Arguing Mattingly vs. Hernandez
Man, the people who love Don Mattingly really loooooooove Don Mattingly. Often in amazingly nonsensical, ahistorical, provably wrong ways.
As you probably know, and I reminded you all here just last week, Mattingly is on this year’s Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot for the Hall of Fame. Good for him. He was a really good player who, at his best for about four years, played at a Hall of Fame level before back injuries slowed him down. There are worse players in the Hall of Fame.
Do I think he’s the best first baseman who could be on the ballot? No, I don’t. In fact, I don’t think he’s the best first baseman from a New York team who could have been picked. I’m not even sure he’s the best first baseman from a New York team who WAS picked, because Carlos Delgado, who finished his career with the Mets, was also picked for the ballot and there’s a very good argument to be made that Delgado had a better overall career than Mattingly.
But that’s not a thing that any Mattingly fan wants to hear. When John Heyman tweeted recently that many on the ballot are worthy “but Mattingly is long overdue,” I replied that Keith Hernandez would have been a better choice. And, man, did the Mattingly fans not like that. Here’s a representative sample.
