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.

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.

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 cracked a big league roster earlier and would it have been enough to make him a member of the Hall of Fame?

At the time of the infamous steroids trial, Rafael Palmeiro seemed to come off so good.  Of course when you are sitting next to a man who suddenly suffered from amnesia (Mark McGwire), a man who suddenly forgot the English language (Sammy Sosa), and the man who broke the “bro code” (Jose Canseco) a defiant and confident-sounding Rafael Palmeiro could not help but look good.  A few months later, Palmeiro was suspended by Major League Baseball for testing positive for steroids.