Baseball fans and media and philosophers have milestones on the mind these days. The first is 500 home runs. Rafael Palmeiro reached the 500-home run mark a few nights ago; it appears that Fred McGriff will reach 500 home runs as well later this year, and maybe Ken Griffey Jr. too.

The 500-homer mark has remained an important milestone over the years. Every player with 500 home runs is in the Hall Of Fame, or is going in someday; the same can also be said about the 3000-hit mark and 300 wins. However, with home run totals escalating in recent years, it is likely that there are players who are active who will reach 500 home runs, but will not be elected into the Hall. Palmeiro might be the first, but it's more likely that McGriff will be the first.

Just for the record, here are the lifetime numbers of Palmeiro and McGriff, entering this season:

It appears that Palmeiro has been a tiny bit better than McGriff. Appears, I saw, because there are other factors to consider in comparing the two.

The argument against Palmeiro is that he has been a star but not a superstar. He has never been the best player at his position; only three times has he been in the Top-10 in the MVP vote, finishing as high as 5th in 1999; he has been selected to only four All-Star teams.

The main argument against McGriff is that he is just a good slugger who has hung around too long, piling up the career numbers. Tim Keown of ESPN calls him "a poor man's Rafael Palmeiro", adding that McGriff is "Dave Kingman with a better personality and a .286 career batting average". Uh, yeah.

Anyways, it is true that McGriff has been a pretty ordinary player since 1995, with the exception of a fine season in 1999 with Tampa Bay. That's eight years of decline and counting, which you might think was a lot for a Hall Of Famer. Surprisingly, it's not.

• From 1971-1980, Willie McCovey had four seasons with 20+ homers, topping out with 29 in 1973. In that ten-year span he never hit higher than .280; five times he batted under .250, including a .213 average in 1972, a .204 average in 1976, a .228 average in 1978 and another .204 average in his final year.
• From 1971-1983, Carl Yastrzemski's career was mostly a sustained decline, with the exception of fine seasons in 1974 and 1977. Only once, in that thirteen-year span, did Yaz hit over .300; in that same span, he had three 20-homer seasons.
• From 1976-1986, Tony Perez hit .300 only once, that in 183 at bats in 1985. Only once in that eleven-year span did he hit have over 20 home runs and 100 RBI.

There have been others, notably Ernie Banks, who also spent the last decade of their career as an ordinary player. Time heals those wounds, however; the final decade of Carl Yastzremski's career has faded from memory, and Fred McGriff's will too.

But what happens when we compare McGriff's best seasons with Palmeiro's? Raffy still comes out on top, right? Maybe; in a perfect world, McGriff and Palmeiro would be easy to compare. They were born less than a year apart, and both made their debut in 1986.

The problem is that McGriff peaked in his 20's, while Palmeiro has peaked in his 30's. Around 1994-95, home run totals began to explode all around baseball; McGriff turned 30 in 1994, marking the end of his most productive phase. Palmeiro turned 30 in 1995, marking the beginning of his most productive phase.

Palmeiro has a streak of seven consecutive seasons with 38 or more home runs, and he has topped 40 in four seasons. McGriff's career-high in home runs is 37. On the other hand, McGriff has twice led the league in home runs, with Toronto in 1989 and San Diego in 1992. Palmeiro has hit many more home runs over the past decade, but has never led the league. McGriff had his own streak of seven straight seasons of 30 home runs from 1988-94; it doesn't sound like much today, but at the time it was a big deal; he was only the ninth player in baseball history to do it.

My belief is that, at the moment, Palmeiro and McGriff are equals, that neither one has a better argument for the Hall Of Fame than the other. From 1987-1994, McGriff was the better player. Since 1995, it has been Palmeiro. The only reason that Palmeiro gets more support is because of the failings of human memory; we've simply forgotten what the game was like in 1990. And it's hard for people to accept that McGriff's 35 home runs in 1990 are equally as impressive as Palmeiro's 47 homers in 1999.

As for whether they belong in the Hall Of Fame... I think they both have a case. But if you're going to seriously debate the topic, here's my advice: put aside the 500 home runs for just a moment. From what I have read and heard on the topic, many people have fallen into the trap of believing that 500 home runs is a minimum requirement for a Hall Of Fame first baseman. The reality is that there are 18 first basemen in the Hall; four of them hit 500 home runs, the other 14 didn't, for various reasons. Everyone is so focused on the 500 home runs, you would think that nothing else mattered.

In my opinion, the list of Hall Of Fame first basemen can be split into five groups:

1. The Best

Lou Gehrig

Jimmie Foxx

Willie McCovey

Eddie Murray

Harmon Killebrew

Johnny Mize

Hank Greenberg

2. Borderline Candidates

Tony Perez

Orlando Cepeda

3. The Rest

Bill Terry

George Sisler

Jim Bottomley

Frank Chance

4. 19th Century Dudes

Cap Anson

Jake Beckley

Roger Connor

Dan Brouthers

5. George Kelly

George Kelly

Mark McGwire will be inducted into the Hall, and will take his place along with The Best; so will Jeff Bagwell and, I think, Frank Thomas. Palmeiro and McGriff are, I believe, borderline candidates, along with Perez and Cepeda (and Keith Hernandez and Don Mattingly and maybe a couple of others).

The Rest were all terrific players, but none of them were truly great like Gehrig or Foxx, and all four had short careers. Bill Terry was a Keith Hernandez-type hitter who didn't start to play regularly until he was 28 years old. Sisler and Bottomley both played in Sportsman's Park, a nirvana for left-handed hitters in the 1920's; both stopped hitting at age 30. Chance only had four full seasons, spending more time on managing than on playing.

George Kelly is by far the weakest first baseman in the Hall, and really can't be put in any group except his own.

If you think that only the very best should be in the Hall, then Palmeiro and McGriff probably fall short. I tend to be conservative when it comes to voting for the Hall, and I wasn't in favour of either Perez or Cepeda being inducted. But the reality is that they are now in, and I believe that Palmeiro and McGriff are no less qualified.

And now that I think about it, if Dave Kingman had hit .286 and had had a better personality, he would have been elected to the Hall of Fame a long time ago.