Don't cry over Robbie, save your tears for Bert Blyleven

Don't cry over Robbie Alomar, save your tears for Bert Blyleven
By Paul Hoynes, The Plain Dealer
January 06, 2010, 5:16PM
UPDATED: 5:16 p.m.

Chuck Crow / The Plain DealerRoberto Alomar was the best all-around player Paul Hoynes has ever seen, and he finished a handful of votes short of the Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Robbie Alomar deserved election to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot today by the Baseball Writers Association of America. He didn't get it, but he's still the best all-around player I've ever seen.

Weep not for Alomar. He has 14 years left on the ballot and should make it next year after receiving 73.7 of the required 75 percent of the vote. It's the most votes a first-year player has ever received and not gotten elected.

Rusty Kennedy / Associated PressJust five votes short of Cooperstown, Bert Blyleven has had to wait an unbelievable 13 years on the Hall of Fame ballot, says Paul Hoynes.The guy I feel bad for is Bert Blyleven, who received 74.2 percent of the vote. The winner of 287 games missed enshrinement by five votes in his 13th year on the ballot. It is small and cruel margin for a pitcher who threw 60 shutouts and 242 complete games in a 22-year career.

Blyleven, who pitched for the Indians from 1981-85, has two years left on the ballot. The five-vote shortfall is the fifth fewest in history, trailing Nellie Fox (four), Pie Traynor (four), Billy Williams (two) and Jim Bunning (two). Those four eventually made it to Cooperstown, but Bunning and Fox ran out of time on the BBWAA's ballot and were elected by the Veterans Committee, which can be its own box of snakes.

I watched Blyleven win 19 games for the Indians in 1984. I still don't know how he did it. They lost 87 games that year and finished 29 1/2 games out of first place.

Blyleven's shortstop was Julio Franco, who made 36 errors. His closer was Ernie Camacho. Manager Pat Corrales had to come out in the ninth inning of almost every save situation and punch Camacho in the chest to remind him to forget his curve, slider and change-up and just throw his 98 mph fastball.

"No, tricks, Ernie," Corrales would scream.

Writers vote the way they do for many reasons. I believe the growth and interpretation of statistics has become more and more a factor in the process. It's one thing to watch a player throughout his career. It's another to put his statistics through a series of mathematical hoops to prove a point.

Blyleven was a Hall of Famer the day his career ended in 1992. He's still one today even if five votes say he isn't. A look at the percentage of votes he's received over the last 13 years show how the writers have been slow to warm to him: 18 percent in 1998; 14 percent 1999, 17 percent 2000; 24 percent 2001; 26 percent 2002; 29 percent 2003, 35 percent 2004; 41 percent 2005; 53 percent 2006; 48 percent 2007; 62 percent 2008, 63 percent 2009 and 74.2 percent in 2010.

I watched Alomar for the three years he played in Cleveland from 1999 to 2001. There was nothing he couldn't do. He hit for average and power. He stole bases. He played defense as if he invented the concept.

Was he a diva? Certainly. He's still the only player I've seen who caused a clubhouse ruckus because he didn't feel his pitcher hit a Cincinnati batter as hard as he'd been hit by a Cincinnati pitcher. Still, to watch Alomar and Omar Vizquel play the middle of the diamond for three years negated a lot of pettiness.

Drama and Alomar were never far apart. There was the spitting incident with plate umpire John Hirschbeck. When the Indians traded him to the Mets after the 2001 season, his drop in production was startling. Then came a lawsuit by a former girlfriend that he had AIDS.
These things may have cost Alomar votes, but they won't keep him out of Cooperstown. He missed by only seven votes this year.

BBWAA writers with 10 years experience are eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame. They can vote for as many as 10 players on the ballot. Here's mine:

• Alomar: He could have won the AL MVP in any of the three years he played in Cleveland.
• Blyleven: I don't understand why he's had to wait so long.

• Harold Baines: Career .289 hitter with 2,866 hits. He would have been an automatic Hall of Famer with 134 more hits.

• Andre Dawson: The Hawk was the only player elected by the writers this year. The late Hall of Fame baseball writer Jerome Holtzman told me Dawson was one of the few players he'd ever covered who could inspire a bad team to be better than they were. Eight Gold Gloves, 438 homers, 1,591 RBI and 314 steals helped the cause.

• Barry Larkin: Shortstop with good power. He hit .353 in the 1990 World Series when the Reds upset Oakland.

• Edgar Martinez: Has there ever been a hitter who has scared more Indians fans than Martinez?

• Jack Morris: Like Blyleven, I can't understand why Morris wasn't elected a long time ago. Critics say his ERA is too high. All I know is he was the winningest pitcher in the 1980s. That means he dominated his craft for 10 years.

• Tim Raines: I missed his prime years with the Expos. The stats say he's the best leadoff hitter this side of Rickey Henderson.

• Alan Trammell: I was voting for Trammell before Larkin came on the ballot this year. Quality player for a long time.

• Lee Smith: Before Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera, there was Lee Smith and his 478 saves.