Jayson Stark's been looking at his Hall of Fame ballot carefully, and come to one conclusion: Bert Belongs.:
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.