Slim Pickens on the 2009 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot

When it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame I am more of a purist, meaning I am one of these guys whop considers it to be the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of pretty good or even very good. Since Baseball has such a long and rich History one can determine who is Hall eligible largely on name recognition alone. For 2009 the Hall of Fame ballot is lacking a lot of that quality.

According to the Sporting News 2009 will be the first year on the ballot for; Ricky Henderson, Jay Bell, David Cone, Ron Gant, Mark Grace, Jesse Orosco, Dan Plesac, Greg Vaughn, Mo Vaughn, and matt Williams.

Of those names only Henderson's rings out as Hall Worthy, more on that in a minute.

They are joining; Harold Baines, Bert Blyleven, Andre Dawson, Tommy John, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire, Jack Morris, Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, Lee Smith, and Alan Trammell all who got enough votes last year to remain on the ballot.

Of these names only McGwire should be a shoe in, but his legacy darkened by a sickening display in front of Congress probably will keep forever out of the hall.

Keeping my emotions out of this, as a life long Detroit Tigers fan and considering that Alan Trammell was my favorite player as a kid, I can only make a case for Hall enshrinement for a few of these players.

Of the new players on the ballot only Henderson seems to be hall worthy. As the career stolen bases leader, the leader for most runs scored, and second all time in walks, that is a strong resume.

Beyond that making a case for any of these men is extremely tough. To me Jack Morris has the best case. Even though he is well short of the 300 win plateau that grants automatic enshrinement Morris who had the most wins of any pitcher in the 1980's and won a World Series with three different teams. Granted I may be reaching at straws here but that seems to be a strong case to me.

The problem comes in if Morris gets in, then Bert Blyleven who has more wins and more strike outs then Morris would deserve to be in.

In the end these players just didn't have the numbers to deserve enshrinement. They were all very, very good but that should not be the standard used for admittance to the Hall of Fame.

The stats used in this article were compiled from www.mlb.com, and www.ESPN.com