You might disagree, and you might even huff and puff in outrage, but the reason the Chicago Cubs beloved third baseman Ron Santo isn't in the Hall of Fame - and likely will never be unless he takes a bulldozer and crashes the joint - is pretty obvious. If you want to know, read on dear followers ....
OK, so Swami wishes to get a few facts out of the way as basically irrelevant.
Sure, Santo's hitting and fielding records make him a borderline Hall candidate and to be generous (and the Swami is nothing if not generous), we could vote him in just because of his physical problems. Why be cruel to the daffy Patron Saint of Cubdom? Swami was a sucker for Old Yeller, too. Who didn't cry? You? Of course, you did.
So, why is he not in, and why is it more unlikely with every passing vote that he ever will be?
First, in the same general era, the statistics of Ernie Banks made him a natural. And outfielder Billy Williams of the legendary perfect swing can't be ignored. So they're in.
And, of course, you couln't leave out pitcher Furguson Jenkins, even with his unfortunate escapade with pot. Too many wins to ignore.
But the gate swings closed in Santo's case because that would be a fourth member of the Hall of Fame from a team THAT NEVER WON ANYTHING. As much as Hall voters rely on individual statistics, they also leaven their attitude with common sense. A collection of really great players should have won a pennant.
And they probably asked themselves, if we vote three postion players into ther Hall plus a starting pitcher from the same team in the same era, shouldn't that team have been good enough to win SOMETHING? ANYTHING? Or maybe many of the records were hollow. Home runs and RBI when the Cubs were down by 10 and so far out of first place they needed a long distance call to reach it..
Then, there's the judgment of contemporaries. The Swami was a fan in those days, too, and he never remembers Santo being considered a great player by those who covered the game from the press box or those who played it. A good one. Maybe even a very good one. But no one who watched the other great players of that time thought Santo was great. Unless you were a Cub fan, of course.
He's now been turned down by the Veteran's Committee made up of players who would ignore the sentiment of Santo's case and rate the player they played against.
Sorry, Ron. On general humanitarian grounds, we can't argue you don't belong. But those who knew you best as a player (the ones who played against you) say no.
We wish it were otherwise, but it's not.
Maybe it was the crass commercialism of the pizzas that did him in.
All kidding aside, I'd like to see Ron Santo in the Hall myself, being of the Kessinger/Beckert/Jenkins/Williams era...(oops, showing my age there...)