Reliving Hall of Fame weekend

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — There was so much that happened during the Hall of Fame induction weekend that it was impossible for a guy to write about all of it. What also makes it difficult for one guy is that my train of thought is to encapsulate each event instead of simply reporting what happens. For instance, when Bert Blyleven talked about his curve ball, well, that was a 1,000-word story and not something to summarize.

Hey, some people think about weird things like that.

Nevertheless, with the benefit of this little site and a lazy day at home, here's the best of what I saw at the Hall of Fame induction weekend...

The point of the trip was to cover Pat Gillick's induction into the Hall. Gillick, of course, was the Phillies' general manager from 2006 to 2008 where he put together the start of the greatest era of the franchise's existence. The Phillies were founded in 1883 and since then have lost more games than any professional sports franchise on earth. That's not hyperbole, that's the truth.

The Phillies' history is crowded with bad moves, bad thinking, bad players and bad losses. The Phillies were the last franchise in the National League to integrate its roster and needed 97 years to win its first championship. Don't think for a second that those two elements do not go together. Almost 10 years to the day after Jackie Robinson broke destroyed segregation in Major League Baseball, the Phillies got a guy named John Irvin Kennedy, who played in five big league games in 1957 and then that was it. Kennedy got to the plate twice, struck out once and scored a run as a pinch runner.

Kennedy stuck around with the Phillies until May 3 before toiling away for the next five years in the team's farm system, mostly in the south, which must have been a lonely existence for him. For the Phillies, though, it wasn't until a trade with Brooklyn brought aboard a shortstop named Chico Fernandez that they fielded a black ballplayer in the regular lineup. Fernandez, however, was from Cuba and it wasn't until Dick Allen came along in 1964 until the Phillies had a significant African-American player.

By 1964, Jackie Robinson had been retired for nearly a decade.

So yeah, the Phillies' history is littered with bad times. Yet since Gillick came around before the 2006 season, the team has been in the playoffs in every season since 2007, been two the World Series twice and have one of the most diverse rosters in the game. Sure, the club may have been headed that way with Ed Wade as the general manager, but it was with Gillick where everything came together.

Besides, it's been said that the Phillies needed Gillick more than he needed them, though it seems as if the Hall of Fame career reached its apex with the 2008 World Series title. Ask Gillick and he'll tell you that without the World Series victory in '08 and he probably doesn't get to Cooperstown.

"Baseball is about talent and skill and ability," Gillick said poignantly during his induction speech. "But at the deepest level it's about love, integrity and respect. Respect for the game, respect for your colleagues, respect for the shared bond that is bigger than any one of us."

Then again, it's not like people try to get to Cooperstown... do they? Don't answer because they do. Billy Wagner, the former closer for the Braves, Red Sox, Mets, Phillies and Astros outwardly aspired to achieve enough to get into the Hall of Fame. It was a numbers race for Wagner and with 422 career saves, he probably fell a bit short for election by the BBWAA. Injuries cost him the end of the 2008 season and most of the 2009 season, but at 38 Wagner came back and saved 37 games for the Braves last year. The fact that Wagner was a terrific quote and always able to fill up a reporter's notebook should not hurt him when the Veterans' Committee gets its shot.

Of course when Lee Smith retired, he had saved more games than any pitcher in history. Despite that, he is headed to his 10th year on the Hall of Fame ballot and just got 45 percent of the vote last time around. If Lee Smith can't break through, what chance does Wagner have? Add in the facts that neither Smith nor Wagner ever got to the World Series and the road to Cooperstown gets even rockier.

Regardless, there were always whispers that Bill Conlin quietly campaigned to win the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which is the de facto "writers' wing" of the Hall of Fame. Moreover, the Spink Award is the highest honor given to a writer from the BBWAA and the common mistake is to label it an induction into the Hall. It's not, but that's just semantics.

Nevertheless, whatever campaigning tricks he employed worked and Conlin had his day in Cooperstown on Saturday where he delivered the first address at the inaugural Awards Presentation at Doubleday Field. And frankly, the speech was terrific. As Conlin's colleague Rich Hofmann wrote in the Daily News' web site:

Conlin thanked his family and friends, and then the technology cooperated, and then he was off. All of the tools familiar to his half-century of readers in the Daily News were in evidence during his 10-minute speech: needle, scalpel, bludgeon, pie-in-the-face, and Battle of Gettysburg.

