Have you ever Lunched with a HOFer?

On my most recent trip to Florida, I had lunch with a Hall of Famer, Bert Blyleven.

It has been years, well, since Bert's playing days, that I could recall baseball stats like reciting the TV Guide. So, when I got back to Wisconsin, I had to call my best bud to hear his take on whether Bert had a HOF career.

His answer was a shake of the head, and a hell yes. Me and ESPN agree.
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Upon further review Blyleven in Hall

...First, if you compare Blyleven to his fellow pitchers of the division-play era, he high-jumps off the page. He ranks No. 1 in complete games, No. 2 in shutouts (one behind Nolan Ryan), No. 2 in innings pitched (again trailing only Ryan), No. 5 in whiffs and No. 6 in wins (behind only Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famers).

...He found Blyleven had the worst run support of any pitcher in the group except Don Sutton and accumulated the most "tough losses," a stat James invented personally to measure losses in which pitchers deserved better. There is zero doubt Blyleven already would be a Hall of Famer if he'd won 300 games. And that research helped explain the mystery of why he didn't.

...According to that encyclopedia, Blyleven allowed 344 fewer runs in his career than the average pitcher of his day. In the live-ball era, only eight pitchers have done better in that department. And those eight comprise a group that essentially consists of the best modern pitchers who ever threw a baseball: Roger Clemens, Lefty Grove, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Tom Seaver, Carl Hubbell and Bob Gibson.

...If you look more closely at that stat, you also find it wasn't just a tribute to longevity. Blyleven had six seasons in which he allowed at least 30 fewer runs than the average pitcher. That's as many seasons like that as Tom Seaver -- and more than Steve Carlton,Sandy Koufax, Juan Marichal or Jim Palmer.

So does that sound like a Hall of Famer to you? In the end, it did to me.