The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
Torii Hunter could go get it. Fluid and graceful while patrolling center field, he was renowned for his leaping, acrobatic catches and his willingness to sacrifice his body. He made a strong enough impression upon those who watched him that he won nine Gold Gloves during his 19-year career, more than all but three center fielders, namely Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., and Andruw Jones. Hunter earned the nickname “Spider-Man” for his ability to climb outfield walls to steal home runs something he did more than just about
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau go together like a couple of old shoes, broken in and comfortable, but still able to take a shine.
Their rhythms of speech and their body language create a kind of harmony. Each fills in for the other. The Odd Couple could have been written for them, and Grumpy Old Men probably was.
They play a couple of neighbors in a snowbound Wabasha, Minn., neighborhood.
They ve been feuding for years, mostly because they like each other so much. They trade insults, dismissals, snubs and dire imprecations. Then they go ice-fishing together. When they go fishing together, that means they go separately, but adjacently, so they can glower at one another.