Alan Trammell

The 2011 Baseball Hall of Fame vote was announced today and a couple of things struck me. First, I agree 100% with the selections of both Robbie Alomar and Bert Blyleven. I wasn't always a supporter of Blyleven but I'll get to that in a minute. Another thing which struck me was Barry Larkin getting 62.1% of the vote - which bodes well for him getting to the 75% needed for induction next year. Good for Barry! He deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

All of the above is fine and good but wouldn't normally be enough for me to take the time to comment on. What struck we tonight was a couple of graphs and an old story which combined to urge me from my inaction.

First - the graphs.

These graphs compares Barry Larkin, Roberto Alomar, Alan Trammell and Derek Jeter. I added Derek Jeter into the mix because I think most people who follow baseball would agree that Derek Jeter will get elected into Cooperstown. So that makes the graphs a comparison between a Hall of Famer, a player who probably will get voted in next year, a guy who is almost a guaranteed lock and then also Alan Trammell - a guy who just got 24.3% of the vote on his 10th year on the ballot. Take a look at those graphs and tell me that Alan Trammell isn't almost exactly the same as the other players.

This brings me to the story.

Aristotle was perhaps the smartest man of his age. He is still studied today. Yet Aristotle wasn't always right. For instance he believed that since a man is bigger than a woman then logically a man must have more teeth than a woman. The problem is he never bothered to check. Any dentist can tell you that a man and a woman have exactly the same number of teeth. The brilliant Aristotle looks stupid for not checking.

I feel Aristotle's pain because I'm guilty of not checking as well. First it was not checking on Blyleven's case for the Hall of Fame. I changed my mind a while back on that but it wasn't until I saw the above graphs that it struck me how equal Alan Trammell was to the other players he was being compared to.

I don't have a Hall of Fame vote but if I did - I'd vote for Alan Trammell.