AL McGRAW Makes the Hall

Al McGraw none none Age: 37 B/T: L/L Born: Clayton, AL Position(s): LF/1B/RF/DH View Hardball Dynasty Profile

Big Al McGraw is the first player to make the Wrigleyville Hall Of Fame. He garnered 19 votes to Squeak in .The only reason this was close was not because of his batting average( .325). It was the fact that he only played 9 seasons. Here are a few comments from our fellow Wriglyittes.

Snowedin : what sucks for these hall of fame nominees is that they played for 10-12 ML seasons, but some of those seasons were prior to the world starting, so they dont get stats for that. if you look at someone like Al McGraw,who played 11 seasons (probably 10 legitimately as season 8 doesnt really count, but 7 seasons of stats...if you average his numbers and give him 3 more seasons worth of stats, he's a 500 HR guy. WORTHY of of hall of fame induction.

Sordie:  I tend to think you really have to had done something pretty fantastic to merit HOF inclusion with the abbreviated careers we'll be seeing in the next few rounds of nomination. McGraw's the only one out of this batch I think merits it.

JaredPaventi: True, but look at the real HOF. Phil Rizzuto, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez...all borderline. With some of these abbreviated season cases, aren't we more like the vets committee--picking on the merits and what ifs rather than stone cold stats?

Mark3313: I don't like to play the "what if game" because one should only be judged based on what they really did. Al McGraw played over 1000 games with a OBS over 1.091; combine that with 2 MVPs and he's a Hall of Famer to me.

rbedwell: I think the closest real life analogy would be the Negro Leaguers. Does Monte Irvin deserve to be in the HOF on the basis of his MLB years?No, definitely not. But his play -- primarily his reputation and the guesswork as to what he might have accomplished in MLB if he'd had the opportunity -- are what got him voted in. It seems to me that the same logic could apply here.

Sandberg10: I'm glad we had such a low number of Hall-of-Fame nominations. On that note, I think none of the nominees deserves to be inducted. The players with the best stats only played eleven seasons.

I for one voted for McGraw for the reasons stated in my HOF Preview. And I am happy to see he made it. Congrats Big Al on your Induction!!