Terry Mosher
Boy, I’m going to be really upset if David Arias gets in Baseball’s Hall of Fame before Edgar Martinez. And that is the way this thing is leaning as of right now
David Arias, by the way, is the guy who the Seattle Mariners signed in 1992 and played him in their minor league farm system until the fateful day in 1996 they made one of many trade mistakes in their history and traded him to the Minnesota Twins for Dave Hollins, a third baseman who played in about 50 games with the M’s and was then toast.
When David Arias arrived in Minnesota he asked to be called David Ortiz, taking the name of his mother, I believe. Of course you all know him now by the nickname he has now garned in Boston – Big Papi.
Popular Big Papi, as you also know, recently won the MVP of the World Series that Boston won by beating St. Louis in six games. Ortiz now holds most of the MLB’s designated hitter’s records and is virtually assured five years after he retires to be welcomed into Cooperstown.
But if Ortiz gets in Cooperstown before Martinez I’m going to be ticked. The DH award in the American League is not named after Martinez for nothing. I covered him all the years he played for the Mariners and he not only was a great designated hitter, but a wonderful guy.
Edgar Martinez
I know that just being wonderful doesn’t get you into Cooperstown without a ticket, but Edgar belongs there, and he belongs there as the second DH to land in the Hall (Paul Molitor, who started out at second base, but had his most productive years as a hitter as a DH is in the Hall).
There is an East Coast bias against Martinez for being a DH for most of his career. That East Coast thought is that only guys who played most of his career at a position (like Molitor) should be eligible. Edgar came up as a third baseman, but fairly quickly was turned into a DH.
My argument is that once baseball created the position of DH anybody playing that position is eligible to be in Cooperstown. You don’t create something and then say, oh by the way the creation is not eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame.
Edgar won two American League batting titles in 1992 (.343) and 1995 (3.56) and in 2000 drove in an AL-leading 145 runs while hitting a career high 37 home runs. He finished with 309 career dingers and a career .312 batting average.
I don’t know if I will live long enough to see Edgar in the Hall of Fame, but I do know that as long as I’m alive I will continue to vote for his induction into Cooperstown and hopefully he will finally get his due and get in.
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