Would you like to play a game?

No?

Well, tough luck, we’re playing one anyway. My article, my rules.

I’m going to show you a table featuring two former MLB players, and you’re going to guess who they are. Invigorating stuff, I know. These are the games Friday night dreams are made of.

Two Extremely Mysterious Players PLAYER GAMES AVG OBP SLG OPS HR MVPs ALL-STARS bWAR PLAYER GAMES AVG OBP SLG OPS HR MVPs ALL-STARS bWAR Player A 2986 .298 .444 .607 1.051 762 7 14 162.8 Player B 1988 .313 .400 .565 .965 383 1 5 72.7

If you’ve paid any attention to baseball in the past few decades, or if you happened to read the name of this article, or the URL of this article, or look at the picture of this article, then you can probably guess who Player A is.

You guessed Barry Bonds, you’re correct, have a cookie, yada yada, let’s move on.

The other one isn’t so easy to guess. Probably pretty hard to guess, unless you’ve been paying attention to baseball this week, read the URL, or have recently googled “SpongeBob shirts.”

It’s Larry Walker. Obviously.

I’m going to have an article next week that more seriously talks about Bonds’ legacy, and the sadness that he will likely never make it to the the baseball Hall of Fame. But until then, I want you to just stare at the table above, and marvel at the sheer magnitude of the discrepancy between these two players.

This is to take nothing away from Walker, a tremendous baseball player who absolutely deserves to be honored with the sport’s highest level of recognition. I loved watching Walker play, and spent many an afternoon in the backyard trying to emulate his batting stance (which I struggled to have results with, since i’m right-handed. Oh, and also since I sucked at hitting.). He was a tremendous player.

But my goodness, look at those numbers. Look at the home runs and Wins Above Replacement of a very deserving Hall of Famer, and then look at the person above him, doubling those numbers with relative ease.

I’m speechless. So I’m going to let someone else speak for me.

Well said, Gob.

I don’t care about the steroids, the surliness, the soured relationship with the sport, and the cloud that hangs over the entire era (which, it’s worth noting, includes one Larry Walker). I’ll touch on that later.

Here’s the description of the Hall of Fame on its website:

The National Baseball Hall of Fame is a nonprofit committed to preserving the history of America’s pastime and celebrating the legendary players, managers, umpires and executives who have made the game a fan favorite for more than a century.

Look at those numbers again. Now read that quote. Now look at those numbers again. Now read that quote again.

Now watch that gif again because I know it’s how you’re feeling.