Quote:
Originally Posted by G1911
The key difference being that Belle is a borderline hall of famer, while these 4 are far and above the general hall standard. They also were not as publicly reviled as much as Belle was. It doesn't take much to keep someone on the edge out.
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Actually, what Belle was able to do, and the hitting ability he had, are not borderline HOF type numbers, they are full-blown HOF worthy type stats. Belle suffered from a career cut short due to injury/health reasons, and thus was not able to reach the typical HOF plateaus you expect from hitters, like 500 HRs or 3,000 hits. If anything, Belle is comparable to Koufax in that during his peak years, there really was no one more feared as a hitter than him. Had he been anywhere near as nice and friendly with fans and the media as Koufax (and never caught using a corked bat), he would be in the HOF.