If I were a member of the BBWAA, this would be the first year I would be eligible to vote for the Hall of Fame. Of course, I am not a member of the BBWAA for the same reason I was not in Skull & Bones.
They wouldn’t have me.
Damn progressive and forward thinking Internet.
But just for amusement purposes only, I am offering a Hall-of Fame ballot anyway. In addition, I will continue to urge the Hall of Fame to put together another voting body instead of just BBWAA members.
Anyway, here’s the list (in no particular order):
• Roberto Alomar
• Bert Blyleven
• Tim Raines
• Andre Dawson
• Jack Morris
• Fred McGriff
• Barry Larkin
• Edgar Martinez
• Lee Smith
I also considered Dale Murphy, Dave Parker, Don Mattingly, Alan Trammell and Mark McGwire. Truth be told, I had been more of an absolutist against McGwire in recent years and I still have him off the list because I just don’t know enough about his era yet.
Plus, McGwire routinely had seasons where he had more home runs than singles and that’s just weird.
So debate them all you want, but remember this—of the 26 guys on the ballot, I am now old enough to have seen all of them play. Ancient.
The thing I don’t get about the Hall of Fame voting?
Not one player got a unanimous vote into the Hall of Fame. Not Babe Ruth, not Ty Cobb, not Connie Mack, not Cal Ripken, not Hank Aaron, not Willie Mays, not Ted Williams, not Joe DiMaggio, not Mike Schmidt, not Nolan Ryan and definitely not Rickey Henderson.
No one. Ever.
Hell, Joe DiMaggio wasn’t even a first ballot Hall of Famer.
Seriously.
As stated in the past, baseball is full of stupid traditions going back to the very beginning of the game. Two of the dumbest are the traditions in which only white men could play in the Major Leagues and giving the Hall of Fame vote to the BBWAA.
At least one of them has been corrected.
So why is it dumb to give certain writers the vote for life? Because a lot of them have agendas and can’t make peace with that pesky axiom that a journalist must be objective.
Y’know, that old chestnut.
Venerable ballscribe Bill Conlin of the Daily News admitted in a column from last year that he didn’t vote for Nolan Ryan for the Hall of Fame in 1999 because, well… just because. Conlin admitted that he was making a “political statement” which is another way to say that he had an agenda. That stuff is all well and good if Conlin were voting for something political like president or city council, but the Hall of Fame?
I must admit that I’m a little excited to see who was slighted by the voting this year. I’m trashy like that.