Jay Bell Marquee

He was a bunter for most of a decade — 159 sacrifice hits, and he led the National League in them three times for Pittsburgh — and then hit 38 home runs with 112 runs batted in for Arizona in 1999 at thirty-three. Almost nothing about the second half of the career follows from the first.

Eighteen seasons gave him 1,963 hits, 195 home runs, 394 doubles, 853 walks and a .265 average, with a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger in 1993 and two All-Star selections.

In the ninth inning of the seventh game of the 2001 World Series he was the runner on third when Luis Gonzalez looped a single over the drawn-in infield, and he scored the run that beat Mariano Rivera and the Yankees. He hit a home run in his first major-league at bat, in 1986, off Bert Blyleven. The 2009 ballot gave him two votes of 539.