, by slashing their payroll by 50% (they'd still have one of the highest payrolls in the game) and play "smart" ball, like you are suggesting. If the Yankers could maintain their success with half of their current payroll, I would personally be impressed, and forever quiet. Am I worried about that? Absolutely not, because without $206 million backing them up, the Yankers are going nowhere except last place.

"the real reason Torre hasn't won a Pennant in Los Angeles is because of the Curse of Donnie Baseball." Yeah, just like the Red Sox had the "curse of the Bambino", and we all know how that ended up (choke, choke). If that was true, then if Torre fires Mr. Mattingly, he should win the WS the next year, no?

Keep smoking the whacky weed Mikey.

Lisa Swan said...

I agree with UrinalFresh23 about Joe Torre, at least when it comes to the later years of the dynasty. Joe was once an asset; then he became a detriment as Yankees manager in later years.

And Manny Ramirez, not Torre, was the top reason Los Angeles got to the playoffs two years in a row.

It's funny, Larry Bowa's been out there spinning for Joe about how the Dodgers don't listen to the coaches. Um, doesn't that kind of put a lie to the idea that Torre was some great leader for them?

Anonymous said...

Thank you Lisa

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