Maddux, Glavine, Thomas elected to Baseball Hall of Fame; Biggio just misses

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released


Stark noted a problem; Whitman offered his opinion on a solution.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

My approach, which obviously is not the only one, to voting is to keep it as simple as possible. Who on the ballot do I believe qualifies for election? Write the names down. If there are less than 10 or 10, vote for them. If there are more than 10, pick the 10 I believe are most qualified. Does that last screw some worthy candidates. Yes. Has it ever happened except this year and last? No.
Trouble is, it will keep happening. The "PEDs were the worst evil ever" crowd exemplified by Gurnick will have the unintended consequence of creating such a bottleneck of candidates that screwing of worthy candidates with no known connection to the PED issue will become an annual event.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

That take on the situation completely ignores the discussion to this point. Dick is still trying to argue that it is reasonable to leave Maddux off the ballot. He tried to use Stark to support that point because Stark employed some measure of strategic voting. Of course, Dick was attempting to gloss over the fact that Stark also called any ballot that does not include Maddux an embarrassment.

Right now we have exactly one voter who has laid claim to a ballot that does not include Greg Maddux and that is the Ken Gurnick. So much for the strategic voter. The guy claimed he was leaving off every player from the PED era, then voted only for Jack Morris, who played in the PED era.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Where?

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Which transgression is worse:

A) Not voting Rickey Henderson because after he was pulled from a playoff game he went into the locker room to play cards instead of staying in the dugout to "support the team" ...

or

B) Not voting Maddux?

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Nice graf by Craig Calcaterra:

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/07/ken-gurnicks-hall-of-fame-ballot-is-perhaps-the-laziest-and-most-willfully-ignorant-ever/

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

I can't answer that question without context.

If the reason for not voting for Maddux is to prevent unanimity, then that trangression is worse.

If it is because there are 10 holdovers on one's ballot, then the Henderson transgression is worse.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Gurnick didn't omit Maddux to prevent unanimity.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

Right.

And his ballot was almost defensible - until he hitched his wagon to a guy who arguably pitched during the PED era, depending on one wants to define it.

In actuality, I think he just didn't want Jack Morris to have to die for his cause. Nobody else was in danger of that. His vote was symbolic, largely, otherwise. But by omitting Morris, I think he probably recognized he could do real damage, and so he wussed out, and reverse engineered a defense.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

His ballot is nowhere near defensible when you think of these three things:

-- Gurnick himself defined the steroid era as starting in "1992 or 1993."
-- Jack Morris pitched from 1977-1994, and had arguably one of his better seasons in 1992.
-- Greg Maddux pitched from 1986-2008.

For his ballot to be defensible, the whole time-space continuum would have to be altered, unless one of them pitched in an alternate, steroid-free universe from 1986-1993.

 

Re: 2014 BBWAA Baseball Hall of Fame ballot released

If not for his naive timeline, Ken's approach demonstrates more integrity than that of those voters who pretend they know which players were (and which weren't) using some now-banned substance.