Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Why would that be the case? A good pitching staff should allow fewer runs at home and on the road.

 

I mean that a well-built pitching staff (and in an era without much player movement) should perform well at home, unless the games are played on Mars or a pre-humidor Coors. It does not necessarily mean it's a pitcher's park. And if I'm reading Rick's numbers properly, they are not all that persuasive.

 

Understood.

 

The BBWAA and the HOF started losing their credibility way back in 1962 when the J.G. Taylor Spink Award was first announced. Writers and Broadcasters (the Ford C. Frick Award was added in '78) should not be honored by Sports Halls-of-Fame with permanent exhibits in their facilities.

Note rant ahead on one of my pet peeves: before someone jumps in here to say "the Spink & Frick Award winners are not HoF inductees but honorees" please point that out to these award winners, their fellow media members and their past and current employers who regularly boast about their Baseball HOF members and fail to note the distinction between the media awards and actual HOF membership (ESPN especially was guilty of this when Peter Gammons worked there, Chicago Tribune was just as bad when Jerome Holtzman was on their payroll). Gammons and Holtzman are J. G. Taylor Spink Award honorees. They are not Hall-of-Famers. Broadcasters are even worse in identifying their own as members of the Baseball HOF. Please stop identifying Milo Hamilton, Harry Caray, Marty Brennaman etc. as HOFers. They're Ford C. Frick Award winners not Baseball Hall-of-Famers. Just once I'd like to see one of these award winners, broadcaster or writer, make the correction after they're introduced as HOFers.

Obviously, the Baseball Hall-of-Fame is just as guilty as the media in ignoring the distinction by allowing these awards to presented and the winners giving their acceptance speeches at the actual HOF enshrinement ceremonies. [/end of rant]

The HOF & the BBWAA continued to lose credibility over the years when the HOF added their "Pete Rose rule" just in time to prevent the BBWAA from voting on Rose's potential enshrinement and the BBWAA leadership meekly went along with this change.

In 2003, the HOF's credibility was further compromised when HOF President Dale Petroskey politicized the HOF when he canceled a long planned 15th anniversary celebration of Bull Durham because he didn't like the anti-war views of the film stars Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. The BBWAA kept silent on the possible free speech controversy, thus IMO lost some more credibility.

It will be interesting in the next few months to see which baseball club's cap is represented in Andre Dawson's HOF bust. The word on the street here in Chicago is Dawson wants to be inducted as a Cub since (a) the Expos no longer exist and (b) he thinks going in as a Cub will be better for his future earnings on the autograph/memorabilia circuit. While Dawson had one great year as a Cub and several good to very good years in Chicago, he played six years longer in Montreal and really made his mark as a top ballplayer as an Expo. It will be interesting if the HOF goes against the guidelines they put in place five years ago to prevent Wade Boggs from blatantly selling his HOF enshrinement to the Devil Rays. IMO, It they make the 'best business decision' to allow Dawson to go in as a Cub because the Montreal Expos no longer exist, the HOF & MLB will lose even more credibility in my eyes.

Looking over the numbers since 1978 (the year that the Ford C. Frick Award was added to go along with the J. G. Taylor Spink Award), the BBWAA have elected 53 players into the HOF. In that same time span, 34 broadcasters have been awarded the Ford C. Frick Award and 37 writers have won the J. G. Taylor Spink Award. That's a total of 71 media members honored on a Sunday morning in Cooperstown versus only 53 baseball players deemed worthy by the BBWAA. Luckily the Veterans Committee, or at least the old Veterans Committee, saw fit to include another 53 MLB players for induction during that same span. (Note: I'm not counting the Negro League players inducted by a vote of the special committee or the owners, executives, umpires & managers, just the actual MLB players inducted starting with 1978).

106 actual baseball players inducted vs. 74 media members honored is not right. This is suppose to be THE Baseball Hall-of-Fame, not a HOF Museum stacked with media honorees. Now, I'm not necessarily arguing for more players to be inducted, but why are such a high number of media members are being honored in a SPORTS Hall-of-Fame?