He was him.

Rich nailed it. But it is always curious to me that Conlin has always been labeled as a baseball guy for the past couple decades despite the fact he doesn't regularly go to games. Excluding postseason and spring training, where he often is found at the ballpark, I can count on one hand the number of times Conlin was seen at the ballpark for a regular-season game. The way it seems is that it is a badge of honor for the old ball writer to show up at the park four hours before game time to make the scene, yet Conlin gave up on that long ago. I can’t say I blame him, because the waiting around is for the birds. However, Conlin stopped going to the ballpark regularly when he was at age younger than guys like Jayson Stark. If we're talking as pure baseball writers, who adhere to the old-school unwritten laws of the BBWAA, Stark should be the next Spink Award winner.

Besides, if a baseball writer doesn't actually go to the park, he's pretty much just like those bloggers he has been railing against for years and years.

The elite club

As far as speeches go, Conlin was fantastic. Better yet, he had something to tick-off everyone, including Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson and chairman of the board of directors, Jane Forbes Clark, who dropped their heads as if to say, "Oh no he didn't!" after certain sentences.

Still, induction weekend is about the Hall of Famers and its new members. Actually, to those in the know, Hall of Fame induction weekend is like the debutante party, prom and homecoming dance all rolled into one for Jane Forbes Clark.

Heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune and of the famous Dakota building on Central Park West in Manhattan, Clark's grandfather started the Hall of Fame in 1935 when he converted an old gym into a small museum. By 1936, Clark's grandfather had turned the little museum into the capitol of the game of baseball and invited Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Connie Mack and Walter Johnson to his little Shangri-La on the banks of Lake Otsego to be the first Hall of Fame class.

And as the decades have raced on, everyone associated with baseball knows all about the Hall of Fame and Cooperstown. Though named for author James Fennimore Cooper and his family and once the summertime home for Union general Abner Doubleday, the town could very easily be named Clarkstown instead. After all, not only does Clark run the Hall of Fame down to the tiniest detail where she even determines how the museum is decorated, her family owns nearly all of the land around the area with the aim to keep it from ruining the perfect idyllic quality of Cooperstown.

Besides, the Hall of Fame not only is baseball's apex, it's Clark's family showplace. In the meantime, her aim seems to make the Hall of Fame the most elite of the elite secret societies.

In an interview with the Palm Beach Post, Clark said the Hall of Fame more or less defines its members.

"I think it's important for fans to see all of the Hall of Fame members, and in talking to the Hall of Famers it's important to them because the Hall of Fame is a huge part of their life," she said.

"I don't think you've ever interviewed a Hall of Fame member who didn't say how special it was to be a part of that elite fraternity. And that's exactly what it is. I wanted the fraternity to start coming back together and spending time together."

Only 14 of the 65 living members of the fraternity did not return this past weekend. Gary Carter could not make it because he is fighting brain cancer. Poor health also made it difficult for Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Stan Musial to attend. But Henry Aaron, Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken were noticeably absent. So too was Carl Yastrzemski. Meanwhile, Mike Schmidt did not attend and Steve Carlton has been absent the past couple of years.

But Ryne Sandberg took a few days off from managing the Phillies' top farm team to be there, as did the big brass in the Phillies' front office like Ruben Amaro Jr. David Montgomery, Bill Giles and Dallas Green.

The best since Morgan

Still, the weekend was Ms. Clark's celebration for baseball and her family's museum as well as the new members of the elite fraternity. Gillick, just the fourth general manager to receive the induction, is someone we've written about exclusively for the past week, but haven't had much of a chance to mention the other inductees, Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven, both of whom had to wait a bit to get the call. Alomar missed by a handful of votes in his first year of eligibility on the BBWAA ballot last year, while Blyleven got in after 14 years along with a few of those spent actively campaigning for the votes.

I only caught Joe Morgan toward the end of his career and not in his MVP heyday during the 1970s. It was during that stretch where patron saint of the statistical wing of baseball fandom, Bill James, wrote that Morgan was the greatest second baseman ever to play the game.

