Le Batard, Deadspin, the HOF vote

Why accept something less than the ideal?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis

 

Can we please drop the delusion that Deadspin's highly educated, highly informed, highly engaged audience is representative of fans at large? As of this evening, Kobe Bryant is the leading All-Star vote getter among Western Conference guards. If you think that LeBatard's stunt is proof that "Joe Six Pack" is smarter than the collective BBWAA when it comes to baseball, suit yourself. But it's not actually the case.

 

Joe Bag of Donuts takes offense at being referred to as Joe Six Pack.

 

I'm unclear exactly what Le Batard did to earn this HOF vote in the first place.

Cover baseball for 10 years? Pu-leaze. How much "coverage" of the Marlins did he actually do? The occasional column about how no one understands Miggy? How unfair it is that Vlad plays in Montreal? I'd actually be interested to see what Marlins coverage he really participated in while at the Herald.

If you want better voters, don't just give votes out to people who never took the game all that seriously in the first place.

 

He was the Herald's first beat writer.

 

A few points...

1. The Hall of Fame, not the BBWAA, decides how it's members are elected. They are free to add fans or broadcasters or players at any time. They are free to instruct voters to disregard steroids. They are free to say they don't want lifetime voting rights. Since they do none of those things, I assume they are happy this way. If you're not, complain to them, not the BBWAA.

2. If you look at the Deadspin results you see they had a much higher percentage of votes for guys like Benitez and Mike Timlin, but since all of their people were casting only one ballot it got ignored. If you took the BBWAA and turned it into one ballot the same way, it looks a lot like deadspin's.

 

Inadvertently, I think you've revealed exactly why LeBatard did what he did. He doesn't value his BBWAA membership and enjoyed riling up its members with this stunt. It's clear that BBWAA voters are just as guilty as fans of rooting for players they personally like regardless of their actual merits. Ken Gurnick cast a vote for Morris while leaving off Maddux, and I find that much more self-serving than what DLB did. Any supposed Baseball Hall of Fame gatekeeper who would make that kind of decision is either incompetent or corrupt, if not both. DLB is neither, he just recognizes the farce of the process and decided to play the role of The Joker from The Dark Knight... "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

 

That theory is full of shit. Santo didn't make it on the writers vote because he wasn't good enough. He was a marginal candidate. The new "veterans" committee put him in. Santo was well-liked. Nobody was trying to make an example of him or string him along.

Votes change over the years because perceptions change and -- pay attention now -- the electorate changes. Guys die and otherwise drop out, new people come in. They often have different views. I don't know what the turnover rate is over any given 15-year period, but I'd guess it's significant.

(This is from someone who thinks writers have no business voting on awards/Halls of Fame in any sport).

 

I wish to express complete agreement with BB Bobcat's last post. The Hall runs itself (of course MLB has the final word) and can change the rules of election at any time. That it doesn't indicates to me that in its traditional feckless fashion, MLB can't come up with a better process on its own, because it spend much time thinking about it as there's no money in it.

 

Fair enough. Playing that "role" is not a credit to him.