keith hernandez is in my hall of famer collection

here's another relatively recent addition to my hall of famer collection. it's keith hernandez, with this card as his entry:

that's a 2023 topps archives signature series 1986 topps all-star subset card, autographed and numbered 07/81. here's the back: 

once i decided to add hernandez, i decided i wanted one of the all-star cards that he "stole" from steve garvey. garvey, of course, was the national league starter in both 1984 and 1985, but topps gave the all-star cards the following years to hernandez, much to my chagrin. hernandez wasn't even on the 1985 all-star squad, for goodness sake.

hernandez was, however, the better first baseman by that point in time. he succeeded garvey as the national league's gold glove winner at first in 1978, and then claimed the award in each of the next 10 years to boot. he has a batting title, an mvp award, and two world series titles to his name, and he has remained in the game as a broadcaster since his retirement. the mets recently retired his number which again raised the question of his hall of fame candidacy.

modern metrics show hernandez as perhaps slightly below average when it comes to hall of fame first basemen, but he is one of the few modern first basemen with a positive dwar and ranks higher than tony perez, for example, in overall war. he has over 2,100 hits and a .296 lifetime average and passes my sniff test of more than 3,000 times on base.

i didn't see hernandez play in person until 1988. on august 24, i saw him go 1 for 4 as the mets beat the dodgers and orel hershiser 2-1. this was just before hershiser began his scoreless streak. he shut the mets out for seven innings but then mike marshall misplayed a mookie wilson fly ball into a triple and hernandez singled him home.

i'm not sure if hernandez will show up on the classic or contemporary era committee as he won his mvp in 1979 but fully entered the national stage with his two world series wins in the 1980's. whenever he shows up on the ballot, i am sure he will receive some votes.

as a reminder, you can see hernandez and all of the members of my hall of famer collection here.