Speaking of Baseball in Montreal

There is an excellent story today on ESPN.com by Jeff Pearlman explaining why, unfortunately, Tim Raines won't make the Hall of Fame.

Pearlman is right on target with this one. Raines, while worthy of first ballot induction, will likely not ever make the Hall.

Rather than breaking down and dissecting a player's statistics in relation to the history of the game, most members of the BBWA make biased judgments based on insufficient comparisons of a player to their contemporaries (i.e., Raines vs. Henderson), and, when it is convenient to them, passing judgment on a player's character for old transgressions (i.e., Raines' abuse of cocaine in his early days).

Character judgement is an easy scapegoat for when the call could hypothetically go either way. Surely, in many writers' minds, Raines is one such player who could go either way. They sit on the fence. Hall of Famer, or not? Maybe... But then again...that whole coke scandal...

So they leave him off the ballot. Let's face it, Raines is no Paul Molitor, pardoned for all sins. Three-thousand hits will buy you a lot of free passes, even when you bring troubles upon yourself. Molitor got past his coke addiction and became a team leader, a great guy to have in the clubhouse. So did Raines. But he didn't have 3,000 hits.

Sadly, Pearlman is right. Raines won't make the Hall. But then, there were two guys who didn't think Tony Gwynn is a Hall of Famer. To that point, nothing is shocking. Hopefully Raines won't take it personally when the idiots pass him by.