Sigh

McGwire has gotten exactly 128 votes (23 percent) each of the last two years in hall of fame voting. It should never get any higher and any intelligent baseball fan can see it with his or her own two eyes.

"Big Mac" had 583 home runs, but those are the most worthless 583 home runs in Major League Baseball history. In fact, no one who has hit more than 500 home runs is as worthless as McGwire.

Again, forget for a minute that McGwire's are likely steroid-induced dingers.

His 583 towering shots were almost 36 percent of his career hits total of 1,626.

That's right, he had only 1,626 hits. You tell me a Hall of Famer who had that only many hits. It's also easily the highest percentage of any player with more than 500 career home runs.

Bringing up a name from Chicago's baseball past, it's Dave Kingman-like. In fact, it's much worse than "King Kong," who was known as a homer-or-nothing hitter.

Kingman had 442 career home runs and 1,575 hits, which is 28 percent. The lowest number of hits for a 500-home run guy is 1,925 by Jim Thome of the White Sox, but he's still playing. So he can improve that number a little.

I consider Thome in the same category as McGwire -- not a Hall of Famer. He was a better overall player than McGwire, but in this day and age of inflated numbers, Thome isn't good enough yet.

A better comparison to McGwire would be Fred McGriff, who will be eligible in 2009. The "Crime Dog" had 493 home runs, 2,490 hits and never hit below .269 in a full season. He hit .300 or more four times.

McGwire hit more than .300 only twice and actually had a full season in 1991 (he played 154 games) in which he hit .201.

That's truly pathetic.

No player in the hall of fame for performance has EVER hit that low in a full season in the prime of his career.

That 1991 season was only four years removed from his rookie-of-the-year campaign. And he followed it up with two years (1993 and 1994) in which he had 18 home runs in 74 games combined because of injuries (due to steroids?).

Never mind his famous "I plead the fifth amendment" moment in front of Congress. Never mind that only a blind man could have the opinion big No. 25 wasn't on steroids.

McGwire isn't a Hall of Famer based on pure numbers.

On the other hand, his counterpart in that magically fake cheater-filled 1998 season does deserve Hall of Fame status, if 'roids are removed from the equation.

Sammy "They were just Flintstones Vitamins" Sosa has 609 home runs, 2,408 hits and 234 stolen bases. He had two 30-30 campaigns (1993 and 1995) and may have put together the most dominant five-year stretch in Major League history.

From 1998 to 2002 Sosa averaged 58 home runs, 141 runs batted in with a .306 composite batting average.

Again, forgetting about Flintstones Vitamins or steroids, the number say Sosa is a lock for the hall.

McGriff has an above-average shot and McGwire is a fraud.