1. It’s good to see Goose Gossage finally get in, as he was clearly the most deserving person eligible for the Hall of Fame but not yet in. In hindsight, it’s just amazing that it took him nine ballots to get in, and that Bruce Sutter got in first. Goose Gossage’s best 12-year run was better than Bruce Sutter’s entire 12-year career by almost any statistical measure except saves, plus Gossage also had another 10 seasons of pretty decent work on either side of his peak.

A lot of people are talking about how the election of Gossage speaks to a continuing evolution in how the Hall voters view closers, and that the door is being opened to allowing more relievers into the Hall. I hope that is not the case. Only five relief pitchers have been elected to the hall of fame, and already one of them (Sutter) and arguably a second (Fingers) can be ranked among the least deserving players enshrined

Here’s hoping that Gossage is the last reliever elected until Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman get the call.

2. Jim Rice only has one year of eligibility left, but if precedent is any guide, he is a virtual lock to get in next season, having secured a staggering 72.2 percent of the vote and falling just 16 votes shy out of 543 ballots cast. No player has ever gotten more than 70 percent of the vote without being elected the following year, and with the Rice supporters only needing to change the minds of a handful of voters and having a whole year to do it, it’s almost impossible to imagine that he won’t be in next year.

Which is a shame. Because if Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer, than there are probably at least a hundred other guys with better careers than Rice who should go in too. For a guy who was a left fielder, who hit in the middle of incredible lineups, and who demonstrably got a huge boost from playing half his games in Fenway Park, Rice has no place in the Hall of Fame.

People keep trying to argue that Rice was the best outfielder in the American League during his prime. But I’m not sure that Rice was even the best outfielder on his own team during those years, because Dwight Evans, who was one of the better defensive outfielders of all time, did just about everything equal to or better than Rice. Well, except pile up RBI, which was just a function of where Rice was penciled into the batting order anyway.

If Jim Rice is a Hall of Famer, than Dewey should have been a mortal lock. Jim Rice had a career OPS+ of 128, despite not playing through his late 30s decline phase, whereas Evans had a career OPS+ of 127. Evans had 345.5 career win shares (including 51.9 on defense), whereas Jim Rice had only 282 career win shares, ranking him 228th all-time (right between Sal Bando and Boog Powell). And though Rice averaged 6.0 runs created per game over his career, Dewey averaged 6.2, and again that’s including all the declining late-30s seasons Evans played which Rice didn’t.

And yet Evans got less than 5% of the vote and fell off the ballot after one year, whereas Rice keeps building momentum towards his eventual enshrinement? Crazy.

3. It was gratifying to see Mark McGwire’s vote totals holding firm at just a shade over 23 percent, hundreds and hundreds of votes shy of election, especially after a lot of people were predicting that he would see a big jump now that he had already been “punished” in his first year of eligibility.

I wrote a post in this space last year, arguing that we should never elect anyone tainted by steroids, because the Hall is an honor and not a right. I think my policy might be changing in the wake of the Mitchell report, after realizing just how widespread the abuse was. Now I am starting to think that maybe if a player were to come clean, 100%, and take full responsibility for his mistakes (and I don’t mean the Andy Pettite “I only did it once and it wasn’t even wrong” thing), then maybe we should consider them for the Hall.

Because players coming clean in an honest and humble way would be the best hope for healing the sport and moving forward.

But until Mark McGwire comes clean, and there’s no sign that he ever will, I will keep rooting for them to keep him out of the Hall forever.

4. Lastly, I was amazed and saddened to see that Tim Raines only got 24.3 percent of the vote. Fine, I understand all you New York-based writers never noticed Raines because he played all those years in Montreal while you guys were too busy noticing Yankees and Red Sox like Jim Rice. But shouldn’t you at least take a look at his career numbers? Did any of the people who didn’t vote for Raines even consider that he was a superior player to former stolen base king and present Hall of Famer Lou Brock in just about every way imaginable?

I don’t know who these guys are comparing Raines to, that they feel he falls short, other than Rickey Henderson, but Rickey Henderson was far and away the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Tim Raines was the second greatest leadoff hitter of all time.

I mean seriously. A .385 on base percentage? 808 stolen bases, 4th all time in the modern era behind only Henderson, Brock, and Ty Cobb? The highest stolen base percentage in baseball history at 84.7%?

And as long as people are giving Andre Dawson extra credit for playing on bad knees, and Kirby Puckett free points for having his career cut short by glaucoma, and Jim Rice sympathy for mysteriously becoming sucky at age 34, shouldn’t Raines get some points for the even more insane numbers he would have put up if he wasn’t playing the last third of his career while battling Lupus?

