"Craig Biggio combined longevity and excellence with a set of skills matched by few others. How many players reached 3,000 hits — including 1,000 extra-base hits — while stealing 400 bases? Just three: Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker and Biggio. Cobb and Speaker last played in 1928.
Biggio, however, is perceived by some to have been less than dominant. He never led his league in hits, batting average, on-base percentage or slugging percentage, and he batted .234 in the postseason. Yet another candidate who was dominant, and sparkled in October, seems even less likely than Biggio to make it on Wednesday.
He is Curt Schilling, who had about eight extraordinary seasons and a handful of others just a notch below. His regular-season record (216-146, with a 3.46 earned run average) belies his postseason brilliance (11-2, 2.23), and he is the only pitcher in history to record at least 3,000 strikeouts with fewer than 750 walks.
Like all players of their generation, Biggio and Schilling were not tested for steroids until 2003. We cannot say for sure they were clean, but most writers seem to assume they were. Yet they still will not convince many voters."
I think they both belong in.
I don't understand the notion that Biggio wasn't dominant at times. Of course, Biggio benefited from bloated steroid-era stats even if he never used himself. But a 2b with 3,000 hits simply belongs in the HOF.
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