Willie Mays

olen bases.  He was an excellent defensive player; his eight gold gloves leave him behind only Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente (each with 12) and Al Kaline, Andruw Jones and Ken Griffey Jr. (10 each) among outfielders. (Other outfielders with eight Gold Gloves are Jim Edmonds, Paul Blair, Dwight Evans, Garry Maddox, and Barry Bonds.)  Alomar, however, captured 10 Gold Gloves and had better overall offensive numbers (batting average – .300 to .279, runs – 1,508 to 1,373, and stolen bases – 474 to 314) despite playing a more defensive-minded position.  Not having watched The Hawk in his prime, I may be a bit biased, but all in all, Alomar’s stats put him in a class of ballplayer high above that of Andre Dawson.  Roberto Alomar will almost certainly gain election to The Hall next year, but in my view, if the writers wanted to send just one player from this year’s class to Cooperstown, they chose the wrong one.

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