Rafael Palmeiro looking to be third time lucky in Hall of Fame Vote - MLB News
Rafael Palmeiro is up for a Hall of Fame vote for a third time. The left-handed hitter has had little support in the previous two bids and is hoping that he will garner more support this time around. A player can be voted for up to 15 times so Rafael’s case
is quite young at the moment.
Palmeiro was a consistent hitter during his 20-year-long career in the Major League. The Cuban player hit 3020 hits and 569 home-runs representing three different ball clubs, the Baltimore Orioles being the last of them. Rafael had 10 seasons where he hit
37 home-runs or more each as well as hitting more than 100 RBI’s in a season on 10 occasions.
The 48-year-old was a patient hitter, which is quite evident when we look at the fact that he had more walks then strike-outs in eight seasons of his career. Only once in his long Major League career the hitter had more than 96 strike-outs in a single season.
His golden era was certainly between 1993 through 2003. The hitter in these 11 seasons batted in 1266 runs and went long on a staggering 433 occasions, averaging a fraction under 40 per year. He maintained a .555 slugging average in his golden run.
Palmeiro’s cause quite obviously has been damaged by his suspension due to his alleged use of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED). He maintains that he is unaware of how the drugs got into his system and he tested positive. Rafael says that he did not need
to use them in his last year of his career, especially when he was on the stroke of achieving 3000 hits.
"Why would I do this in a season when I was going to get to 3,000 hits? It makes no sense. I would not put my career on the line. I would not put my reputation on the line and everything that I've accomplished throughout my career. ... I'm not a crazy person,”
he said.
Rafael also hoped that the voters will look into his whole career and not just the events that took place in at the very end while considering. He even suggested that if his last year of his career was tossed out, he still maintained numbers good enough
to be inducted in the Hall of Fame.
"I wish they would look at my whole career. If they want, why don't they just throw out the last season of my career? I would still have Hall of Fame numbers. I've put up my numbers, and they aren't going to change," Palmeiro said.
The PED suspension has certainly cast a cloud on Rafael Palmeiro’s chances to be voted in the Hall of Fame. Whether his claims of not using the drugs on purpose are correct or false, Palmeiro has certainly served the game enough to get a ticket with the
elite group of players.
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