HOF is a Joke

[baztacula]

Originally Posted by rats60

Would you say the same about Ozzie Smith?

http://baseballhall.org/hof/mazeroski-bill

Bill Mazeroski is widely regarded as one of the best fielders the game has ever seen, at any position. Not only could he make the routine plays, but he could make plays no one else could and could make them look routine. Teammate Vern Law said, “Maz would constantly come up with balls we thought were base hits. You’re running over to back up a base and here Maz has got the ball and he’s throwing that hitter out.” Bill Virdon recalled what it was like playing behind him in center field. “The impressive thing about Maz was that he did everything at second base. I backed him up for six years and never got a ball,” Virdon said.

Teammate Bob Friend recalled, “He was one of a kind out there. Maz did so many things that never showed up in a box score.”

“Over 17 years, saving thousands of runs is like driving in thousands of runs. It’s the same thing. So, what’s the difference?”

"It's an honor just to be put in Maz's class. I don't mean to sound corny. For years, I've watched Maz make the tough play look easy. The way he makes the double play is a thing of beauty. "
– Glenn Beckert

http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/a5cc0d05

Years later Alley confessed that he was intimidated seeing Mazeroski take groundballs during spring training. He thought, “If you had to be that good in the majors, I’ll never make it!”

Bill was known for his quick feet around the bag but was also nicknamed “Tree Stump” because sliding baserunners usually were unable to take him out. Dave Giusti recalled the time a young Ron Stone of the Phillies went into second with intentions of taking Mazeroski out. As Giusti described it, Stone went in and upon contact, slowly melted into a clump and was rewarded with three broken ribs.

Mazeroski was that good defensively. Like I said before, I think Whitaker is a Hofer, but he is no where close to the 6th best 2B and he is not better than Mazeroski. I would take the runs he saved over the ones Whitaker created.

I'm going to take it easy on you since you support Whitaker, which I respect. All I'll say is that if I was a Pirates fan during the Maz years, I'd groan every time he stepped up to the plate, just like Tigers fans did during the Brandon Inge era. Both were great defensively for sure. But that's not enough. In fact, Inge was arguably a better hitter than Maz (.685 OPS to .667 for Maz) and there is absolutely, positively no way in anyone's lifetime that Inge should get within 1000 miles of the Hall of Fame.