Out by a Step: The 100 Best Players Not in the Baseball Hall of Fame

To diehard baseball fans, the selection of players who will join the ranks of Cooperstown inductees often seems a bit arbitrary. Over the years there have been many outstanding players passed over, time and again, by the Veterans Committee, despite the players' qualifications and the support of fans and teammates. In Out by a Step, Mike and Neil Shalin compile their list of the 100 finest major leaguers who, in their views, deserve a place on the hallowed walls of Baseball's Hall of Fame.
Out by a Step celebrates the fine careers of this "close but no cigar" fraternity—Richie Allen, Joe Torre, Tommy John, Elroy Face, and Urban Shocker, to name just a few—and will surely open up lively debate among baseball fans everywhere.

Veteran sportswriter Mike Shalin spent 15 years on the baseball beat, first covering the New York Yankees for the New York Post and then the Boston Red Sox for the Boston Herald. Since leaving the beat in 1995, he has covered the sports scene at Boston College, but still keeps his hand in baseball via freelance writing, including a series of young readers' books done in the late 90s. Mike Shalin resides in Peabody, Massachusetts. Neil Shalin is a freelance writer in the Chicago, Illinois, area, who currently covers high school and college sports for The Daily Herald. In 1999, he retired from his position as an editor, speechwriter, and Midwest public relations director for MetLife.