I'm a poet, so my brain works in metaphor, and I've been trying to find one that describes how I feel about Hall of Fame voting. Here we go.
This process feels like having 500 people vote every year on the answer to the question, "What's the best meat?" There's no other criteria given. Just that. Voting continues until there's a majority selection.
120 or so people vote for beef, on account of the taste and versatility.
90 folks vote for steak. Sure, it's a type of beef (technically a type of cut), but these voters are precise.
75 voters pick bacon. It's bacon, for crying out loud, and it goes with so many things.
Another 65 people select chicken. They reason that it's the healthiest choice.
50 votes go to a medley of different kinds of "organic, free-range, antibiotic-free" meats. These voters are very specific and won't settle for anything less.
Then there are 50 more votes that cover pork, turkey ("tradition"), duck, "burger," venison, bison, elk, and all kinds of other things, including fish. (Whether or not fish counts as meat, voters weren't quite sure, but most seemed to think no.)
And the final 50 voters submit a blank ballot. Because they're vegetarian.
I don't think Joe is the guy to write that piece. Not because he can't, but because it's not in his nature to find the worst thing you can say about Old Hoss Radbourne and post about it.
I'd say National Baseball Hall of Fame induction day attendance is small this summer. Doesn't seem like a lot of star power there. Ditto for '27 - Posey, Utley & whomever. The committees are also responsible for the poor showings - this year and years to come.
Joe - What if through election & attrition - the ballot only reflects 10 players? If most vote for all 10 - that'd be something !
I'm still not following the logic here. Like sure, you can argue that Joe Morgan or whoever else put their thumb on the scale about Bonds. But it's still the writers who vote. If their will is to just vote in the best players, they can do that.
So I think you can't really say it's the 'will of the writers' that the Hall of Fame is just about the best players, because if it was, that's what would have happened.
Should it be that? I dunno, maybe. But it seems like there must be a significant number of voters who don't want that, or Bonds and Clemens and the rest of them would have been in long since.
I don't think the writers should judge people based on their personal lives at all. I don't like the character clause. Was the player great? Was he one of the best of his time? If the answer is yes, then he should be in. Leaving writers and others to spend so much time talking about player's lives and make themselves feel better by putting them down is giving them too much power and soils the hall of fame, which should be about baseball.
Players who are banned are one thing. Players you don't like are another. Also, any writer that covered baseball during the steroid era knew that it was rampant and looked away purposefully at the time. Then brought out the torches and pitchforks (Only for those they didn't like or the truly great) afterwards. Any fan of the time that says they didn't know after the mid 1990s is at the very least lying to themselves, if not everyone. All of those people faced pitchers and hitters every day who were also on steroids - but if they weren't great, we don't care.
The voting and the hypocrisy and fundamentalism and judgement of morality from people (some of which have no ground to stand on) have taken away a lot of what made the hall great. Now it is just a social media issue so people can throw rocks to get likes.
I’m still surprised by Curt Schilling’s exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame. His comments have been inflammatory, but not universally and he competed fair and square on the field. He was never violent, never got into fights, never abused his wife, and never used PEDs. Back in the day, he was widely praised for his charitable work and even received the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award. Given his baseball bona fides, his is the biggest HOF injustice of all.
Schilling is a super easy one to explain. Because of what his surface-level stats look like (ERA around 3.50, only about 200 career wins) and being generally disliked by his peers, he was always going to be a near-impossible sell for the Veterans Committee, so the writers were his only path in. Then, when he explicitly said he didn't want writers voting for him, well, that was it.
The Hall of Fame puts disproportionate weight on pitcher wins (and saves) and awards. Curt Schilling didn't win all that many games (he's 89th on the all-time list) and he never won a Cy Young Award. In Jack Morris's last year on the ballot, he got twice as many votes as Schilling did. Why? Career wins. I mean, Jack Morris isn't actually marching with antifa.
If there was a political bias against conservatives, someone's got to explain how Mariano Rivera squeaked in with (checks notes) 100 percent of the vote.
