Quickie: McGwire Doing It To Himself

I'm not nearly qualified to dive into the hard-core debates about the Hall of Fame merits of the players on this year's bubble: Edgar and McGriff (among first-years), Dawson and Blyleven (among hold-overs). I love reading the best arguments, and I'm obviously biased for the ones made with more SABR-minded analysis.

So in the lead of today's SN column, I don't even bother touching the debate over McGwire is or isn't Hall-worthy. The point I want to make is that he would get in -- immediately -- if he would just "talk about the past." It's so ridiculously simple that I almost want to keep him out for being so stupid to fail to recognize it. I don't know what his problem is, but it's there for the having.

He's going to get shut out this year. Alomar is a lock. Larkin is probably a lock. I'd love to see Edgar get in, but that's probably a year away. Dawson will probably get in, taking advantage of the lowered bar from the "Jim Rice Precedent." McGriff probably deserves to get in, if only because he represents the last vestiges of pre-steroid power. And, of course, I'm in the "Let Blyleven in" camp, and I think this is the year.

Meanwhile:

*That was a good win for Iowa -- shows what a few weeks of prep for the triple-option can do. But I'm much more excited about watching Dan LeFevour for the last time. He should go down as one of the greatest MAC QBs of all time, which is saying something.

*I'm not a particularly big Mike Shanahan fan -- hard to be if you've read "Three Seconds of Panic." I think Snyder is turning over too much power, he'll ultimately either regret it or balk at being cut out and this ends badly, without a Super Bowl win.

*Signing Matt Holliday ensures that Albert Pujols doesn't even think of leaving St. Louis.

*Wait: Are the Wizards going to go on some kind of dysfunctional run of success?

*So Tiger really did take a 9-iron to the face, eh?

Complete column here. More later. Big anniversary today.

-- D.S.