Omar Vizquel

One of my favorite players to watch over the years has been shortstop Omar Vizquel, now in his 22nd Major League season. Now with the White Sox, his 5th team, Vizquel, 43, is contemplating retirement at the end of the year.
For some people, they get great joy out of watching a guy slug a 450 foot home run. Like the saying goes, "chicks dig the longball."
Well, I'm not a chick and I do like the big blast as much as anybody, but I would much rather watch a fielding gem, the kind of which Omar Vizquel has been so great at.
I'm sure a lot of people would argue this with me but Vizquel is the greatest fielding shortstop I've ever seen. Better than Ozzie Smith. Better than Mark Belanger. Better than them all. I can't speak of players before my time, guys like Marty Marion, Phil Rizzuto, Pee Wee Reese and Honus Wagner. But I can't imagine any of them being better with the glove than Omar Vizquel.
When he first came up with Seattle, Vizquel couldn't hit for beans. But he turned himself into a pretty decent hitter. He has more than 2,700 hits to his credit but it's those 11-gold gloves that will pave his way to Cooperstown. At least it should. If he's not a first ballot Hall of Famer then the voting system needs to be revamped. It should be revamped anyway. The fact that broadcasters like Vin Scully (and the late Harry Kalas and Ernie Harwell) have never had a Hall of Fame vote is a sham. The baseball writers who vote on the Hall of Fame have frequently screwed it up. Anyway, I'll miss watching Vizquel play. I guess that is the point of this post.