Building Ernie Lombardi's Legacy

It’s really difficult for players to get into the Hall of Fame if they don’t have that one calling card on their playing résumé. That award, or record-breaker, or postseason moment that is forever etched in time and associated with them.

Remember the trouble Alan Trammell had getting elected? He went 15 straight years on the BBWAA ballot without climbing past 40% of the vote. This was despite having career numbers that were a spot-on match for the Hall of Fame averages for shortstops:

The averages exclude only Trammell’s numbers and Willie Wells’ incomplete Negro Leagues stats.

Turn about 60 of Trammell’s homers into triples and he was precisely the average Hall of Fame shortstop, but a majority of the writers didn’t see it that way. And part of the reason for that was that Trammell didn’t have that singular thing about him.

He’d never been an MVP, or Rookie of the Year, or reached a particular statistical milestone, or broke a meaningful record, or had a preposterous games played or hitting streak, or hit a postseason walkoff homer. He had some wonderful moments, like winning the World Series MVP in 1984 and basically winning Game 4 of that series single-handedly, but that Detroit team was a juggernaut and the Padres they defeated weren’t, and Trammell was viewed as just one important piece of their championship instead of the driving reason behind it.