In the years that followed, however, Roberto Alomar took the mantle from Morgan and ran with it. I missed the brunt of Morgan's career, but I saw every bit of Alomar's and he's easily the best second baseman I have ever seen. The best example of his hitting prowess I remember was during the 1993 World Series where he can Paul Molitor destroyed the Phillies' pitchers. Alomar went 12 for 25 with a couple of doubles, a triple and six RBIs. He had a hit in every game of the series, including four in Game 3 and three in the clinching Game 6.

Sure, Alomar was a career .300 hitter and played the third-most games at second base in history, but what makes him a Hall of Famer in my book was how he ratcheted it up for the playoffs. Frankly speaking, if we're looking at ballplayer and their career as nothing more than a pile of numbers, then maybe the postseason stats should be the most important? That is where the winners are decided.

Anyway, Alomar was the MVP of the 1992 ALCS where his home run off Oakland's Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning of Game 3 sent it to extra innings and kept the Blue Jays on the path to win their first World Series title.

It's interesting to point out that Alomar received 90 percent of the votes in his second trip through the voting process after falling five votes short in 2010. Think about that for second... Alomar was not a first-ballot Hall of Famer because of five votes. In falling five votes short, Alomar was denied in an election in which five voters sent back blank ballots, while admitted steroid user David Segui, pitchers Pat Hentgen and Kevin Appier, as well as first baseman-turned-broadcaster, Eric Karros, combined for five votes. That’s 10 wasted votes and does not include the nine votes spent on Ellis Burks and Robin Ventura.

All of those guys were nice players, but there isn’t a Hall of Famer in the bunch. If the people who voted for guys like Diego Segui or Kevin Appier don't know that, then maybe they should reevaluate the voting process.

So with those 19 votes that were spent on making a point, silly politics, vendettas, or drunken dares, very easily could have been spread out so that worthy candidates like Alomar. Better yet, maybe Blyleven gets in with Andre Dawson in 2010 instead of 2011. Maybe then Gillick has the stage to himself this year or maybe a player like Barry Larkin, Jack Morris, Lee Smith, Jeff Bagwell or Tim Raines breaks through?

Apparently, what cost Alomar those five votes was the unfortunate incident where he spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during an argument at the end of the 1997 regular season. The voting writers held this mistake against Alomar despite the fact that Hirschbeck and Alomar have buried the hatchet and become friends. This protest vote was made despite the fact that Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson, and Juan Marichal are Hall of Famers. Among those names are men who attacked a crippled fan, punched an umpire, beat an opponent on the head with a bat, and helped foster nearly a half-century of institutional racism and segregation.

Some say without Cap Anson, baseball never would have been a sport that denied the inclusion of some because of the color of their skin.

But, you know, Alomar spit at a guy...

Alomar is in now, though, and from the looks of it, Hall of Famers are not differentiated by the amount of vote they get. Shoot, Joe DiMaggio didn't even get elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Yeah, try and figure that one out.

Nevertheless, the neat part about Alomar's induction is that he is just the third player from Puerto Rico to get in. There is Alomar, Orlando Cepeda and the great Roberto Clemente, and that's it. Alomar is also the first Blue Jays player to be elected so that brought out tons of fans from Canada and Puerto Rico for Alomar.

It also brought out his family, including Sandy Sr., a former player and coach with the Angels, Braves, Yankees, Rangers and Indians. Sandy Sr. was a teammate with Blyleven on the 1977 Texas Rangers and faced both Alomar brothers. Roberto went 1 for 2 with a triple against his Hall of Fame partner, while Sandy Jr. went 3 for 7 with two doubles. Blyleven did strike him out once, though.

Sandy Jr. introduced his brother and told a story about when as minor leaguers in the Padres' chain, the pair shared an apartment with just one bed. Sandy Jr. says the rule was the guy who had the better game got to sleep on the bed and the other guy slept on the couch.

"I slept on the couch all season," Sandy Jr. deadpanned. "And I hit .300!"

