Baseball's newest members of the Hall of Fame

Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice - two Red Sox!

Rickey only played a year; Rice his whole career (and he still does some post-game analysis for the Sox)

Rickey is a certifiable, first-ballot, inner circle guy. No surprise there. I still have trouble with the 29 writers who left him off the ballot. This is one of those baseball traditions that I wish would disappear.

Jim Rice finally makes it in his 15th year of eligibility and I am very happy for him. He owned the late 70's to early 80's. He could hit for power (without steroids) and average. Was pretty durable for his career but faded badly once he hit 34. There was no one close to him offensively -46 HR (12 more than the #2) - 139 RBI (18 more than the #2) - 406 total bases 115 more than the #2) in 1978 and he gets extra points in my book for ticking off Yankee fans for winning the MVP that year over Guidry who had a pretty good year himself 25-3 1.74 ERA.

I get that Rice is more of a borderline candidate but I lean more toward a bigger hall - 2 or 3 inductees a year is fine with me.

McGuire lost votes - I would like to see this trend continue. He can join Mr. Rose and Mr. Shoeless Jackson on the outside looking in.