2013 MLB Hall of Fame Screechfest

Journalists shouldn't vote awards.

 

HOF voting is a lot different today than it was even a few decades ago... DiMaggio didn't go in on the first ballot, these days people make a big deal out of Gary Carter or Roberto Alomar having to wait a year or two... There are players (deserving Hall-of-Famers) but guys who are not exactly considered among the greatest of all-time who are soaring in with vote totals between 80-90 percent.

 

This is a different argument and certainly a really, really valid one.

 

Fine, but what's the alternative?

 

I think you basically have two options...

Keep doing it this way, or do it the way they do it in the NFL. Get a committee of 50 people or so and let them vote... It's not that hard to get a baseball HOF vote.

 

Della ... ANY voter who comes across it ... there is no first-ballot rule.

It's something created by those writers who thought they were a little smarter than everyone else, and who got bored just judging players on the agreed-upon parameters.

How a made-up rule can continue to dictate voting astounds me.

 

That second point is another way the voters hurt the game with this one. Of course, it was no coincidence that MLB announced HGH testing the very next day.

 

I honestly think the commissioner would do well to execute some sort of executive order -- I'm sure there is some bullshit "greater good" clause he could find -- and declare that he is putting Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark Maguire, Arod and any other of these no-brainers that are not in or in ARods case not going to be voted in and let it at that and let this die.

Clearly the baseball writers are too stupid and too arrogant to do the right thing and the idea that they are protecting some glorious past of one of the most racist games in our history is a farce.

 

Been away for a few days (actually writing about this for my paper) so I want to pop back in and make several points, in no particular order...

* The difficulty of having reporters vote for something like this was highlighted to me. On Tuesday I wrote an analysis of why I voted for the steroids players, and on Wednesday I wrote a news story covering the election and said "The voters sent a message that steroids users won't get in easily...." A reader called me on it, and I had to explain to him how one day I was being a "voter" and one day I was being a "reporter."

* People like to say the BBWAA needs to change its procedures or have someone else involved because of this result, but I honestly believe that just about any group would have come up with the same thing. The fact is steroids hovered over almost all of the best candidates, and it's perfectly legitimate and defensible to be on either side of the steroids fence. As for the non-steroids guys, I think all are borderline. (Even Biggio, who I didn't vote for, because I feel he was more a compiler than someone who was great. And even he got 68 percent in his first time on the ballot, which is pretty damn good in the whole pantheon of baseball history and probably appropriate for his career.)

* For the record, I have zero problem with adding broadcasters or former players or even fans to the process. Let them take the abuse. I think they'd make at least as many decisions that some "experts" view as "wrong."

* The only HOF change I'm really against would be going to a smaller committee. I think then you really invite a lot more problems, one being the standards could change dramatically based on the composition of the group. Also, every person's biases would be magnified because his vote would be much more important. As it is now, there are voters who aren't informed or are biased or who use faulty logic, but there aren't that many of them and their impact is minimal in a voting body of 569.

* I have never voted for Palmeiro, and it has nothing to do with steroids. Like Biggio, I view him as a compiler, just good for a long time but never the dominant player at his position (or even in the top 5 or 6, really.) That being said, Biggio is much closer because he was maybe the 3rd best 2b of his era, while Palmeiro ranks 7th or 8th at 1b.

 

You have a writer who voted for Shawn Green and defended it by pointing out all he had done in the Jewish community. I would say there are far too many who have votes.

 

But, JC, that's one voter out of hundreds. With hundreds involved, you're going to get an outlier vote or two. It happens. It's of no significance in the overall vote, except that people can extrapolate it to the entire electorate. Which would be misleading.

 

Still ... would love to hear the rationale on the Aaron Sele vote, too.