Jan. 6, 2010

Dawson? Yes, but Alomar's omission is a shocker

By Scott Miller | CBSSports.com Senior Writer
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Utterly, preposterously shocking.

I couldn't have been more stunned Wednesday had Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson opened the envelope and announced that the baseball Hall of Fame was packing up and moving to Iowa.

I mean, Andre Dawson, sure.

But no Roberto Alomar?

Come again?

Each man was on my ballot, as were Bert Blyleven, Barry Larkin, Tim Raines, Jack Morris and Alan Trammell.

Of those, I figured there was one slam dunk.

I easily envisioned a scenario in which Alomar was the only player elected.

I could see a scenario in which Alomar and Dawson each received the requisite 75 percent of the vote.

And I thought there was a very, very outside chance that Alomar and Dawson would be joined by Blyleven.

But a day on which Alomar, the best second baseman in at least the past quarter century, was left standing on the wrong side of baseball's pearly gates?

I couldn't have been more stunned had Idelson announced that beleaguered pitcher Charlie Brown would be the first cartoon character inducted this summer.

Dawson, in his ninth year on the ballot, is unquestionably deserving.

Alomar, it surely won't take him nine years to get inducted. With 73.7 percent of the vote Wednesday, Alomar should get enough of a bump in his second year of eligibility for enshrinement. So there is no outrage -- yet. Only arched eyebrows, a chin on the floor and lots of head-scratching.

"I do feel Roberto Alomar is a Hall of Famer," Dawson said during a conference call with members of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America shortly after the announcement Wednesday. "He was one of the greatest second baseman I ever saw play the game."

Me, too.

Alomar was every bit the wizard at second that Ozzie Smith was at shortstop -- and a far, far greater offensive threat. And yet Ozzie earned enshrinement in a first-ballot mandate.

It's next to impossible to upstage a Hall of Famer on his election day, but the snub of Alomar in what Idelson called "one of the tightest" votes in the 75-year history of the Hall did the trick.

Not that it much mattered to the ever-classy Dawson, whose Olympic Stadium-ravaged knees already have undergone two replacements with a third on the way, and whose career now has received the ultimate validation.

He was in the gym for a workout Wednesday morning around 6, then visited the Miami cemetery where his mother, grandmother and uncle are buried for some quiet time.

Did the spitting incident sway voters against Roberto Alomar? (Getty Images)

After the cemetery stop, he went home, watered his bonsai trees, had lunch and then took one of the greatest telephone calls of his life.

He reflected on his 10 years with the Expos, recalled how he nearly quit the game for good after just four seasons because he thought a fractured knee was too damaging and said had he not signed with the Cubs as a free agent in 1987 -- his greatest season -- he probably never would have come close to Cooperstown.

"I can honestly say probably not," he said, memories of Montreal's rock-hard artificial turf still vivid in his mind. "I don't know if I would have lasted any more than two or three years."

Instead, he lasted 10 -- six with the Cubs, including his '87 NL MVP campaign, two with Boston and two with the Florida Marlins.

Yes, his .323 on-base percentage is especially light for a Hall of Famer, but the Hawk also is one of only three players in the game's history with 400 or more homers and 300 or more steals (the others are Barry Bonds and Willie Mays).

What if he had played his entire career on natural grass?

"I think about that," he said. "And I think about healthy knees, also."

The day surely was most excruciating for Blyleven, who finished second in the voting with 74.2 percent, missing election by a mere five votes. Still, he was up from 62.7 percent last year, and that trend bodes well for his chances of being elected in 2011, his 14th year on the ballot.

But by far, the day's most inexplicable development was with Alomar.

Perhaps it was the ugly spitting incident with umpire John Hirschbeck in Toronto in 1996 that swayed some voters against him. But Alomar long since has apologized, and the two are on such good terms now that Hirschbeck phoned him recently to wish him well in the election. I've known Robbie since he was a rookie in San Diego in 1988, and I can tell you, that incident was completely out of character for him.

Perhaps it was the rapid decline at the end of his career, which included such a disappointing stint in New York in 2002-'03 that it still causes Mets fans to associate Alomar's name alone with something utterly disgusting, like eating spinach.

Whatever. The guy won 10 Gold Gloves, the most by a second baseman. He was named to 12 consecutive All-Star teams. He was a career .300 hitter. He swiped 484 bases. He collected more hits than two other second baseman whose plaques currently are hanging on the museum wall in Cooperstown, Joe Morgan and Ryne Sandberg.

He left his cleat marks all over the Oakland A's in the 1992 AL Championship Series and bruises all over the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1993 World Series.

And in his first year of eligibility, voters haul him out front to the curb with the rest of the recyclables?

I couldn't have been more stunned had Idelson announced that the Hall will open a special wing devoted to Michael Jordan.