Bert Blyleven missed being elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame by five votes, prompting the usual whiners to do the usual whining.
There are two reasons to be happy to see him get 74.2 percent of the vote:
1) He's guaranteed to make it next year, and he can spend the rest of this year planning his celebration.
2) This process - and Blyleven's struggle to make it to the Hall despite all of his gaudy statistics - proves how difficult it is to make it into the Hall. That difficulty is what makes this Hall of Fame so special. If it were easy to get in, we wouldn't care so much about the voting, or the Hall.
I've always championed Bert's cause. He finished his career third all-time in strikeouts. To me, that's like finishing your career third all-time in home runs. Strikeouts are the purest form of pitching dominance. His strikeout total, combined with his victories, shutouts, complete games and postseason excellence make him a logical choice for me.
You can whine that he missed the Hall by five votes, or you can recognize that requiring 75 percent support from a picky group of voters is what protects the sanctity of this Hall of Fame, and you can be assured that Bert will make it next year.
-When you are the worst team in your conference, few games stand as milestones, but, if you wanted to make a case for the Wolves' game tonight against Golden State, you could.
The Warriors destroyed the Wolves in their last meeting. Since then Kevin Love has been activated, and Golden State's top draft pick, Steph Curry, has emerged as one of the league's best rookies. Can the Wolves display enough pride and progress to beat a bad Golden State team at home?