Blyleven finally made it

As for Blyleven, the long trip to the Hall of Fame seemed to be complete when he got to sit on a rocking chair next to his mother on the porch at the Otesaga Hotel that overlooked Lake Otsego. That was the pure, genuine moment that Blyleven could say to himself, "I made it."

“I did it yesterday. My mother Jennie, she's 85 years old, came in from California, so that's a long way for her to come. My sisters, my brother, my kids, we are all on that porch, we are chasing people away, but we got the rockers and we got my mother out front and we kind of reminisced a little bit about Pops, my dad, but mainly just enjoyed the company,” Blyleven said on Saturday. “And what I do, the broadcasting and also live in Florida, I don't see my family that much, so it was a nice reunion. And that's part of what this ceremony is all about for me, not only having the opportunity to have my mother here witness me go into the Hall of Fame, but also my family and friends.”

Blyleven was one of the more controversial inductees over the past few years. He fell two votes short in 2010 only to make it by 28 votes this time around. That’s a far cry from 17.5 percent Blyleven received in his first time on the ballot in 1998. In his second year his votes tally actually dropped more than three percent before his candidacy began to pick up steam about five years ago.

Truth is, I’ve gone back and forth on Blyleven’s Hall of Fame worthiness. In fact, I’ve been changing my mind about him all week, even while watching him give his induction speech. The drawback I had was if one has to mull over a players’ Hall of Fame-ness, then maybe he’s not a Hall of Famer. The answer should be, “yes” or “no,” immediately.

A Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer, right?

Ah, but baseball is much more complicated than that. Sure, Blyleven had just a 287-250 record, won 20 games once and never finished higher than third in the Cy Young balloting. He also only went to the All-Star Game twice and gave up a major league-record 50 home runs in a season.

He was never a dominant pitcher.

Fair enough. But Blyleven was always there. He threw more than 270 innings eight times, with more than 290 innings three times. Once, Blyleven threw 325 innings during a season where he completed 25 of his 40 starts. Moreover, Blyleven was the staff ace on two different World Series champions—the 1979 Pirates and 1987 Twins. His biggest outing might have been in Game 5 of the ’79 series when down 1-0 in the sixth inning and down 3 games to 1, Blyleven came on in relief on three-days rest and pitched four innings of shutout ball.

From there, the Pirates won games 6 and 7 to stun the Orioles.

No, Blyleven’s stats aren’t sexy, but there is something to be said for a guy who was guaranteed for a minimum of seven innings for 22 years.

And of course he had that curveball, too. Yes, some say Blyleven’s curve, one he learned as a kid in Southern California from watching Sandy Koufax, was the best ever to be thrown. It was one of the 12-to-6 types that started out at the hitters’ neck and ended at his ankles. Hitters didn’t just bail out on it, they surrendered.

He called it a “drop,” though and made sure to listen in on the radio when Vin Scully called Koufax’s games.

“I grew up listening to Vince Scully describe Sandy Koufax’s drop,” Blyleven said. “Of course they had that 15-inch mound back in the '60s when I grew up in southern California. I remember the only Dodger game I ever went to was Sandy Koufax against Juan Marichal, one nothing. I sat up in the nose bleed section. I was just getting into baseball. I had to be 10 or 11-years old.  And I recall the foul pole was in my vision of the mound at Dodger Stadium and I had to lean on my left almost the whole ball game. And Sandy, we were sitting down the left-hand line, Sandy's back was to me, but Juan Marichal, we saw the high leg kick, which is unbelievable what he was able to do and then Koufax—I could almost picture it there the drop that, the mound, the tilt they had on that mound was incredible and I remember that and listening to Vin Scully describe his curveball or his drop, that's basically how I learned mine. I visualized what he did and then just on a block wall or playing with my friends, I picked up the curveball.” 

Maybe Blyleven is the Hall of Famer for those with specific talents. He ate up innings and had a rare pitch. His talent was not as all-encompassing like Alomar’s was, but it takes all kinds in baseball. That’s why Tommy John ought to be in the Hall of Fame and Jim Kaat, too, says Blyleven.

Why not? It takes all kinds.

Born at the wrong time

Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character and contribution to the team(s) on which the player played.

There is something quaint about the annual Baseball Hall of Fame announcement. It’s almost like a pureness or something basic about it that all fans (and media types) should love, and that’s the fact that at some point it comes back to the game.

