Boggs and Who?

Wade Boggs leads the new nominees on the Hall of Fame ballot, but while a few of the other new candidates, like Darryl Strawberry, Chili Davis and Willie McGee put together pieces of a Hall of Fame case, nobody else new is a serious candidate, whereas Boggs should and will skate in with little or no debate. I think my favorite Wade Boggs fact is in 1987 when he somehow must have sensed that the ball was livelier, and he announced in spring training that he was going to try to his more home runs. As it turned out, homers were up around the league, and Boggs hit 24 of them (up from a career high of 8; he would hit double figures only once more, with 11 in 1994).
Anyway, there’s the usual lively debate about who else goes in; you can go here for a link-filled roundup of my past writings on the returning candidates, and why the only ones I would support are Bert Blyleven, Goose Gossage and Ryne Sandberg (although I may return at some point for a closer look at Sandberg and Alan Trammell).