I think he should be in the Hall based on the on-the-field performance. I was just answering your question as to why he's not: His surface level stats don't look that good to traditionalists and literally everyone involved in all aspects of the process hates him
It goes well beyond his support of trump (who a whole lot of hall of famers openly support already) and his collection of nazi memorabilia.
Didn't he re-tweet a tweet advocating for lynching journalists? Sorry, if Im a writer, I dont care how great you were on the field, you aren't getting my vote.
I’m sorry, but a retweet is not a reason to keep someone out of the Hall of Fame. So beating up your wife is OK but a retweet is not? In reality, if his politics were acceptable, it wouldn’t matter.
Beating up your wife isnt okay, but we were talking about Schilling, not Jones. It wasn't simply a re-tweet. The shirt read, "ROPE TREE JOURNALIST Some assembly required" and Schilling added "Ok so much awesome here". So yeah, if im a baseball writer, a journalist, and some thinks lynching me is "awesome" they aren't getting my vote. Thinking that lynching anyone is "awesome" has nothing to do with politics. It just makes you a shitty human being.
So because their feelings are hurt by a crude joke - that's all it was, not a call to arms - is a smokescreen. Bringing up Jones is simpley proof that is was a smokescreen.
I'm 69. Life-long baseball fan. I went to Cooperstown once, about 20 years ago. It was great. Everything & more than I imagined it to be. However, it's time for a change.
The HoF people need to reflect upon what they have now & what it can be, should be. Make it the National Baseball Museum. Give us the story of baseball. Glory, yes. Also, all the warts. Tell the tales of how this sport has reflected the good & bad in this country.
You can bring in Shoeless Joe from the wilderness. Rose can be Charlie Hustle & the guy who gambled. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa & all can be recognized for the players with great talent that they were and how they took advantage of the system at a point in their careers.
Put the plaques in storage. Tell the stories. Be honest. Maybe have a kids section where it can be all tales of heroes of great moments. For adults, let us take it all in - for better or worse. We can handle the truth & still be fans of the game.
JT, the "HOF people" do not give a rat's ass about your opinion, my opinion, or Joe's opinion about what the HOF should do. If that's sounds harsh, it's because it's true. They just don't. Jane Forbes Clark is the classic 1%er. As Updike wrote, "Gods do not answer letters." And to quote Al Pacino, if I were the man I was five years ago, I'd take a flamethrower to the place.
If the writers wanted Bonds in, why wasn't he voted in on the first ballot? Or the second or third? You can't blame Mike Mussina or whomever for taking votes from the greatest hitter of our lifetime?
People have so many mixed feelings these days, in part because we're way more comfortable having feelings than in the good old days, when people sucked it up and swept stuff under the rug. It's compounded by how judgmental we can be with our internet muscles.
Maybe the focus should be on the baseball museum part of that wonderful place. No one goes to the art museum and wonders if Picasso's works belong on the wall, whether he was ever called an a-hole or not (crank up Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso"). We go to the art museum to see great, interesting art.
I have loved my visits to Cooperstown. I enjoy the plaques and the saintly status induction gives some players, but I don't need baseball saints. There's a great book called Baseball Gods. I can enjoy the players and their legendary deeds more like Greek gods, warts and all, than Catholic saints. No offense to Catholics and any saints. Just let me revel in them all. I can have my opinions about this player's warts. You can have your own opinion. We all edged up in our seat when these legends, at whatever degree we deemed them, were up to bat or toeing the rubber.
I don't disagree with the gist of this comment, but do want to point out that there is plenty of debate in the art world about how museums should contextualize Picasso's art, given his treatment of women. Picasso is so important that few museums would think about taking his work down completely, so the conversation is more about how museums should present him--as opposed to say Chuck Close, an influential, high-profile artist whose paintings did in fact get taken off of display at major museums like the Met and who had exhibitions cancelled after a series of sexual harassment allegations were made.
Bonds' case has always had me wavering back and forth. My belief is that he was a legitimate HOF player before he supposedly began using steroids. On the other hand he ws not going toe the HR king or possible GOAT if he didn't cheat. Maybe an absurd example clarifies why I am happy he has not been voted in. Benedict Arnold was a notable Revolutionary military leader before he switched sides. Whatever good he might have done to that point is no excuse to put him in a great American HOF.