As Harry Kalas once told me, “It’s such a beautiful game,” and he was never more correct about anything in his life. Not to get all NPR-ish/baseball-as-a-metaphor-for-the-intrinsic-universe on you, but the beauty of it is what keep us rapt for 12 months of the year, year after year. Of course part of that is the simple joy of talking about the game and that’s what happened when the Baseball Writers Association of America announced that it had elected Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar to the Hall of Fame.

For the briefest of moments it was all about baseball again. Blyleven, the long-suffering righty with an otherworldly curveball and World Series rings from the Pirates and Twins, finally got the votes needed after falling five short in 2010. It was the 14^th year Blyleven had been on the ballot with just one more chance remaining. Strangely enough, Blyleven got more than the mandatory 75 percent of the votes even though he got no better than 29 percent in his first six years on the ballot.

Just how does a guy go from drawing 17 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility where he finished one spot behind Dave Parker (eliminated from the ballot after 15 years), to election to the Hall of Fame? Perhaps Blyleven is the perfect example of a player whose abilities got better and better the further he got from his playing days.

“I thank the [BBWAA] for, I’m going to say, finally getting it right,” Blyleven quipped during a conference call on Wednesday afternoon.

Alomar, meanwhile, was the best second baseman of his generation. He could hit for power, average and was the Gold Glove winner every year from 1991 to 2001 save for 1997. He went to 12 All-Star Games where he started in nine of them and, most importantly, his teams won. Alomar’s teams went to the layoffs seven times and with the Blue Jays in 1992 and 1993 he won the World Series.

Phillies fans will remember Alomar getting 12 hits in the ’93 series with a .480 batting average and six RBIs. He also is linked to the Phillies through newly elected Hall of Famer Pat Gillick, whose shrewdest move might have been the trade with the Padres before the 1991 season in which the Blue Jays got Alomar and Joe Carter for Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff. Better yet, that trade might be the last true blockbuster considering the four players combined for 25 All-Star Game selections, eight World Series appearances and six rings.

Somehow, Gillick’s maneuver resulted in back-to-back World Series titles for Toronto and induction into the Hall of Fame in 2011.

But just as it is in every year after the votes are counted, the BBWAA vote always proves to be the catalyst to some sort of controversy. Often the voting gives more questions than answers as well as the most perplexing question in finding a logical reason why the trustees of the museum in Cooperstown only allow certain folks to vote at all.[1]

Beyond the voting bloc, which is a facet of this that no bit of outrage or reason will ever sway, it’s the results that resonates the most. And as that pertains to the 2011 Hall of Fame class, the story wasn’t about Blyleven or Alomar and how they rate against the all-time greats. Far from it. Instead, Wednesday’s announcement was about Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro and every single person that played Major League Baseball from the mid-1980s until the end of the past decade.

Based on the voting the message was, “We don’t believe you.”

Sure, it’s easy to understand why so many voters failed to vote for Palmeiro even though he is one of four players in history to get 3,000 hits and 500 homers, just as it’s easy to get why Kevin Brown will no longer be on the ballot despite seasons of dominant pitching. Palmeiro tested positive in 2006 and served a suspension for supposed performance-enhancing drug use and Brown was named in the Mitchell Report.

For the taint to be removed from their careers, nothing short of an all-out campaign will save Palmeiro and Brown as well as guys like Mark McGwire.

“Guys cheated. They cheated themselves and their teammates. The game of baseball is to be played clean,” the newly elected Blyleven said during the conference call.

The tough part to reconcile is guilt by association and how Jeff Bagwell (41 percent of the vote) and Larry Walker (20 percent) could rate so poorly amongst the voters despite careers that (statistically speaking) are more than worthy. Neither player was ever linked to illicit drug use, they never tested positive nor did their names appear in the Mitchell Report. Of course most drug users don’t test positive so that proves nothing, but it seems like the crime here is the players’ date of birth.

