E-Mail This Article to a Friend Ballpark figures: Hall of Fame edition BY CHRISTOPHER YOUNG

THIS WEEKEND, in the bucolic hamlet of Cooperstown, New York, located on the banks of Lake Otsego, the Baseball Hall of Fame will welcome two more inductees into its hallowed halls. Both are eminently deserving, as Paul Molitor and Dennis Eckersley each was deemed a first-ballot lock, and indeed both got the Hall’s call on the first ring. Your humble correspondent will join the fans and media swarming into the tiny Central New York village this weekend for the ceremonies, but in anticipation of Hall of Fame weekend, herewith are some relevant Fame-worthy thoughts.

• The 2004 inductees come in with polar-opposite personalities. Molitor was always viewed as a thinking-man’s ballplayer, and his nice-guy image followed him everywhere — particularly when he was selected in 1998 as the winner of the Branch Rickey Award (for his community-service involvement) and the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award (for his exemplary character). The fiery Eckersley, on the other hand, would best be described as "brash." The Eck is also a nice guy, don’t get me wrong, but his flair for the dramatic, his flamboyance on the mound, and his cool cockiness have always been his calling cards. Both players have not surprisingly gone on to post-retirement success in fields that seem well-suited to their personas: Molitor as the hitting coach for the Seattle Mariners; Eckersley as an insightful and no-holds-barred post-game analyst for NESN, the cable station that broadcasts Red Sox games.

• Strangely, despite their lengthy baseball careers, each inductee tasted post-season success only once. Molitor spent his first 15 seasons with the Brewers, and the 1983 squad lost to St. Louis in seven games in his only World Series opportunity there. He joined the defending world-champion Blue Jays as a free agent in 1993, and not only got himself a ring, but was voted the MVP of that Fall Classic based on his 12-for-24 performance. Most remember the ’93 Series for Mitch Williams’s meltdown and Joe Carter’s series-winning HR, but Molitor was a key figure, and his Series-record–tying 10th run scored was the winning run in game six as a result of Carter’s blast. He finished his 21-year career with the Twins, retiring in 1998. Eckersley began his career as a starting pitcher with Cleveland, was traded to Boston and became a integral member of the ’78 squad that lost the playoff game to the Yankees, and then was traded to Chicago for Bill Buckner before gaining his greatest success — as a closer — with Oakland. The 1989 championship season (capped by the Bay Area "earthquake" series against the Giants) was sandwiched between two other World Series losses (to LA and Cincinnati), but Eckersley’s dominance in his field was legendary in those times, and the 1992 season saw him win not only the Cy Young but also the AL MVP, following his 51-save season. The six-time All-Star finished up his 24-year career with short stints in St. Louis and back in Boston.

• Molitor will go into the Hall as the Brewers franchise’s second Hall-of-Famer (after teammate Robin Yount’s entry in 1999) — and God knows when the next one will come. Eckersley, the veteran of five teams, rightfully will wear the A’s cap because of his career-rejuvenation there, and will be the first Oakland inductee since Reggie Jackson (who actually went in as a Yankee, in 1993) and Rollie Fingers (in 1992). Former teammates Mark McGwire (in 2007), Rickey Henderson (add five years to when the nomadic speedster ever hangs up the spikes), and skipper La Russa figure to join the Eck in Cooperstown someday, although Jose Canseco (also eligible in 2007) would best be described as the longest of long shots.

• In this era of free agency and following the money, the Hall will, in time, face more difficult questions about what team’s hat an inductee should wear on his bronze plaque. The aforementioned Henderson should be a doozy, since he’s had 13 stops in his 25-year (and counting?) career, but 12 of those seasons were as an "A" (I know, there’s a joke there that I’ll let go unsaid) — over four tours of duty with the team — so he’ll probably eventually be inducted in Athletic headwear. The Mets (Tom Seaver), Expos (Gary Carter), Rangers (Nolan Ryan), and Royals (George Brett) have only one Hall-of-Famer donning their lids in Cooperstown, while the Astros, Blue Jays, Marlins, Mariners, and Devil Rays are still waiting for their first (and in some cases, will for many moons).