The interesting thing about the morals clause is, as I believe Joe has written, it was put in to help get some "good guy" players into the hall, not to keep anyone out.
If that is the case and the HOF cared about the reason, they'd clarify or change the character clause. It's obvious, however, that the HOF wants Bonds, Clemens, etc. excluded, because if it didn't, the language could be changed in 5 minutes to remedy this.
A retweet and a like is not a reason to keep somebody out of the Hall of Fame, especially when you elect men who abuse their wives, who cheated on the field, and did other bad things and some that were illegal. He liked a tweet that was not literal anyway. Do you honestly think he believes journalist should be lynched?
I think it all comes down to nostalgia, just like it always does with baseball. It's never been about the sanctity of baseball but about the sanctity of childhood memories and nostalgia. Bob Costas openly looks the other way about Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle being hocked up on enough amphetamines to kill a horse because they played when he was 12 and they were the players who helped him fall in love with baseball.
The PEDs that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were different because they made it seem like Bonds was better than Mantle and we just can't have that. It's no coincidence that as the voter pool has evolved and the more seasoned/retired writers have faded out that this generation of voters are more receptive to the great players of their youth getting recognized, warts and all.
I am disappointed, Joe, that you weren't able to cast a vote for Omar Vizquel. Yes, there had been allegations of domestic violence and sexual abuse, but in the first matter, those allegations came from only one of his three wives, and the second Mrs Vizquel dropped those charges twice. As to the sexual harassment complaint, it seems as if Vizquel spoke rudely and hurtfully to a batboy with a disability, an act which he says that he regretted and made a settlement with the boy. There is no evidence that he was a predator or a serial abuser. In short, I don't think that there is enough hard evidence to convict Omar Vizquel of crimes or to outweigh his long record of community service.
On the baseball side, you must agree that acquiring Omar from Seattle in a straight-up trade for Felix (the Cat) Fermin was the best trade the Indians ever made (maybe the *only* good trade they've ever made). He was a great bunter, a clutch hitter, and a consistently great fielder. Together with Roberto Alomar, he was part of one of the greatest and most balletic double-play combos in baseball. Alomar entered the Hall of Fame in 2011 (despite, in a fit of pique, having spat on an umpire). Also, after an MLB investigation into sexual misconduct, he received a lifetime ban from MLB. I read that Alomar remains the only player to currently be a member of both the Baseball Hall of Fame and MLB's permanently-ineligible list simultaneously."
All in all,/Omar belongs in the Hall. And I hope that he makes it.
And while I'm at it, it's a crime that Kenny Lofton has not yet been welcomed to the Hall. Not only does his record as a hitter, runner, and fielder show that he merits a place in the Hall, but Kenny brought something extra to every one of the many teams he played for. In his own words - "I got the pepper." Kenny Lofton summed up what he meant to the Indians.
I think Vizquel has a dubious case at best, even ignoring his off field allegations. He has an OPS+ above 100 only two times in twenty-four years, finishing with an OPS+ of 82. Given his weak hitting, he’d have to be a truly sublime defender à la Ozzie Smith, but his defensive WAR is 15 fewer than Smith’s.
If character doesn't count, it's a not a HOF. It's a hall of stats.
I'm a poet, so my brain works in metaphor, and I've been trying to find one that describes how I feel about Hall of Fame voting. Here we go.
This process feels like having 500 people vote every year on the answer to the question, "What's the best meat?" There's no other criteria given. Just that. Voting continues until there's a majority selection.
120 or so people vote for beef, on account of the taste and versatility.
90 folks vote for steak. Sure, it's a type of beef (technically a type of cut), but these voters are precise.
75 voters pick bacon. It's bacon, for crying out loud, and it goes with so many things.
Another 65 people select chicken. They reason that it's the healthiest choice.
50 votes go to a medley of different kinds of "organic, free-range, antibiotic-free" meats. These voters are very specific and won't settle for anything less.