Obviously both players produced some incredible statistics, especially Bagwell. He is the only first baseman in history to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases in a season (he did it twice) and he hit 39 or more homers in six straight seasons, which is more than Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle and is more than Mike Schmidt and Reggie Jackson, combined. Clearly the game is different in the modern day than it was when Mays, Mantle, Schmidt and Jackson played (smaller ballparks, watered down competition, etc.), but that’s not Bagwell’s fault and it’s not Walker’s fault, either.

Still, to me, the stats are only the extra sweetness to a delicious career. The biggest factor for me isn’t so much the stardom Bagwell and Walker had with baseball fans as it is the cachet they carried amongst their peers. Billy Wagner told me about Bagwell carries incredible sway in the clubhouse and his praises or chides with his teammates was substantial. According to Wagner, Bagwell was the best teammate he ever had. Moreover if respect from his peers counted for votes, then Bagwell and Walker would join Blyleven and Alomar as the newly elected Hall of Famers.

But we just don’t know about those guys, do we? Bagwell is left doing silly interviews where he has to justify his career… his life…  because he was once teammates with admitted steroid users Ken Caminiti and Jason Grimsley during the era where dabbling in such things was seemingly the norm.

Look, I talked to several folks who did not vote for Bagwell or Walker and they had solid, well-thought out and objective reasons for filling out their ballots a certain way. If someone believes Bagwell (or anyone else) is not a Hall of Famer and can back it up with solid analysis, it’s difficult to see an error in a personal opinion. The thing is I don’t think most folks looked at that way. My read is that Bagwell is guilty because everyone else is guilty.

In a story he did for ESPN with the great Jerry Crasnick, Bagwell laid it all out there with this winning, money quote:

“Here's my whole thing when people ask me about the Hall of Fame: Would I be honored to death to be in the Hall of Fame? Of course I would. But it doesn't consume me at all. I loved every single part of what I did as a baseball player. But I've got my kids, I've got my family, and getting in the Hall of Fame isn't going to affect my life one way or the other. And it won't make me feel any better about my career.

“I'm so sick and tired of all the steroids crap, it's messed up my whole thinking on the subject. I hate to even use this word, but it's become almost like a 'buzz kill' for me.

“So much has gone on in the last eight or nine years, it's kind of taken some of the valor off it for me. If I ever do get to the Hall of Fame and there are 40 guys sitting behind me thinking, ‘He took steroids,’ then it's not even worth it to me. I don't know if that sounds stupid. But it's how I feel in a nutshell.'”

Regardless, I’m past the black-and-white view of baseball history. There is no sugar-coating things from Hall of Famers like Cap Anson and Ty Cobb, which were far worse crimes than those who used performance-enhancing drugs or wagered on games. Just because something is the norm doesn’t mean it is correct and in the case of Anson and Cobb, institutional racism and violence is a blight from which baseball will never recover.

But if we’re just arguing about statistics then that’s just dumb. After all, who really knows what they mean any more and anyone who says they have a firm grasp of what the so-called steroid era means and its implications of it is way smarter than me. It could be that the era of baseball we witnessed for the past decade or two is something that needs to be set aside and labeled the way record keepers did with the numbers produced before the year 1900 and then the “modern era” from 1900 to approximately 1990.

Perhaps we just watched the “post-modern era” come to a close.

How do we measure the players from the souped-up/watered-down era? That’s a tough one. If you have an answer there are some folks in Cooperstown, N.Y. who would like a word.  

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[1] The thought here is that baseball should copy the model of football and create voting committees from all sorts of fields. Currently, the BBWAA vote is given to members with 10 consecutive years of service. Once a member has his 10 years, he has a vote forever. It doesn’t matter whether he works in the media or even bothers to watch baseball—10 years with a card is all it takes. Obviously this is a silly criteria and it would probably serve the folks in Cooperstown to devise a voting committee with much more diversity. At least that way agendas and out-of-the-loop retirees won’t have an impact on the voting.

What the Hall: It's never easy

It’s never easy to vote. Sure, the actual process is easy—just put a check mark next to your guy, hope they count it and that’s about it. Easy as that.

However, if your brain is turned on, choosing the right person to vote for is difficult. Forget about politics where a vote determines employment [1], look at something like the baseball Hall of Fame. Simply by voting a person’s life work or legacy is defined and categorized. Folks unfamiliar with the sport will immediately attach some value to a Hall-of-Famer even if they have no clue what the person did to earn the honor.

