By the way, plenty of great players weren't voted in: second baseman Ryne Sandberg (309 votes), outfielder Jim Rice (276), outfielder Andre Dawson (283), closers Goose Gossage (206) and Lee Smith (185) and starting pitcher Bert Blyleven (179) were the next highest vote getters - a player must receive 75 percent (379) of the vote to be elected.

Now there is something fans can do if their favorite player hasn't been deemed worthy of the Hall:

For as little as $5 per year, baseball-reference.com, the leading online compendium of baseball statistics, will sell you a sponsorship of one of its player Web pages (pages for superstars can cost as much as $200). In return, users can post a brief mash note above the career numbers of their favorite player in baseball history. What has emerged as a result is one of the great democratic blossomings of the Web: a collection of personal baseball testimonials. Taken together, the messages form not an online Hall of Fame but something more like a Hall of Love.

....A lawyer friend of mine has crammed a frantic Hall of Fame brief on behalf of Goose Gossage into the 255-character limit: "HOF case: (1) amazing 10-yr peak as RP: '75-85 (excl. yr as SP in '76), 2.06 ERA in 975 IP; (2) more dominant yrs than Sutter&L.Smith combined (check ERA+ for each!); (3) staggering longevity: almost 1600 IP in 21 RP yrs(Sutter&L.Smith total barely 2300)."

....In the Hall of Love, there is no such thing as failure, really, only thwarted success. Jose DeLeon was "[m]uch better than his W-L record indicated." Vic Davalillo "would have been the 1963 Rookie of the Year had he not broken his arm." Von Hayes "[n]ever received the respect he rightly deserved."

The sponsor of Nick Esasky, an ex-Red, writes, "Anyone who mocks him as a 'free agent bust' doesn't understand the seriousness of vertigo - imagine trying to hit a 95 mph fastball immediately after being spun around the teacup ride at the fair. God bless you, Nick."

Some of the best Hall of Love messages simply speak up for the players, such as they were. Rob Deer's citation just says "The Three True Outcomes of baseball" - a nod to Deer's uncanny talent for producing non-team-dependent events: home runs, walks, and strikeouts.

....Perhaps the most eloquent Hall of Love entry comes from someone named Bill Elenbark. His homage to an itinerant infielder transcends one man's career - it produces a sort of koan about the souls who batted after the cleanup hitter and before the leadoff man. "Between something and nothing," he writes, "there was Kevin Seitzer." [Slate]

Excellent! I love weird personal stuff like this. It emphasizes open-ended possibility: "if not for ... then ..." If Orel Hershiser hadn't been mediocre every other year, if Fernando Valenzuela hadn't been 10 years older than he said he was, if Albert Belle hadn't been a wretched asshole with a cramped soul, etc. What it also does is remind me of how special and precious those few are who don't disappoint, who don't surrender to the odds, the ravages of time, or self-indulgence.

All hail Dennis and Paul (for this year)!