Then there are 50 more votes that cover pork, turkey ("tradition"), duck, "burger," venison, bison, elk, and all kinds of other things, including fish. (Whether or not fish counts as meat, voters weren't quite sure, but most seemed to think no.)
And the final 50 voters submit a blank ballot. Because they're vegetarian.
They will do this forever.
"you know all the rogues, cheats and troubled people in the Hall of Fame"
I think this would actually make for a great article or series of them.
It's so often written that the hall is filled with cheaters including those strongly suspected of taking PEDs.
But I don't remember ever reading about all of them and a breakdown of their stories... Their background etc.
I don't think Joe is the guy to write that piece. Not because he can't, but because it's not in his nature to find the worst thing you can say about Old Hoss Radbourne and post about it.
I'd say National Baseball Hall of Fame induction day attendance is small this summer. Doesn't seem like a lot of star power there. Ditto for '27 - Posey, Utley & whomever. The committees are also responsible for the poor showings - this year and years to come.
Joe - What if through election & attrition - the ballot only reflects 10 players? If most vote for all 10 - that'd be something !
I'm still not following the logic here. Like sure, you can argue that Joe Morgan or whoever else put their thumb on the scale about Bonds. But it's still the writers who vote. If their will is to just vote in the best players, they can do that.
So I think you can't really say it's the 'will of the writers' that the Hall of Fame is just about the best players, because if it was, that's what would have happened.
Should it be that? I dunno, maybe. But it seems like there must be a significant number of voters who don't want that, or Bonds and Clemens and the rest of them would have been in long since.
I don't think the writers should judge people based on their personal lives at all. I don't like the character clause. Was the player great? Was he one of the best of his time? If the answer is yes, then he should be in. Leaving writers and others to spend so much time talking about player's lives and make themselves feel better by putting them down is giving them too much power and soils the hall of fame, which should be about baseball.
Players who are banned are one thing. Players you don't like are another. Also, any writer that covered baseball during the steroid era knew that it was rampant and looked away purposefully at the time. Then brought out the torches and pitchforks (Only for those they didn't like or the truly great) afterwards. Any fan of the time that says they didn't know after the mid 1990s is at the very least lying to themselves, if not everyone. All of those people faced pitchers and hitters every day who were also on steroids - but if they weren't great, we don't care.
The voting and the hypocrisy and fundamentalism and judgement of morality from people (some of which have no ground to stand on) have taken away a lot of what made the hall great. Now it is just a social media issue so people can throw rocks to get likes.
I’m still surprised by Curt Schilling’s exclusion from the Baseball Hall of Fame. His comments have been inflammatory, but not universally and he competed fair and square on the field. He was never violent, never got into fights, never abused his wife, and never used PEDs. Back in the day, he was widely praised for his charitable work and even received the prestigious Roberto Clemente Award. Given his baseball bona fides, his is the biggest HOF injustice of all.
Schilling is a super easy one to explain. Because of what his surface-level stats look like (ERA around 3.50, only about 200 career wins) and being generally disliked by his peers, he was always going to be a near-impossible sell for the Veterans Committee, so the writers were his only path in. Then, when he explicitly said he didn't want writers voting for him, well, that was it.
His Hall of Fame argument as a player is pretty solid. Keeping him out is just political.
The Hall of Fame puts disproportionate weight on pitcher wins (and saves) and awards. Curt Schilling didn't win all that many games (he's 89th on the all-time list) and he never won a Cy Young Award. In Jack Morris's last year on the ballot, he got twice as many votes as Schilling did. Why? Career wins. I mean, Jack Morris isn't actually marching with antifa.
If there was a political bias against conservatives, someone's got to explain how Mariano Rivera squeaked in with (checks notes) 100 percent of the vote.
I think he should be in the Hall based on the on-the-field performance. I was just answering your question as to why he's not: His surface level stats don't look that good to traditionalists and literally everyone involved in all aspects of the process hates him
It goes well beyond his support of trump (who a whole lot of hall of famers openly support already) and his collection of nazi memorabilia.
