Kurkjian wirites:
"Baseball milestones and numbers play a big part in where we place a
player in history, including whether he's a Hall of Famer. It's not the
same in football where Art Monk retired as the leading receiver in
history, and still isn't in the Hall of Fame. There can be -- and we're
not suggesting this is fair -- a big difference between 500 home runs
and 493, as Fred McGriff might find out in a few years. Bert Blyleven should be in the Hall of
Fame, but you wonder if he already would be in Cooperstown had he
finished with 300 wins instead of 287. Others want Maris in the Hall on
the strength of one number: 61."
Although I'm not huge into predictions and that sort of thing, numbers are a huge part of in-game strategy, drafting players and Hall of Fame elections. Finding out which stats are the best predictors of major league success will continue to be debated. OBPS vs AVG. and so on. Baseball fans also do their part to take it to another level, sometimes at the expense of enjoying the game which I definitely can't relate to.
