For just the eighth time, the baseball writers have failed to give enough votes to anyone on the ballot thus the only three inductees this year come from the Veterans Committee. They are Deacon White, umpire Hank O’Day, and former Yankee owner Jacob Ruppert, read HERE.
That’s all well and good, but here’s my problem. First year
ballottees (is that even a word?) and cheaters guilty in the court of public
opinion, Barry Bonds & Roger Clemens, received 36% & 37% of the vote
respectively. The leading candidate this year was Craig Biggio with 68%, but if
I recall. weren’t he and Jeff Bagwell (60%) accused together? (Read HERE.) Despite all
of the posturing, I really thought Biggio & Bagwell were going to make it, as
well as Jack Morris, who was in his last year of eligibility.
I was only a kid
when Morris was in his prime, but I'll always remember him beating the Yanks. He
was never overpowering but dominant when he needed to be.
Now, if I had a vote, without question Clemens & Bonds WOULD
have been on my ballot. You read that right. Did they cheat? Technically no. Did they use PEDs?
Probably. None of this stuff was illegal at the time. Up until the 1970’s,
Amphetamines were a rampant problem and all those guys got in.
The Hall of Fame
is supposed to honor the best of their time and leaded or unleaded Clemens and
Bonds were the best of their time. Sammy Sosa (12%) & Rafael Palmeiro (9%)
were not and the voting reflects that.
Now, here’s the thing, each year the writers are limited to
just 10 inductees. If they lift their self-imposed ban on the "Steroid" guys,
Clemens and Bonds are in. Let's say they come around and vote Bagwell &
Biggio in... unlikely, but that’s 4. Here are
next year’s first ballot nominees who SHOULD get in: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine,
Frank Thomas, and Mike Mussina. Now we’re up to 8. I’ve been watching Tom
Verducci, Bob Costas, Peter Gammons and all the other writers on MLB Network
recently and they’ve all said they "only really vote for 6 guys every year." So,
if that’s true, how are 6 guys going to get 75% of the vote, let alone all 8? You following me?
These guys have really made a circus of this. And let me state one more nutty point to this... This tweet from CBS Sports.com's Jon Heyman really seems truly ridiculous to me. This came after the results were revealed:
Jon, no offense, you're not a superhero and you're not that important. We don't need you protecting us fans. We have brains in our heads and we have our own opinions. All you guys have done is created a boys club and a true mess of this stuff. That's my opinion of course... clearly you have yours... you Tweeted it.
But back to my analysis... Other losers of this precarious position the writers have
put us in are:
- Bernie Williams, who failed to get the minimum 5% to remain on the ballot
- Dale Murphy who has always been borderline HOF material, but has reached the end of his 15 years of eligibility
- Curt Schilling, who as much as it pains me to say, probably deserves to be in for being so good in so many clutch situations. He’ll probably get lost in the middle of future ballots.
The whole thing is nuts and us fans are just as confused as we were before. Good luck next year boys because this year you really
screwed the pooch!
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