[the 'stache]

Roger Maris is not a Hall of Famer. Are you kidding me? He won two MVPs. Okay. In one of those seasons, he broke Ruth's single season home run mark.

What else did he do? In the other ten years of his career, he received a grand total of 4 MVP votes (all in 1964); he finished in 25th place, receiving 1% of the vote.

A 5 + WAR is considered All Star caliber. In 1960, he had a 7.5 WAR. In 1961, he had a 6.9. His third best season, 1964, he doesn't even come close to All Star caliber. When a guy's third-best single season WAR is a 3.9 , I'm sorry, I don't care if he hit 100 home runs in 1961. Put a nice display for his historic season in Cooperstown, as they have; the player doesn't warrant induction. I'm sorry that he had such a rough time of it while chasing Ruth. That makes for fine melodrama, but it really isn't a consideration for Cooperstown.

Oh, and in 1961, Mickey Mantle was a vastly superior player to Maris. He had a 10.5 WAR (again, versus a 6.9 for Maris), and his OPS of 1.135 blows Maris' .993 out of the water. He won the MVP because of #61, even though Mantle was by every possible measure a better player. A 167 OPS + (Maris) is real good. A 206 OPS + (Mantle) is spectacular. Maris hit 61 balls out of the park, and he still couldn't lead the league in slugging percentage. Mantle did, at .687.

Stop this nonsense.