Quote:
Originally Posted by Oblong
The BBWAA east coast bias thing is a myth. The reason there appears to be one is because the Veterans committee had lobbying for guys like Rizzuto and because in the early days of baseball the east coast had a lot of teams. But in the last 50 years I can't think of any BBWAA inductee that got in because of east coast bias. There's pletny of marginal HOFers that were not east coast based.
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How about Jim Rice? The year he had in '78 was ridiculous, but he didn't hit major milestones like 3,000 hits or 400 HRs. Seems to me a "Hall of Very Good" member, boosted because he played in Boston his entire career.
I recall a thread comparing Rice and Baines, and there were a lot of similaries.