I get that. What I don't know is how they perceive Higuera. His career was brief but from 1985-88 years he was the best lefthanded pitcher in baseball. Never made the playoffs but the team did contend for 2 of those years.

That's not unlike Steve Busby in KC, who is in their club HOF, and was in fact in their inaugural class. He pretty much pitched just three seasons due to injury, but was brilliant in those three seasons. I wonder why Teddy is not beloved as Busby is in KC.

So...the other "Jim Gantner All-Stars"--the signature fan-favorite players for each city that are CLEARLY not going to get a whiff from Cooperstown (perhaps guys who are sub-5% on first ballot)? First-cut thoughts (consider there to be a question mark after all of these):

ARI Steve Finley
ATL Bruce Benedict? Ultimately, I think it's going to be Andruw Jones--as good a player as he used to be, I think he'll be one-and-done with the BBWAA
CHC Mark Grace
CIN Don Kessinger? Glenn Beckert? Ronnie Woo-Woo Vickers for the Imodium(TM) Hall of Irritation?
COL Dante Bichette
FLA Jeff Conine
HOU Jose Cruz
LAD Bill Russell
MIL Jim Gantner
NYM Ed Kranepool
PHI Johnny Callison
PIT Manny Sanguillen
SD Nate Colbert
SF Robby Thompson
STL Ray Lankford
WAS Eddie Yost?

BAL Elrod Hendricks
BOS Johnny Pesky
CHW Ron Karkovice
CLE Jim Hegan
DET Willie Horton
KC Freddie Patek or Mike Sweeney (because Quiz deserves HOF consideration)
LAA Garret Anderson. Also, Jimmie Reese
MIN Kent Hrbek
NYY Frankie Crosetti? Paul O'Neill?
OAK Sal Bando
SEA Alvin Davis
TB Ben Zobrist? Jason Tyner Bobblehead?
TEX Rusty Greer. Could also be Jim Sundberg
TOR Tony Fernandez

beloved as Busby

Busby is pretty beloved in Texas, too, where he has gravitated around the various Rangers broadcasting booths for many years. Simply a very likeable guy, spends a lot of time at events, talking with fans. Jim Sundberg, who's had a similar post-playing career, is also very gracious and personable.

I wonder why Teddy is not beloved as Busby is in KC.

Teddy was a Mexican left handed pitcher, short compared to the norm of his position (under 6 feet tall) and featured a screwball. It's not that this profile of a pitcher is not loveable, quite the contrary. But you have to be original about it. His middle name was even Valenzuela.

KC Freddie Patek or Mike Sweeney (because Quiz deserves HOF consideration)

Frank White. Sweeney is actually fairly polarizing because of his large contract. Patek is well-liked but largely forgotten.

Hal McRae and Willie Wilson could also be considered.

STL Ray Lankford

I'd say someone like Willie McGee is more popular? Lankford kinda represents their early 90s suck years. Or maybe Joe McEwing. I kid.

SEA Alvin Davis

Jay Buhner

BAL Elrod Hendricks

Mark Belanger

ATL Bruce Benedict? Ultimately, I think it's going to be Andruw Jones--as good a player as he used to be, I think he'll be one-and-done with the BBWAA

Mark Lemke

CHW Ron Karkovice

Ozzie Guillen

I'd say someone like Willie McGee is more popular [than Lankford]?

For sure, but Willie McGee achieved the distinction of being the most unattractive player to get 5% of Hall of Fame ballots from the writers. I probably included some 5%ers in the list above, but I knew about McGee.

Speaking of fits and starts, here's the Mets Hall of Fame:

1981 Joan Payson
1981 Casey Stengel
1982 Bud Harrelson
1982 Gil Hodges
1982 George Weiss
1983 Johnny Murphy
1983 Bill Shea
1984 Ralph Kiner
1984 Bob Murphy
1984 Lindsey Nelson
1986 Rusty Staub
1988 Tom Seaver
1989 Jerry Koosman
1990 Ed Kranepool
1991 Cleon Jones
1992 Jerry Grote
1993 Tug McGraw
1996 Mookie Wilson
1997 Keith Hernandez
2001 Gary Carter
2002 Tommie Agee
2010 Frank Cashen
2010 Dwight Gooden
2010 Davey Johnson
2010 Darryl Strawberry
2012 John Franco

Typical, of the first 10 inducted, 1 was a player.

