By the Grace of Idiots…

Mark Grace: My Hero

Only Gracie can make awesome look this good.

Mark Grace, one of Mean Gene’s favorite humans of all time and favorite baseball player was shafted earlier this month by the voters that hold the keys to Cooperstown.

Grace, who was up for Hall of Fame voting for the first time after retiring from the Diamondbacks in 2003, inexplicably was named on less than 5% of the overall ballots. The Hall of Fame voters need some tips on voting and I have two tips for them, fingertips, via a finger on each hand (the middle ones).

Ricky Henderson topped the voting with 98% (THE MAN PLAYED FOR 25 FLIPPIN’ YEARS!!!) and the next two in the voting line was Jim Rice who finally got in, and then another needs to be inner, Mark’s former Cub teammate Andre Dawson who was denied for the 8^th time.

Due to receiving an absurdly low 4.1% of total votes, Mark Grace is now permanently banned from the Hall of Fame ballot.  Come the year 2024 the veteran’s committee could decided to elect him! SERIOUSLY?!? This for a 13yr Cubbie who led the ENTIRE MAJOR LEAGUE in hits (1,754) and doubles (364) for the decade of the 90′s; and who helped lead the Diamondbacks to the 2001 World Series title (twas Gracie who led off the improbable bottom 9 rally against The Sandman with a single).

So what if he didn’t have the typical 1^st baseman’s power or knock in a hundred ribeyes in a season, as a whole the man was unstoppable! Besides Grace and the controversial Pete Rose (who should also be in the HOF) every person to lead their decade in hits has been inducted into Cooperstown. No modern era 1^st baseman in the Hall of Fame has a higher lifetime batting average (this includes Eddie Murray and Tony Perez). And the man only received 22 votes, PREPOSTEROUS!!!

Here are a few of Mark’s lifetime stats:

·         Four Gold Gloves

·         2,445 hits

·         .303 lifetime batting avg.

·         84 rbi’s a year (13 yrs. with Cubs)

·         511 doubles

·         .990 Fielding Percentage

Ok, so I’m a bit biased being a Cubs fan and the fact that in all his awesomeness he is my favorite baseball player ever, but only 22 votes???

 If you could be inducted just on quotes alone, here are a few that would put Gracie at the top of that list.

 -On giving up a homerun to rookie David Ross in his relief pitching appearance on September 2, 2002…
“I didn’t have a scouting report on him. Obviously he can hit 65 mph fastballs.”

-On the feeling of playing in and winning a World Series, October 2001…
“If you only understood how great this is for me. It was better than anything I could’ve imagined. It is better than sex. But then again, I’m kind of lousy at that.”

-On the accuracy of his bobblehead doll, given away at Bank One Ballpark on August 18, 2001…

“I’m a pretty ugly guy, and it’s a pretty ugly doll, so I think they did of good job of capturing my likeness.”

-On the definition of a “slumpbuster”, after being pressed by host Jim Rome in a now-infamous 2003 interview on the television show “Rome is Burning” to clarify the baseball slang term…
“A slumpbuster is when you have to take one for the team. It’s finding the biggest, nastiest, fattest broad, and you put the wood to her to come out of your slump. Also known as ‘jumping on a grenade for the team’.”