For those that want to argue we need to keep up high standards and only the very best should be elected, I wished you'd had the same high standards in mind when you're voting for the Ford C. Frick Award and J. G. Taylor Spink Award. Take a look at some of THOSE award winners. Yes, they're are plenty of great journalists, broadcasters, and trailblazers that were honored but some of those awards are for longevity and friends of BBWAA leaders rather than excellence. They are more than a few "Tommy Johns" honored with the Frick Award and the Spink Award. If the ballplayer Tommy John doesn't deserve to be inducted because "his career numbers are only high because he played for 26 years" why should a writer or broadcaster be honored because he was a baseball writer or broadcaster for 25+ years? Yes, Tommy John as a ballplayer wasn't in the same class as a Cy Young or Babe Ruth but (forgive me I didn't want to single out a writer or broadcaster but I need to make the point) IMO, a Milo Hamilton as a broadcaster isn't in the same class as a Vin Scully or a Ernie Harwell.

Also, why does it take a 75% majority to be honored in Cooperstown as a player by the BBWAA or as a player, manager, umpire, executive by the Veterans Committee but it takes only plurality to be honored as a broadcaster or writer? Shouldn't a media member be required to get 75% of the vote too? Why must one broadcaster and one writer be honored every year? Shouldn't Cooperstown only honor the Babe Ruths and Cy Youngs of the media and forget about letting in a few Tommy Johns or Ron Santos? You know, the whole high standards thing people use for their excuse when sending in a blank ballot or ballots with only one or two names checked when it comes time to vote for the players. Also, since the BBWAA already vote on which players (if any) to honor at Cooperstown why do they also have voting exclusivity in the J. G. Taylor Spink Award? Since the writers get to vote on the players, shouldn't the MLB players get to decide which writers deserve the honor of the J. G. Taylor Spink Award? That vote would be fun, players voting on the writers with writers needing 75% of the vote total for honoree. Bet that might get some people down from their high horse.

So in July, we'll have a enshrinement ceremonies where only one of the five speakers actually played the game at a very high to great level. I'm now hoping that next year, not one player is selected by the Veterans Committee(almost a no-brainer with the present HOF members voting) and not one player receives 75% of the vote by the BBWAA. Then we'll end up with only two people giving their acceptance speeches at Cooperstown, a writer and a broadcaster. There would be more people on stage than there will be in the audience. Won't that be awkward and embarrassing to MLB, the HOF, the BBWAA and be devastating to the ESPN ratings of the Cooperstown weekend. Maybe then some real change will come to the HOF voting.

 

I figured this thread would be an even mix of over-righteous anger, specious arguments, conveniently-calcuated baseball math, etc., and I was not disappointed.

I said it earlier, and I'll say it again ... Raines' percentage of the vote is a bigger travesty than Blyleven's. Alomar is a bigger travesty than either of them.

 

Good rant, Oscar.

 

Given that he ran faster than the guy who ended up with the gold and who had also been caught that year using performance-enhancing drugs, why the hell not?

 

This doesn't reveal who voted for Kevin Appier, but it is useful.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100105&content_id=7878286&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

Lot of bauble here about knees and what Player X should have achieved and what Player Y could have surmounted. So I'm still a little fucking confused, because I thought they were voting on who deserves to be in the Hall of Fame based on the merits of his career as a baseball player -- not sure where I got that crazy idea from.

 

Fred McGriff was a better player than Andre Dawson.

Career .284/.377/.509. Dawson is a career .279/.323/.482 hitter and has fewer home runs than McGriff (despite playing more games). McGriff got on base 500 more times than Dawson, an out machine. He changed the complexion of pennant races. Dawson is not in his class.

 

I always found it interesting that Toronto had both Fred McGriff and Cecil Fielder at the same time - platooned them at first base, in fact - and kept neither of them.

But, considering that the Jays traded McGriff for Joe Carter and then installed John Olerud as his successor at first base, it worked out very well for all concerned.

 

Garry Howard didn't vote for Roberto Alomar. As a NYC native and Yankee lover though, he did find room on his ballot for Don Mattingly. Suddenly the results don't surprise me at all.