Ron Santo finally goes into the Hall of Fame today.
Ten Notes on Ron Santo
1-Typical of the Hall of Fame. This man hasn’t played baseball since 1974. He had 15 years on the Hall of Fame Ballot but the writers never elected him. He sat out 5ive years then went to the Veteran’s Committee and lived 16 more years being ignored by them. He dies in 2010 and a little over a year later he is elected to the Hall of Fame. They have done t his numerous times in the past to players. His family is there to enjoy it but he’s not. What a shame. Shame on the Hall of Fame.
2-He was always well deserving of being a Hall of Famer. He was the best third baseman in the National League in the 1960’s. He made 9 All-Star teams and was a 5 time Gold Glove Award Winner. He hit 342 home runs, knocked in 1331 RBI’s and hit for a career .277 average.
3. If the Cubs had went to a World Series or two he would have been in years ago. The Cubs during the first part of his career were horrible. In the last 60’s they had Santo, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins-all Hall of Famers. They had the Eastern Division won in 1969 but faded fast in September and were over taken by the Miracle Mets. A trip to the World Series would have given Santo the national attention he needed to get that extra push.
4. It’s a shame he ended his career with the White Sox in 1974 after spending his career with the Cubs.
5. He retired at age 34. If he had been able to play at a decent level for a few more years he would have padded his stats a little. That would have possibly improved his Hall of Fame chances.
6. Amazing he played his career with type 1 diabetes and played at such a high level. He didn’t reveal his condition until late in his career fearing that he would be forced to retire.
7. In one 5ive year period of time Santo led the league in walks 4 of 5 seasons. He led the league in on-base percentage twice. Those stats weren’t viewed as important back then as they are today. Getting on base is the key to it all.
8-In the summer of 1969 as the Cubs seemed to be running away with the division after the final out Santo would run and leaping into the air and click his heals. [pictured below} This did not set well after a game when they beat the then second place Mets.
9. I remember that Cub line-up in the late 60’s and early 70’s and you hated to see Billy Williams and Ron Santo coming up one after the other. {Ernie Banks at the time was fading quickly} Williams and Santo were tough outs.
10- Ron Santo easily one of the top ten thirdbasemen ever. My Top 6ix list would go 1-Mike Schmidt 2-George Brett 3-Eddie Mathews 4-Wade Boggs 5- Brooks Robinson 6-Ron Santo
slicethelife 
the HoF seems to excel at that string a guy along and keep him on the cusp and then let him die and then oh yeah lets put this guy in the hall. sickening.
i do not understand it… how can a man who retired in 1974….all the sudden he’s good enough now that he’s dead….they didnt like jim rice so they strung him along 15 years..then all the sudden he was good enough…rice was by all accounts a jerk..but is that what is being judged?
i think its funny that a HoF voters biases are shown when they talk about candidates. a player like derek jeter gets to 3000 hits and they gush over him and make him out to be the greatest ever. but about another player that played for a while and amassed a lot of stats, oh he was not that good – he was just a stat compiler. what does that mean? many voters need to have their heads examined.