A little sports trivia on a Monday morning

Good grief, man, this guy is eligible for the Hall of Fame. Not a trick question. Dude is retired. Dude is not Miguel Cabrera. So allow me to revise for clarification: Who is the only four-time batting champion who is eligible for the Baseball Hall of Fame who is not in Cooperstown.

 

We just can't have nice things.

 

Larry Walker?

 

Bill Madlock aka one of my childhood heroes, which is why I know that answer

 

Bingo

 

I just looked at Madlock's Baseball Reference page, and his career numbers astound me. Since you probably followed him more closely, maybe you can shed some light on his career arc.
Guy played 14 years, four batting titles and was one of the better hitters of his generation, so how on Earth was he only a three-time all-star who barely wound up with 2,000 hits and was a bit of a journeyman (six teams in 14 seasons)?
Was he injury prone (he only played more than 150 games twice, and more than 140 five times)? Was he an asshole who complained his way out of town all the time? Did teams try to make him into a power hitter that he wasn't? Was he bad defensively?
My impression of him growing up was that he was a better player than what his career numbers bear out.

 

Can't say I ever saw him play, but he was a 4 in strat-o-matic every year.

 

Walker won three, same as Pete rose. One of them is eligible for Cooperstown.

 

Beat me to it, but right, fuck him.

 

Madlock suffered somewhat the same way Ted Simmons suffered. Both played their careers in direct comparison to an all time great at their position and were overshadowed. In Madlock’s case, it was Mike Schmidt.

He wasnt a clubhouse cancer. He may have been the pirates team captain after Stargell. And three times, he was traded to teams in a year they won their division, so in theory, he was a catalyst kind of guy.

Also, he was never the star of any team he played on. He was seen as a supporting player, who somehow did just enough to win four batting titles. If that makes sense

 

He must not have kissed enough media ass. He got a laughable 4 percent of the vote in his one year of Hall eligibility. That is a travesty. Still, he missed a lot of games to injury and from what I understand he was a dud with the glove. Bc of injuries, he never had more than 200 hits and didn’t walk much either. I don’t know that he belongs in Cooperstown, but a guy who won four batting titles — and almost won a fifth, finishing second to Al Oliver in 1982 — deserved a much longer look on the ballot.