Didn't he re-tweet a tweet advocating for lynching journalists? Sorry, if Im a writer, I dont care how great you were on the field, you aren't getting my vote.
I’m sorry, but a retweet is not a reason to keep someone out of the Hall of Fame. So beating up your wife is OK but a retweet is not? In reality, if his politics were acceptable, it wouldn’t matter.
Beating up your wife isnt okay, but we were talking about Schilling, not Jones. It wasn't simply a re-tweet. The shirt read, "ROPE TREE JOURNALIST Some assembly required" and Schilling added "Ok so much awesome here". So yeah, if im a baseball writer, a journalist, and some thinks lynching me is "awesome" they aren't getting my vote. Thinking that lynching anyone is "awesome" has nothing to do with politics. It just makes you a shitty human being.
So because their feelings are hurt by a crude joke - that's all it was, not a call to arms - is a smokescreen. Bringing up Jones is simpley proof that is was a smokescreen.
The fact you think a shirt that advocates for lynching people is nothing more than a crude joke helps explain a lot of the problems in the US today.
I would say that you think a tweet and a like is worse than cheating, violence, and spousal abuse says a lot.
I'm 69. Life-long baseball fan. I went to Cooperstown once, about 20 years ago. It was great. Everything & more than I imagined it to be. However, it's time for a change.
The HoF people need to reflect upon what they have now & what it can be, should be. Make it the National Baseball Museum. Give us the story of baseball. Glory, yes. Also, all the warts. Tell the tales of how this sport has reflected the good & bad in this country.
You can bring in Shoeless Joe from the wilderness. Rose can be Charlie Hustle & the guy who gambled. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa & all can be recognized for the players with great talent that they were and how they took advantage of the system at a point in their careers.
Put the plaques in storage. Tell the stories. Be honest. Maybe have a kids section where it can be all tales of heroes of great moments. For adults, let us take it all in - for better or worse. We can handle the truth & still be fans of the game.
Thanks Joe!
So baseball should be the only sport without a HoF?
JT, the "HOF people" do not give a rat's ass about your opinion, my opinion, or Joe's opinion about what the HOF should do. If that's sounds harsh, it's because it's true. They just don't. Jane Forbes Clark is the classic 1%er. As Updike wrote, "Gods do not answer letters." And to quote Al Pacino, if I were the man I was five years ago, I'd take a flamethrower to the place.
If the writers wanted Bonds in, why wasn't he voted in on the first ballot? Or the second or third? You can't blame Mike Mussina or whomever for taking votes from the greatest hitter of our lifetime?
People have so many mixed feelings these days, in part because we're way more comfortable having feelings than in the good old days, when people sucked it up and swept stuff under the rug. It's compounded by how judgmental we can be with our internet muscles.
Maybe the focus should be on the baseball museum part of that wonderful place. No one goes to the art museum and wonders if Picasso's works belong on the wall, whether he was ever called an a-hole or not (crank up Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso"). We go to the art museum to see great, interesting art.
I have loved my visits to Cooperstown. I enjoy the plaques and the saintly status induction gives some players, but I don't need baseball saints. There's a great book called Baseball Gods. I can enjoy the players and their legendary deeds more like Greek gods, warts and all, than Catholic saints. No offense to Catholics and any saints. Just let me revel in them all. I can have my opinions about this player's warts. You can have your own opinion. We all edged up in our seat when these legends, at whatever degree we deemed them, were up to bat or toeing the rubber.
I don't disagree with the gist of this comment, but do want to point out that there is plenty of debate in the art world about how museums should contextualize Picasso's art, given his treatment of women. Picasso is so important that few museums would think about taking his work down completely, so the conversation is more about how museums should present him--as opposed to say Chuck Close, an influential, high-profile artist whose paintings did in fact get taken off of display at major museums like the Met and who had exhibitions cancelled after a series of sexual harassment allegations were made.
Good point! I was simplifying things to get at the celebrate the art, not the artist angle.
I really wish I could stop caring about the Baseball Hall of Fame but there's something in my brain at this point that won't let me.
I waffle on this but I have landed on letting the stats speak for the player.
