Hall's newest inductee waited for eight years

A big problem with the Baseball Hall of Fame is that a lot of voters take the name of the place too literally.

In many cases, it's better to be a famous former player than to have posted big stats.

Sandy Koufax, the former Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher, got in easily with 165 career wins. Injuries led him to retire after 12 seasons, the last four of which were absolutely awesome - 97 wins, a 1.81 earned run average and 1,228 strikeouts.

Bert Blyleven, who got left out again this year, had 287 wins. But he won a lot of those games in Minnesota, which is a difficult place to attain baseball fame.

Pitching in Detroit, Minnesota, Toronto and Cleveland, Jack Morris went 254-186 and was the 1991 World Series MVP. He may never get elected.

Former Giants slugger Orlando Cepeda got in with 379 homers, a .297 average and 1,365 runs batted in. Dale Murphy, who spent much of his career on awful Atlanta Braves teams, had 398 homers, a .265 average and 1,266 RBIs, plus two National League MVPs, and finished 14th in this year's voting.

Cepeda was important historically in that his father Pedro was a Caribbean standout. But the fact that Orlando played nine seasons on high-profile San Francisco teams with Willie Mays and Willie McCovey probably helped even more.

Murphy was 21 votes behind former New York Yankee Don Mattingly, who had 222 HRs, 1,099 RBIs and a .307 average.

The new inductee - Andre Dawson - is totally qualified but almost aged out of the early eligibility voting period. He missed getting enough support during the previous eight years.

In the long run, it's rare that a true superstar is omitted, but the voting process (done mostly by sportswriters) has become so subjective that some career parameters should be set.

Without direct intent, the current system too heavily favors players from glamour franchises.

To put it another way, Blyleven and Morris long ago would have been elected had they spent more playing time in New York and less in Minneapolis and Detroit.