The stat I simply can't get past when considered his HOF credentials is the 60 shutouts. Nowadays that's 2 full seasons of complete game shutouts. Not only is it 9th all-time, but the first 5 guys on the list were deadballers for either their entire career (Young, Mathewson, Alexander) or for the part of their career during which they registered the vast majority of their shutouts (Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander).
The only players whose careers started after 1911 who've pitched more shutouts are Spahn (63), Ryan (61), and Seaver (61). That's heady company. Ryan needed nearly 100 more starts than Blyleven to get that extra shutout, but then again he didn't have very good stuff.
And it's not a tortured statistic like "quality start," it means that 60 times in his career the opposing team couldn't do jack squat against him. More often than Gibson, Carlton, Palmer, Feller, Perry, Niekro, etc, etc., etc.
Last edited by Anthony S.; 01-05-2011 at 04:49 PM.
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