Ummm… nevermind. While McGrath’s column made it sound like Mattingly and Murphy were his only choices, he states in the comments that he actually submitted a 10-man ballot.
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Taking the Hall of Upstanding Citizens standard to a new plateau is the Tacoma News Tribune’s John McGrath. Faced with the burden of being a guardian to Cooperstown, he submitted a two-man Hall of Fame ballot of Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy.
Of course, he spends most of his column writing about Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa and never provides any sort of reasoning for why Mattingly and Murphy, two of the ballots weakest holdovers, are more deserving than contemporaries Fred McGriff, Tim Raines and Alan Trammell, not to mention a local favorite like Edgar Martinez.
Well, maybe there’s some reasoning:
I’m prepared to select as many as 10 players on my ballot whose achievements did not mock the notion of integrity, sportsmanship and character. The headache is part of the bargain. It won’t kill me.