Congrats to Andre Dawson... I shit on the sports writer association (or whatever their name is) for only 87 votes for Mattingly... His numbers are in line w/ most of the first basemen in the hall... He\'s deserves a spot in Cooperstown more than the spitter Alomar...
This conversation again?
The only Hall of Fame first basemen with lower career batting averages than Don Mattingly are Orlando Cepeda, who hit 379 home runs to Mattingly\'s 222, and Frank Chance, who played in a pitching-dominated era from 1898-1914. No Hall of Fame first baseman has scored fewer career runs than Mattingly, and no Hall of Fame first baseman who played past 1937 hit fewer career home runs than Mattingly. I will grant you that Mattingly may have been the best defensive first baseman ever with nine Gold Gloves (though, for what its worth, the Gold Glove has only existed since 1957, after the careers of most of the Hall of Fame first basemen had ended).
Mattingly is, in fact, the best first baseman not in the Hall of Fame (depending on your opinion of Mark McGwire), but that doesn\'t mean he deserves to be in.
I disagree... There are 18 first baseman in the hall and he ranks higher than a handfull of them in hits, home runs, RBIs and batting average. I don\'t take the era in which they played as a factor since he accumulated those numbers having played a substantially less number of seasons than most of the first baseman in the hall:
Mattingly\'s Hits - 2153 (Frank Change - 1273, Hank Greenberg - 1628, George Kelly - 2054, Harmon Killebrew - 2086 and Johnny Mize - 2011)
Mattingly\'s HR - 222 (Cap Anson - 97, Jake Beckley - 86, Jim Bottomley - 219, Dan Brouthers - 106, Frank Chance - 20, Roger Connor - 138, George Kelly - 78, George Sisler - 102 and Bill Terry - 154)
Mattingly\'s RBIs - 1099 (Frank Chance - 596, George Kelly - 870 and Bill Terry - 1078)
Mattingly\'s BA - .307 (Orlando Cepeda - .297, Frank Chance - .296, Harmon Killebrew - .256, Willie McCovey - .270, Eddie Murray - .287 and Tony Perez - .279)
It\'s a futile argument because they\'re never going to elect him to the hall, but he may not have 3000 hits or 500 HRs, but he deserves to be in cooperstown w/ the rest of the pinstripe legends...