So you are saying Frank Thomas is better than Mickey Mantle?

I would just like to re-iterate, I do think Thomas is a HOFer. I just don't think he will be voted in on the first ballot.

Certainly as good as Mantle offensively. If Mantle was a 1st ballot, so is Frank.

Mickey Mantle was cream of the crop, top 10 HOF'er. Great CF'er, great arm, speed, the total package. Frank Thomas isn't even close to the player Mickey Mantle was.

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

Rogue never said he was an equal overall player, just offensively.

He said if Mantle is a first ballot HOFer, then so is Thomas. That sounds like saying they are equal.

Certainly as good as Mantle offensively. If Mantle was a 1st ballot, so is Frank.

There is not a damned thing wrong with people who are bull shitters.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

They should waive the five-year rule to induct Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz together. It'd be a nice way to restore some goodwill and, more importantly, tourism money.

I am not a legal expert, how many times do I have to say it?

I think Glavine juiced, and I don't think Smoltz is a HOF'er.

Disagree on both. Tom Glavine & John Smoltz are HOFers.

The first thing to do is to ban–for life–every writer who submitted a blank ballot. You wanna ‘protest’ the candidacies of admitted steroid users like Clemens and Palmeiro? Fine, it’s childish but whatever…you can still vote for deserving candidates like Biggio and Bagwell. Kenny Lofton, who had a fine career and is as deserving of a spot in the Hall as recent inductee Roberto Alomar, received just 3.2% of the vote and will no longer be on the ballot, period. The second thing to do is to ban every single writer who covered a team as a beat reported during the 1990′s. If you were in those locker rooms, if you were travelling with the team, if you saw the mass accumulation of pills and maybe heard a little rumor about syringes and PED’s, and turned a blind eye on it. If you waxed poetic about Sosa and McGuire during their HR record chase but didn’t say anything about drug rumors swirling about these players, if you derided Canseco when he came out naming names, you don’t deserve to vote against these very same players that helped make your career.

Furthermore, every writer who has ever written a glowing article or book about Mays, or Aaron, or Ruth, or Cobb, or Larson, or any of a hundred other players who ‘cheated’–by the standards of their day, whether it be cutting bags the way Cobb did (never mind the fact that he was a racist, beat a bellhop to within an inch of his life and actually murdered someone), or took amphetamines the way Mays and Aaron did, or dropped acid the way Larson did…then you shouldn’t have the right to make a moral stance on players who were doing something that wasn’t explicitly banned and tested for in baseball until the early 2000′s.

Clemens is the greatest pitcher in the history of the game. Bonds is the second greatest baseball player ever (third, maybe, but that’s as low as I’ll go). They put up numbers, compared to their contemporaries who had access to the same chemical enhancements as they did, that are mindboggling. Bonds’ early-2000′s seasons, 2003 and 2004 in particular, are beyond comprehension, he was so far and away the best player of his generation it’s not even funny. To elect to exclude these players from a baseball museum that highlights the greatest the game has to offer is wrong. Period.

Thanks for basically regurgitating my post from... like 2 posts ago

I found this over on one of those sites that JORR frequents. I like it.

I think if there were 100% certainty that Frank wasn't juiced, he would be a 1st ballot guy. But there are going to be enough voters who will have doubts...

Mantle was better offensively than Frank also, if you look at the difference in eras. Just look at adjusted OPS.

Bagwell was a punch and judy guy in the minors who turned into He-Man.

I also don't agree with his presumption that Bagwell was clean. I'm highly suspicious of Bagwell.

I am not a legal expert, how many times do I have to say it?

He had a couple of good years, but nothing tremendous.

It's more fun to be a victim

There will never be an effective vaccine. I'll never get one anyway.

False. Flat out wrong.

He had a 5-6 year stretch that were as dominant as anybody in the history of the game had at the plate. Fact.

Those voters can go fuck themselves.

I would vote for Bonds on the strength of his "Pre-PED" days alone.

Clemens is the same.

False. Flat out wrong.

He had a 5-6 year stretch that were as dominant as anybody in the history of the game had at the plate. Fact.

Yeah, no way.

He was a monster, and then once the whole steroid scandal hit, he broke down and was nothing.

Edgar Martinez doesn't have 2 MVP awards (should be 3) or 500 career HR's.