Baseball Hall of Fame

With the 2011 Hall of Fame class set to be announced on January 5, the Twitter universe has been full of debate as to who belongs and who doesn’t. To be honest, I think who belongs in the Baseball Hall of Fame is the most debated topic in sports. People could go on for hours talking who should be in and who should be out and why.

Since I don’t have an official Hall of Fame vote and since this is such a heated topic, I thought I would fill out my ballot. Here is my Hall of Fame class of 2011.

On paper, Rafael Palmeiro is a sure-fire Hall of Famer. Unfortunately, in the real world he is not. He is the poster boy for the steroid era, and he in turn sullied the game the same way others like Rose and the Black Sox did.

Despite vehemently denying the use of steroids, he failed a steroid test, was named by Jose Canseco as a user and he was also named in the Mitchell Report. The amount of evidence against him is staggering, and because of that evidence, Palmeiro must be kept out of the Hall of Fame.

As we rapidly approach January, members the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) are filling out their ballots for the 2011 inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame.  With the Winter Meetings over, January's HOF announcement is the biggest story until pitchers and catchers report in about six weeks.

Mark McGwire was one of the most powerful, exciting hitters to ever step up to the plate. He was a focal point of an era that provided sports fans all over the world with the kind of entertainment that comes around just once in a lifetime.

If there's one team that has history, it's the New York Yankees. For over 100 years, a myriad of players have passed through New York, many of which have ended up in the Hall of Fame. However, while fans give all of their attention to the Jeters, Mantles, and DiMaggios, many forget the effective players who put up great numbers, but stayed out of the spotlight. That being said, I'm giving you readers a list of the 10 most underrated Yankees of the past 20 years!

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I have no problem with sports figures who are the personality equivalent of a stiff drink. Ted Williams is one of my all-time favorites. To me, Bobby Knight is a genius coach. If I shut down the moral center of my brain, I can even appreciate Kobe Bryant and Ty Cobb for their statistics and work ethic.

Ryne Sandberg was a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs and briefly the Philadelphia Phillies. Sandberg now manages a Phillies minor league team, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, and is a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame 2005 class.

Last Monday, Major League Baseball revealed the names of the 33 players on the 2011 Hall of Fame ballot. The list contains 19 first-year candidates along with 14 holdovers from previous seasons.

In order to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, a player must have spent at least 10 years in the Majors, with his final game coming in the 2005 season.

Making a Hall of Fame case for the legendary player, manager and world series champion

By Howard G. Ruben

For most hardcore Dodgers fans, the ongoing melodrama between Jamie and Frank McCourt has more than frayed our collective nerves, worn our patience and bored us to tears. 

The Baseball Hall of Fame's Veteran's Committee will vote on Dec. 5 to select any players, executives or other baseball personnel who have contributed sufficiently to the game since 1973 to merit induction. As it happens, 1973 was the year George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees. Though Steinbrenner died in July, his son Hal remains chairman of the Yankees today.