St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame candidates probably won’t get far

The 2013 Hall of Fame vote is just about in, and if you’re a St. Louis Cardinals fan you’d be forgiven for not really thinking about it—and not just because the PED debate has been insufferable. The Cardinals have candidates on the ballot, but all of them seem like longshots-at-best for election.

But that’s no excuse not to spend a lot of time talking about them, which is why we’ve been doing exactly that on Viva El Birdos. On Friday we wrote about how Mark McGwire and Larry Walker should be Hall of Famers, and why Reggie Sanders and Royce Clayton were at least pretty good. On Saturday we branched out to the pitchers, and talked about how Lee Smith saved the all-time saves record. (Smith, hovering around 50 percent, is probably the best bet to slide into electoral position, but now seems like a bad year.)

There’s also Woody Wililams—about whom more later. Despite my unending disgust over the Ray Lankford trade (he was my favorite player and I was 14, there’s no getting over it) I have to admit that he was also pretty good, and also worth talking about.