So yeah, 24.3 percent, that’s ridiculous. I think Tim Raines is going to have to be the subject of my next Hall of Fame crusade.

It’s Hall of Fame Week at Umpbump. We’ll be taking a look at the guys on the ballot and giving you our take on who does and doesn’t belong in Cooperstown. Up next is Tim Raines, who may, or may not get into the Hall of Fame, but he sure deserves a chance.

Let me begin with a disclosure: I’ve never given much thought to the Hall of Fame or the voting process. I understand its a matter that can make or break what would be considered to be a storied career. The Hall of Fame is a place for legends, or so they say. Whereas, to me at least, the Hall of Fame used to be a tourist attraction for those high enough on their baseball knowledge to want to make the trek to Cooperstown, the institution is slowly becoming a morality prism by which we give a the thumbs up or down to our baseball heroes. And it may function as the whopping stick by which the baseball writers of this era will chastise the steroids and HGH users (and deniers).

And some will say, “what’s wrong with that?”

Frankly, the cynic in me cannot take the past two decades of baseball and its “historic” streak at face value. It’s evident the game is full of liars and cheats (and douche bags). And for an institution to still have integrity and want to present great baseball people, not only for their abilities on the field, but for their outstanding character, is a noble endeavor.

As is understanding the context of things.

Take Tim Raines. I was too young to discern the good players from the bad during his playing days (I’d dare say I only became “baseball cognizant” in the mid nineties – and what a time to do it). So what I know about Raines is what I can learn from some research and from the fact that he was a member of the storied White Sox squad of ‘94, who could’ve gone all the way.

I’m glad there are some who think he ought to be in the Hall. Baseball Prospectus’ Jay Jaffe said it best:

Raines could take over a game, as his comeback from collusion-driven contract limbo and his bravura performance at the 1987 All-Star Game showed. Even past his prime, he evolved into a charismatic, highly-sought role player, a staple of two engaging Yankees champions from Joe Torre’s early tenure. While he didn’t win an MVP award, the seven-time All-Star’s skills hardly went unappreciated by those hip to Bill James’ sabermetric measures, which valued his ability to get on base and his efficiency once he got there.

But to others that’s not enough; Bugs and Cranks eliminated Rock in round two of their fake HOF ballot:

• Tim Raines - Rock Raines should get some kind of an award for stealing all those bases on the awful turf at Stade Olympique and still having enough left to sustain a long career. As Raines got older, he became a great student of the game, understanding the value of getting on base any way he could. But he was a base-stealer and not even the best base-stealer of his era. Rickey, of course, was the king. But Raines also could be forgotten for Vince Coleman, Willie McGee, Alan Wiggins and a whole slew of guys who ran the bases like jackrabbits. I’m gonna say no to Tim Raines.

And then there’s Rock’s drug use. Something I feel is irrelevant to the question at hand: Does Tim Raines, as a baseball player, deserve to be in the Hall of Fame?

Take this post at Suite101 that tries to make a case that cocaine use is not the same as steroid use, and thusly, it cannot be used to leave him out of the Hall.

In 1982, Tim Raines admitted using cocaine. He used crack cocaine before, after and even during games and said that he would slide head first because he had bags of cocaine in his pocket that might fall out if he slide feet first.

I’m not excusing the fact he used it (and the real possibility of him using it during a game). And if you were to ask me, using cocaine during a game is far worse than betting on the result of said game. But I don’t think chastising Raines now for doing something stupid in his twenties is the way to operate. I’d say some twenty-something people these days would be next in line for the lines alongside a young Rock.

In fact, when in 1986 Baseball suspended Keith Hernandez and others [reg. req.], including Raines, for their Cocaine use, Rock had admitted his role and had undergone treatment. The point is, he regretted his mistakes and that’s commendable.

We can’t be so naïve to think that Baseball (and society in general) is so clean as to stand from our moral perch and deny Raines a place in the Hall of Fame because of his drug use. So what Raines “said” he slid head first so the bags of blow wouldn’t dust the base paths at Stade Olympique? Wilt Chamairlain said he slept with 10,000 women and they also tell us he scored 100 points in a game. There are feats of sport and then there are the self-aggrandizing jocks behind them.

Ok, so Raines wasn’t being self-serving by saying he had bags of coke in his pants, but I don’t think we can really believe that.

And we can’t be so elitist (and morally hypocritical) to think that Raines, having regretted his mistakes (something Bonds and MacGwire keep forgetting to do), doesn’t deserve an up-and-down vote that looks at his baseball achievements while setting aside his troubled past.

Rock doesn’t need your spite, he needs your HOF vote.