Alex Rodriguez is the best and highest-paid player in baseball, a shortstop as smooth as Tom Cruise's best pickup line. Nomar Garciaparra is the two-time batting champ with more bizarre rituals than a Shriners convention. And Derek Jeter is the autumn hero so skilled, so cool and so innovative that even as I write this, he is methodically perfecting a way of putting his pants on two legs at a time.

They are the three greatest shortstops to ever play in one league at the same time.

Or at least they are according to every baseball writer, magazine cover and teenage girl in the past three years.

	Cal Ripken is the current all-time leader in home runs by a shortstop with 345.

It's amazing, though, how short everyone's memory is. How in all those stories about A-Rod, Jeter and Nomar dominating the position as no one else ever did, everyone conveniently develops amnesia. How in all those claims that this is the greatest era for the position, the shortstops of the 1980s are as forgotten as Spandau Ballet.

How everyone forgets how good Cal Ripken Jr., Robin Yount, Alan Trammell and Ozzie Smith were in their prime.

I bring this up now, because I recently received my Hall of Fame ballot in the mail, with Ozzie and Trammell up for their initial vote. And with Ozzie a virtual lock for the Hall and Trammell a possibility, now is a good time to re-evaluate all the hyperbole over our current shortstop crop.

Consider: Ripken won two MVPs at short, Yount won one (he won another while playing center field) and Trammell and Smith each were runnerups in 1987 (you could make a strong argument each deserved to win). Among them, they played in 39 All-Star Games (as shortstops) and won 20 Gold Gloves (at least one by each). A-Rod, Garciaparra and Jeter, meanwhile, have yet to win an MVP or a Gold Glove.

While Ripken, Yount, Trammell and Ozzie can't match the Holy Trio offensively, remember that they played in a vastly different era -- when Yount won the MVP in 1982, teammate Gorman Thomas led the league with 39 home runs, an amount Barry Bonds hit by July this year. Had they played the prime of their careers now, they too might have found their way onto the cover of GQ.

Even so, the numbers are as compelling as the Bruce Springsteen Live set. Ripken and Yount each reached the 3,000-hit mark, Ripken holds the record for most home runs by a shortstop, Trammell scored 1,200 runs and drove in 1,000 and even Ozzie, as overlooked as he was offensively, stole 580 bases, scored 1,257 runs and batted .300 once.

Ozzie, of course, also quite likely was the greatest fielder to ever play the position -- he won 13 consecutive Gold Gloves -- and that alone earns him a place in Cooperstown.

Trammell's case is trickier. For years, he and Lou Whitaker were Detroit's best combo outside of Chrysler and Iacocca, but that famous pairing tended to overshadow his individual achievements. It should not.

Trammell finished in the Top 10 MVP voting three times. He won four Gold Gloves. He drove in more than 1,000 runs and scored more than 1,000, something only eight of the 19 Hall of Fame shortstops accomplished. Of those 19, Trammell has more home runs (185) than all but Ernie Banks and Yount (who hit many of their home runs at a different position), more RBI than 11, more runs than eight and more stolen bases than nine.

True, you can play this sort of statistical gerrymandering to an extreme, but the point is as obvious as the tailfins on a '57 Chevy -- Trammell deserves strong consideration for the Hall. If the writers don't vote him in, the veteran's committee eventually will.

That would make four Hall of Famers from one era, three from one league. While A-Rod, Nomar and Jeter are off to strong starts, they haven't earned their spots in Cooperstown yet. And given the history of player injuries and production declines, it's a fair bet no more than two wind up in Cooperstown.

And no, I'm not forgetting Omar Vizquel, who could make the Hall on his defense despite almost always being left out of the current shortstop discussion (when was the last time you saw Omar on the cover of Vanity Fair?). I'm just pointing out that when reading about how great the Holy Trio are now, it's worth remembering how great the shortstops were in the days when yellow power ties were all the rage.

Lies, damn lies and statistics
How popular was Jay Buhner in Seattle? The Mariners held their annual Buhner Buzz Cut Night seven times and 22,302 fans (including 6,246 this year) took advantage of the promotion to have their heads shaved in the parking lot (sometimes by Buhner himself) in exchange for a t-shirt and a free ticket. And remember, when the promotion began in 1994, shaved heads weren't quite the norm they are now. Buhner hit 307 home runs and drove in 961 after the Yankees traded him to Seattle for Ken Phelps in 1988. Phelps hit 17 home runs with 51 RBI in parts of two seasons for New York, prompting a memorable moment on "Seinfeld" when George Steinbrenner went to the Costanza household to inform them that he feared their son George was dead. Frank Costanza's response to this terrible news: "How the hell could you trade Jay Buhner?" Buhner's retirement is brought on by the continuing injuries that put him on the disabled list 10 times and caused him to miss more than 500 games. Good luck in retirement, Bone. You'll be missed. ... The same day Jason Giambi signed a $120 million contract, brother Jeremy was charged with possessing marijuana in Las Vegas. The maximum fine for a first offense in the state of Nevada is $600, an amount Jason will earn every four minutes beginning in spring training (based loosely on an eight-hour day and a 225-day work year). ... How badly has Bud Selig messed up baseball? At the annual manager's luncheon at the winter meetings, two teams (the Twins and Marlins) didn't have managers to represent them. And just wondering, but wasn't Dec. 15 the day Bud's elimination plan, including a dispersal draft, was supposed to be finished? The day came and went and we still don't know (wink, wink) who the doomed teams are.

Win Blake Stein's money
This week's category: The Saddest of Possible Members

Q: Which Hall of Fame shortstop had the lowest on-base percentage?

A: Joe Tinker, .308, but was good enough defensively to play in the majors at age 43.

Infield chatter
"No. 10: I want to help the team fight the embarrassment of not winning a world championship in 14 months."

-- Giambi reading the Top 10 reasons he signed with the Yankees on the David Letterman Show.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.