• Next season the following MLB players will be up for enshrinement for the first time: Jim Abbott, Jeff Blauser, Wade Boggs, Tom Candiotti, Chili Davis, Jeff King, Mark Langston, Jack McDowell, Willie McGee, Brian McRae, Jeff Montgomery, Otis Nixon, Tony Phillips, Mark Portugal, Terry Steinbach, and Darryl Strawberry. The only one who is a certainty is, of course, Boggs, who will likely go kicking and screaming to the Hall’s Board of Directors, pleading that he not be forced to wear a Red Sox cap. The Chicken Man, who left Boston under strained circumstances following the 1992 season, would probably prefer wearing the interlocked N-Y hat (since his only World Series ring — in 1996 — was won as part of his five-year stint with the Pinstripers) or the Devil Rays (Tampa’s his hometown, he collected his 3000th hit there, and his retirement after two seasons as a D-Ray was followed by a spot on the coaching staff for a couple of seasons), since he could be the first player in franchise history so enshrined. The Hall chooses, however, and they’ll likely slap a Sox cap on Boggs’s head and tell him that that’s what makes the most sense, given that his five batting titles were collected in the Fens.

• Given the paucity of logical candidates on next year’s ballots, hope likely springs anew among those who didn’t get in on Eckersley’s and Molitor’s coattails in last year’s vote. Inductees need at least 75 percent of the ballots cast by the Baseball Writers Association, and the Cubs’ Ryne Sandberg (61.07) and Bruce Sutter (59.49), along with former Soxers Jim Rice (54.55) and Andre Dawson (50), are the only major-leaguers who got over half of the writers’ votes last winter. Sandberg could move up, since 2005 will only be his second year eligible. Sutter has moved up from 47 percent four years ago and is making slow but steady progress. Rice, while certainly deserving from a statistical standpoint, had 57 percent in 2001, but dropped to 55 and then 52 in 2003, before bouncing back up to 54 percent this year. He, along with Dawson behind him, will probably be kept out because they stayed in the game long after their considerable skills had deteriorated. Also most likely needing a miracle from the Veterans Committee in coming years are Bert Blyleven, Steve Garvey, Don Mattingly, and Dale Murphy, among others. Click here for current major-leaguers probably destined for Fame.

• Likely to garner considerable discussion this weekend in Cooperstown are the attributes of Fred McGriff, who was released by the Devil Rays over the weekend despite being just seven home runs shy of the magical 500-career-HR level. The 40-year-old McGriff is a veteran of 18 seasons and seven teams, including the world-champion Braves in 1995, but he’s played in over 100 games just once since 2000. Here are his relevant stats: 2460 games, 1349 runs, 2490 hits, 493 home runs, 1550 RBIs, and a .284 career average. Well, one might say they’re "pretty good," especially the home-run total. But is McGriff one of the greats of the game, worthy of a bronze bust alongside the likes of Ruth, Cobb, Mantle, and Williams? Perhaps not, but how come someone with these stats — 1472 games, 971 runs, 1451 hits, 369 home runs, 1015 RBIs, and .279 BA — is in the Hall? And Ralph Kiner only played 10 years! Sure, the Pirates star, whose career was shortened by a back ailment, had two seasons of 50-plus home runs and averaged more than 100 RBIs in each season of his career, but isn’t there something to be said for longevity? The Crime Dog had seven 30-HR seasons, and collected 100-plus RBIs six times; were Kiner’s Hall of Fame numbers based on extrapolating what he would have done had his back woes not forced him into early retirement? That doesn’t seem fair, otherwise Thurman Munson and Tony Conigliaro should be in Cooperstown. (Maybe even Mark "The Bird" Fidrych!) And Jim Rice’s numbers — 2089 games, 1249 runs, 2452 hits, 382 home runs, 1451 RBIs, and .298 BA also match up favorably or surpass Kiner’s totals. Well, folks, that’s a discussion for another day, but one could argue that Fred McGriff has never been a truly meaningful superstar for any of the teams he’s played on, and those squads didn’t become winners because of his presence. And "Hall-of-Famer Fred McGriff" just doesn’t have that ring of royalty to it, as do those attached with the true legends of the game. His total of nearly 500 home runs is a great feat, but that level — especially in this day and age, when Brady Anderson can hit 50 in a season — no longer provides an absolute guarantee into the Hall. Nevertheless, McGriff has a lot to be proud of with regard to his productive career, if indeed it has wound down to a missed-it-by-that-much coda.

There are no questions nor controversy about the legitimacy of the candidacies of Mssrs. Eckersley and Molitor, however, and for fans of our era, they represent the greatness of the players we have come to know through our appreciation of the sport. Students of the game, passionate competitors, and ultimately world champions if only for a year, these two players will justifiably receive baseball’s highest honor on Sunday, and they and their portraits are worthy additions to Cooperstown’s Hall of Fame Gallery.

Without question, they belong — to us, and to history.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com, and Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com