Cecil Cooper Marquee

He hit .352 in 1980 with 219 hits, 25 home runs and 122 runs batted in, and it was the second-best average in the American League by a distance nobody could have planned for: George Brett hit .390. Cooper led the league in runs batted in that year and again in 1983, when he had 203 hits, 30 home runs and 126.

Seventeen seasons gave him 2,192 hits, 415 doubles, 241 home runs, 1,125 runs batted in and a .298 average, with five All-Star selections, three Silver Sluggers and two Gold Gloves at first base. Boston traded him to Milwaukee after the 1976 season for George Scott and Bernie Carbo, which is the deal that made the rest of it possible.

He was the first baseman for the 1982 Milwaukee club that reached the only World Series the franchise has played in, and won the Roberto Clemente Award the following year. He batted from a low crouch that people copied and nobody else made work. The 1993 ballot gave him nothing at all.