actually, dale murphy would have been a good player without home runs...
he was still an RBI machine, an amazing fielder, hit over .300 a few times (when there weren't as many players hitting over .300), stole more than 30 bases in a season and was the team leader. he was able to play several positions from catcher to 1B to any outfield position.
and yes, you can compare gwynn and ripken...we've been doing it. the consensus here seems to be that gwynn would be the player that most people would want if they were both young players again.
if you take the streak away from cal, i'm sure gwynn would receive a higher amount of votes to get in the hall of fame than ripken.
and how much is the streak actually a part of playing the game?
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