No HOFers

The BBWAA did not elect anyone to the Hall of Fame this year, thus providing plenty of fodder for the baseball blogs until spring training.  Perhaps the best and most complete entry I've seen on the whole issue is The 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame, Version 3.0, but to me, the biggest shame is that Lou Whitaker is no longer even on the ballot to have a chance at being voted in with Alan Trammel.  A pair like Trammel and Whitaker is rare; we all know Tinker and Evers (and Chance), but Trammel and Whitaker were even better. 

Kenny Lofton only received 3.2% of the vote, which is a shame if you consider him to be the 8th greatest CF of all time...  I have a hard time getting around his poor playoff numbers, and he had 438 postseason plate appearances, so no small-sample problem here.  Worse, while I had primarily remembered him as part of all those Cleveland teams that fell short in the postseason, he was also a part of the Giants team that lost the last two games of the 2002 WS, the Cubs team that lost the last 3 games (two at home) of the 2003 NLCS, and the Yankees team that lost the last 4 games of the 2004 ALCS.  In a sport as superstitious as baseball, you gotta conclude that poor guy is cursed.