I'm assuming Piazza will be in shortly, although he's not actually the leader in position player WAR among retired non-inducted players. That'd be Edgardo Alfonzo. After him it's Piazza, HoJo, John Stearns(!), and Olerud.

If you look at just hitting, it's Piazza, HoJo, Alfonzo, Lee Mazzilli and Kevin McReynolds.

The top pitchers, by WAR are Al Leiter, Sid Fernandez, Jon Matlack, David Cone and Rick Reed.

If I had to guess, the most popular picks after Piazza would be HoJo and Cone. Leiter was tight with the Wilpons, maybe that will get him in. Ron Darling might be helped by his broadcasting gig.

[Edited to respond to the "Jim Gantner All-Stars"]
I'd go with Mookie Wilson over Kranepool for a fan favorite. Most of the comments I see on Kranepool are complaints about Met records he held, but that could be from hanging out here.

CIN Don Kessinger? Glenn Beckert? Ronnie Woo-Woo Vickers for the Imodium(TM) Hall of Irritation?

I assume you just typed two lines of Cubs guys and put one next to CIN by accident?

For Cincinnati I think you'd be looking at Dan Driessen, maybe Bill Gullickson, Cesar Geronimo (unless you think Ken Griffey Sr is a Jim Gantner All Star, in which case he's pretty clearly the choice.) Chris Sabo was mighty popular, too. Eric Davis didn't get any HOF recognition (0.6%) but is not really the category you are asking about.

I would have guessed Glenn Hubbard as the captain of the Jim Gantner All Stars for Atlanta.

I assume you just typed two lines of Cubs guys and put one next to CIN by accident?

Yeah, mulitasking. I think those are CIN choices, though I would actually say Joe Nuxhall for them. Or even Pete Rose.

1977 Jim Wynn
1984 Joe Morgan
1999 Rusty Staub



I've always been fascinated how the Astros in the '60s had these 3 players, all of whom:

1)Could hit for pretty good power
2)Had pretty good batting eyes (all had seasons in their career where they walked 100+ times)
3)Were totally unsuited for playing in the Astrodome

Particularly in the cases of Morgan and Staub, nobody in MLB had any idea how good these players were until they got out of the Astrodome which was absolutely strangling their stats.

They also had John Mayberry, who hit .181/.284/.350 for the Astros, and then hit .298/.394/.507 his first year with the Royals.

Teddy wasn't beloved in Milwaukee because: 1. His english wasn't great (unfair, but true), 2. He signed a big contract and ultimately got injured shortly thereafter. The lasting images are of him jogging on the warning track with a jacket on all the time and somebody I think got a shot of him rehabbing in a hot tub and that didn't go so well as he's cashing those big checks (signed 3 or 4 year deal at $3ish million a year). It's not that he was despised at all, it just didn't end well, after such a great little run, for a club that was frankly spinning its wheels at the time with a fairly decent roster.

The Cubs are a tough one. None of the nominees really click. It would probably be Reuschel but I don't recall him being very active around Chicago. Randy Hundley possibly? Jody Davis although I don't know that he comes back very often. Sarge even though he wasn't there very long. But Santo absorbed so much of that post-career love among Cub fans,* and was heavily involved in charity fundraising, there really wasn't much left.

* also Banks but he's clearly above Jim Gantner status. So was Santo of course but it took the HoF such a long time to recognize that he was adopted into that role by Cub fans.

The White Sox on the other hand probably have a ton of candidates. The Cub marketing was always about a superstar or two surrounded by embarrassment. The White Sox had lunch pail guys and probably had 5-6 fan "favorites" at any time.

I've always been fascinated how the Astros in the '60s had these 3 players

I'm particularly amazed how the same team at the same time came up with perhaps the two smallest power hitters of all time.

For CIN, there's a case for Jose Rijo.

I'm particularly amazed how the same team at the same time came up with perhaps the two smallest power hitters of all time.

Mel Ott being the king, I guess, of that particular court.
BB-Ref has Brian Downing listed at 5'10" and just 170#, which seems... unlikely.

The Cubs are a tough one. None of the nominees really click. It would probably be Reuschel but I don't recall him being very active around Chicago. Randy Hundley possibly? Jody Davis although I don't know that he comes back very often. Sarge even though he wasn't there very long. But Santo absorbed so much of that post-career love among Cub fans,* and was heavily involved in charity fundraising, there really wasn't much left.

Gotta go back a ways, but Phil Cavaretta and Charlie Grimm fit the bill.