Golden Era Hall of Fame Ballot announced

[Exhibitman]

With Kaat there are certainly some 'if he is in then Kaat should be in' arguments to be made. I never thought of him as a HOFer but I never thought of Blyleven or Sutton as one either.

Hodges? I am for it because he was the 2nd most prolific slugger of the 1950s. Snider had 326 taters, Hodges 310; Snider had 1,031 RBIs, Hodges 1,001. And that was when 50 HRs was a Ruthian milestone. A decade as the #2 slugger in the game and the 69 Mets manager? I say HOFer.

Minoso has always been a favorite of mine. The racial context definitely helps his case in my mind. He was a Negro League star for three years then spent two years in AAA [really for no good reason other than the fact that clubs were not bringing up more than one black player a year and Doby and Paige were ahead of him at Cleveland], before being brought up at age 25 where he became an instant star for a decade. A good argument could be made that he was a NL star and then an MLB star for better than a decade. Plus a total character [Don Newcombe told me a great story about Minoso: There was only one restaurant near Vero Beach that would serve the black ballplayers, so all of them went there. Minoso was easily distracted and the game was to get him going and then slip food off his plate until it was gone. Newk said that Minoso got so mad one day that he spit all over his chicken and then challenged the other players to try and take it]. I'd certainly love to see him get in.

Tony "Wish They Could Have Scoped The Knee" Oliva I'd also vote for: three batting titles, five times leading the league in hits. Better to burn out than it is to rust...