Barry Larkin

Barry Larkin made was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame this week. Congratulations, Barry. I heard nothing but good things in the reports on how deserving you are of that honor. Say, let's compare him to my favorite player, and see how that turns out.

Barry Larkin and Pete Rose have a lot in common. Both played most their careers for the Cincinnati Reds. Both won Rookie of the Year and MVP Awards. Both started as infielders. Barry also came in as high as 12th place in MVP voting twice. Pete was in the top 10 in MVP voting ten times. Pete had more hits than Barry - 4246 (most in baseball history) to 2340 (131st in baseball history). Pete also has the substantial edge in Runs Scored (2165 to 1329), Doubles (746 to 441) RBIs (1314 to 960), and Batting Average (.303 to .295). Did I say "edge"? "Overwhelming leads" is probably a better term. Barry does have the lead in Home Runs (198 to 160). The most hits for Barry in a season was 185. Pete had at least that many in 15 different seasons. It's even more lopsided in playoff games (hits - 86 to 25, runs - 30 to 11, home runs - 5 to 0). I could go on, but you get the idea.

Here is another important difference. Barry is in the Hall of Fame and Pete isn't. That is because Pete bet on some baseball games. I believe there have only been about 20 players with lifetime bans and none but Pete since the 1940's. That makes sense, because apparently betting on baseball is the worst thing you can possibly do. Luckily all those players getting unfair advantages by injecting themselves with steroids were not at the same time betting on baseball, otherwise they would be ineligible. That would be a shame.