Bonds' case has always had me wavering back and forth. My belief is that he was a legitimate HOF player before he supposedly began using steroids. On the other hand he ws not going toe the HR king or possible GOAT if he didn't cheat. Maybe an absurd example clarifies why I am happy he has not been voted in. Benedict Arnold was a notable Revolutionary military leader before he switched sides. Whatever good he might have done to that point is no excuse to put him in a great American HOF.
The interesting thing about the morals clause is, as I believe Joe has written, it was put in to help get some "good guy" players into the hall, not to keep anyone out.
If that is the case and the HOF cared about the reason, they'd clarify or change the character clause. It's obvious, however, that the HOF wants Bonds, Clemens, etc. excluded, because if it didn't, the language could be changed in 5 minutes to remedy this.
Curt Schilling is out because he said really dumb things about journalists. But they were just words.
Andruw Jones choked and dragged his wife.
All morality plays are full of paradoxes, and this is ours as baseball fans.
And if social media had existed in the 50's and 60's, there's no way Mickey Mantle would be in. None.
A retweet and a like is not a reason to keep somebody out of the Hall of Fame, especially when you elect men who abuse their wives, who cheated on the field, and did other bad things and some that were illegal. He liked a tweet that was not literal anyway. Do you honestly think he believes journalist should be lynched?
The Schilling snub exposes many of the baseball writers as virtue signalling phonies.
The David Ortiz induction exposes it much more.
He literally liked and amplified a tweet calling for journalists to lynched. Nothing the writers did in response to that is virtue signaling.
I think it all comes down to nostalgia, just like it always does with baseball. It's never been about the sanctity of baseball but about the sanctity of childhood memories and nostalgia. Bob Costas openly looks the other way about Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle being hocked up on enough amphetamines to kill a horse because they played when he was 12 and they were the players who helped him fall in love with baseball.
The PEDs that Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were different because they made it seem like Bonds was better than Mantle and we just can't have that. It's no coincidence that as the voter pool has evolved and the more seasoned/retired writers have faded out that this generation of voters are more receptive to the great players of their youth getting recognized, warts and all.
I am disappointed, Joe, that you weren't able to cast a vote for Omar Vizquel. Yes, there had been allegations of domestic violence and sexual abuse, but in the first matter, those allegations came from only one of his three wives, and the second Mrs Vizquel dropped those charges twice. As to the sexual harassment complaint, it seems as if Vizquel spoke rudely and hurtfully to a batboy with a disability, an act which he says that he regretted and made a settlement with the boy. There is no evidence that he was a predator or a serial abuser. In short, I don't think that there is enough hard evidence to convict Omar Vizquel of crimes or to outweigh his long record of community service.
On the baseball side, you must agree that acquiring Omar from Seattle in a straight-up trade for Felix (the Cat) Fermin was the best trade the Indians ever made (maybe the *only* good trade they've ever made). He was a great bunter, a clutch hitter, and a consistently great fielder. Together with Roberto Alomar, he was part of one of the greatest and most balletic double-play combos in baseball. Alomar entered the Hall of Fame in 2011 (despite, in a fit of pique, having spat on an umpire). Also, after an MLB investigation into sexual misconduct, he received a lifetime ban from MLB. I read that Alomar remains the only player to currently be a member of both the Baseball Hall of Fame and MLB's permanently-ineligible list simultaneously."
All in all,/Omar belongs in the Hall. And I hope that he makes it.
And while I'm at it, it's a crime that Kenny Lofton has not yet been welcomed to the Hall. Not only does his record as a hitter, runner, and fielder show that he merits a place in the Hall, but Kenny brought something extra to every one of the many teams he played for. In his own words - "I got the pepper." Kenny Lofton summed up what he meant to the Indians.
I think Vizquel has a dubious case at best, even ignoring his off field allegations. He has an OPS+ above 100 only two times in twenty-four years, finishing with an OPS+ of 82. Given his weak hitting, he’d have to be a truly sublime defender à la Ozzie Smith, but his defensive WAR is 15 fewer than Smith’s.