If you look at the Wikipedia article on Albert Belle you will find that the section on his controversies is longer than his accomplishments.  He fought with sportswriters, with fans, with other players, and his temper was legendary.  So was his prowess with a bat.

Albert Belle may have been the most feared slugger of the 1990s.  He was the first 50/50 man (doubles and home runs) in baseball.  He pounded out extra base hits by the truckload and was able to generate a decent Batting Average.  He was a constant Triple Crown threat as he was to win the MVP Award.  In fact, Belle was jobbed out of the 1995 MVP to Mo Vaughn, likely due to the baseball media's hatred of him.

Albert Belle retired at the age of 34 due to a degenerative hip condition, though he quit his baseball career before his numbers declined to an unproductive level.  The writers’ bad will towards Belle meant they would have had to amass numbers they could not ignore.  As he did not hit them, they dropped him off the ballot after two years.  If the writers only looked at what he did on the field instead of off of it (as they should), it is hard for them to justify why his vote tally was so low.

In the long and illustrious (often tortured) history of the Boston Red Sox, a case can be made that of all the men who graced Fenway’s mound Luis Tiant was the most popular of them all.  Considering the number of great athletes who have donned the Red Sox uniform, this is an impressive accolade indeed.

Tiant wasn’t just popular because of his friendly demeanor, inviting accent, and the fact that he didn’t look like an athlete; Tiant was also popular because he was damn good.  In his career, the Cuban won 20 games four times with his unorthodox delivery.  When he was on, he had excellent control and could get batters out with finesse or power.

Midway through his career, Taint missed many games due to shoulder injuries.  After a few very subpar campaigns, he resurrected his career with Boston, but not before losing out on seasons that would have easily padded his stats to make him more palatable to Cooperstown.  Tiant also gave up a lot of home runs, which hampered him at every juncture of his career.  If those bad seasons were just below average, Tiant very well could have had a place in the Hall.

The common trend in Baseball Hall of Fame voting is for a solid candidate to get a healthy double-digit vote in his first year of eligibility and watch that number climb slowly as more and more perspective is put on their career.  For Steve Garvey, the more the Hall looked at his career, the more they seemed to talk themselves out of his induction, as evidenced by the way his votes were cut in half from his first year (41.6) to (21.1) in his last year.

There is a good chance that if you were a fan of the L.A. Dodgers in the 70’s, you were a huge fan of Steve Garvey.  It would be easy to see why, as his squeaky clean image and model good looks were combined with a perennial All-Star who hit for a solid average, had moderate power, was great in the clutch, and was the Iron Man of his generation.  Garvey won the 1974 NL MVP, 1978 NLCS MVP, and two All-Star Game MVPs.  Basically, if the camera was on Steve Garvey, he produced.

Perhaps that was the problem.  Garvey was at times more concerned with looking good than playing well, and he would rather swing away than take a deserved walk, which did not play well on TV.  Garvey also may have been a four-time Gold Glove recipient at first, but he was a failure at third base.  Garvey may have been an Iron Man playing in a lot of consecutive games, but it may have been at the detriment of his team.  Bottom line is that stories of his selfishness have emerged as frequently as stories of his infidelity did after his playing days ceased.

We like to build heroes and tear them down so that we can build them up again.  Steve Garvey may have been rejected on his first go-round, but he may be built up again for consideration by the Veterans Committee. Based on what we have seen so far, it is not looking good.

Maury Wills did not make the Major Leagues until he was 26 years old yet still managed to rack up over 2,000 hits in his career.  What numbers would he have put up if he had cracked a big league roster earlier, and would it have been enough to make him a member of the Hall of Fame?

Maury Wills might be known first in any baseball reference guide as the winner of the National League MVP award in 1962, but his real contribution was how he changed the perception of how runs could be scored.  Wills was not the first man to be a star on the base paths, but he did usher in the base paths' renaissance.  Wills was the first to steal over 100 bases, and it wasn’t long before teams across the country looked for a Wills-type player to lead off their lineup.  Wills would go on to lead the NL in steals on six occasions.

Maury Wills however was not the perfect leadoff man.  Wills did not walk enough, and his overall on-base percentage was not ideal.  He also suffered in the post-playing career, with his managing stint with Seattle considered the worst in baseball history, and he often rubbed baseball writers the wrong way.  Maury Wills may not have been the best base stealer in history, but he did change the way the game was played for a while, and that is certainly a huge pro on his Hall of Fame ledger.