Baby, remember my name
Lee Smith: Though he was the all-time saves leader (478) when he retired in 1997, I don't think Big Lee, typically a one-inning-and-done specialist with a 3.03 career ERA, belongs. Then again, I don't think Bruce Sutter belongs, either, and he's in. For what it's worth, the three modern closers I believe should be in the Hall of Fame: 1) Goose Gossage. 2) Mariano Rivera. 3) The Eck. The rest we can argue about.
Mo Vaughn: He was Big Papi before Big Papi, albeit with considerably more self-destructive tendencies and considerably fewer superheroic postseason feats. It's easy to forget now since so much history has happened since he departed, but Mo had a string of truly outstanding offensive seasons with the Sox (his lowest adjusted OPS from 1993 to '98 was 139), and his outspoken and charismatic personality eased the burden on his more introverted teammates (hello, Nomar). The end came several seasons too soon for him to receive legitimate Hall of Fame consideration, but if we were voting solely with our hearts, ol' Maurice would be working on his speech right now.
* * *
As for today's Completely Random Baseball Card:
He definitely has one of the coolest baseball names of all time . . . at least until you discover his real first name was Leslie.
About Touching All The Bases
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Irreverence and insight from Chad Finn, a Globe/Boston.com sports writer and media columnist. A winner of several national and regional writing awards, he is the founder and sole contributor to the TATB blog, which launched in December 2004. Yes, he realizes how lucky he is.
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The best of Touching All The Bases
- Vote for Pedro
- The best day ever
- Sports talk radio-active
- David Ortiz has done it again!
- Better man
- End of the idiots
- U gut male
- Questions we'd have asked the Texas Con Man
- Anniversary of an Angel
- The Air Coryell Chargers
- The top 10 Maine Guides
- The 1985 L.A. Clippers
- The day Yankees fans discovered TATB
- 'Without a doubt, I'll be part of the Celtics' tradition'
- The empire strikes out
- Shortstops: The boy band
- For Greenie, and Brian Denman, too
- The Big Ticket comes to Boston
- Do not bat this man second
- TATB Live: World Series, Game 4
- Josh Beckett, and that time I was right about everything
- Eau de Intangibles
- The loneliest number
- Sleep through the static
- Shining moments
- This place is meant for me
- I don't like the drugs but the drugs like me
- Red Sox All-Time Dirtbag Team
- Live from Ft. Myers
- Quiz me
- Turn, turn, turn
- Fireworks on Cloud 10
- Two great seasons
- Happy trails, No. 11
- The enemies list
- Ultimate Patriots Quiz, Part 1
- Ultimate Patriots Quiz, Part 2
- Guess that '70s Ballplayer, Part 1
- Guess that '70s Ballplayer, Part 2
- Guess that '70s Ballplayer, Part 3
- Guess that '70s Ballplayer, Part 4
- Reeling in the years
- Daddy's girl
- It was the best of times . . .
- As Teixeira turns
- Dave Bourque
- The 20 most important Red Sox
- Tito's parting thoughts
- About last night
- A brief tribute to ancient pitchers
- Manny moments
- Pied Papi
- Superiority complex
- Seventeen so sweet
- Lefthanded compliment
- I'm a believer
- Greed is god
- The truth hurts
- Buckle up
- Sweet and glow
- Into the sunset
- Reed it and weep
- A mere immortal
- In Bill we trust
- Good, better, best