So yeah, voting is tough. In fact, for those members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who are qualified to vote for the Hall of Fame, this year’s ballot might be the most difficult in recent memory. But in a strange little twist, the difficulty will come not from voting players in, but deciding which players to keep out.

Oh yes, the so-called Steroid Era is not over yet. Call this part of it the aftershocks following an earthquake.

What happens now that Jeff Bagwell, Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez and Larry Walker are finally eligible? After all, there are four MVP Awards, two Major League Player of the Year awards and a Rookie of the Year divvied up amongst that group. With credentials like that it would appear that a large Hall of Fame class will make the trip to Cooperstown this August. The thing is, there isn’t a slam dunk in the bunch.

Looking at the numbers on the stat sheet paints a different picture. Palmeiro, of course, is one of a handful of players to collect 3,000 hits and 500 homers. The other members of that club—Henry Aaron, Willie Mays and Eddie Murray—are enshrined. The difference, though, is that Aaron, Mays and Murray never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs after getting that 3,000^th hit, nor did they test positive shortly after wagging their fingers at Congress to scold anyone from thinking he would ever take a performance-enhancer.

Ironically, Palmeiro was the spokesman for Viagra during the latter years of his career.

Gonzalez was the AL MVP in 1996 and 1998 where he slugged his 300^th career homer before his 28^th birthday and became the first player in 63 years to reach 100 RBIs before the All-Star Break. Gonzalez had all the makings of a once-in-a-lifetime career until he reached his 30s and his body seemed to fall apart. Back injuries led to an end that saw Gonzalez bounce from organization to organization before finishing with the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League.

Certainly being named in the Mitchell Report or in Jose Canseco’s tell-all steroid book hasn’t helped Gonzalez’s case much, either.

Bagwell, on the other hand, is the guy no one knows what to do with. More than the gaudy numbers he produced, Bagwell was one of the biggest stars of the 1990s, and though the stats certainly matter, it was something Billy Wagner told me about Bagwell carries much more weight. According to Wagner, Bagwell was the best teammate he ever had. Moreover if respect from his peers counted for votes, then Bagwell is a landslide winner.

We just don’t know about the guy. Sure, he never tested positive nor did he ever show up in the Mitchell Report. But Bagwell seems to be guilty by association for having played with admitted steroid users Ken Caminiti and Jason Grimsley during the era where dabbling in such things was seemingly the norm.

Besides, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds never tested positive during their careers, either, and the consensus is that the record-breaking statistics those guys piled up are tainted. The fact that McGwire hit 583 homers yet never got more than 23 percent of the votes in the BBWAA balloting explains what the electorate thinks of his records.

So is Larry Walker a first ballot Hall of Famer and/or the only guy voted in this year? Is Walker good enough to be considered in such a lofty group and did anyone think he would have a plaque in Cooperstown when he’d come to the Vet to play against the Phillies with the Expos?

If those other guys are guilty of falling prey to the silently accepted norms of the game, does Walker get penalized for playing in Colorado and the performance-enhancing altitude?

Probably not. After all, someone has to get in. Given that only Andre Dawson was voted in last year while Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven fell less than five votes short, Walker could be the lone first-ballot inductee alongside a few others.

Then again, last year the MLB Network set up cameras at Alomar’s home because they were sure he was getting the call. Some suggested that Alomar fell short because of the unfortunate incident where he spit on umpire John Hirschbeck during a disputed call late in the 1997 season. The theory was that some writers held the mistake against Alomar despite the fact that he and Hirschbeck have buried the hatchet and become friends. This protest vote was made despite the fact that Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson, and Juan Marichal are Hall of Famers. Among those names are men who attacked a crippled fan, punched an umpire, beat an opponent on the head with a bat, and helped foster nearly a half-century of institutional racism.

Some say without Cap Anson, baseball never would have been a sport that denied the inclusion of some because of the color of their skin.

But, you know, Alomar spit at a guy...

Nice Hall of Fame you have there, baseball. Apparently spitters, steroid users and gamblers need not apply. But for the violent types and the racists, sure, come on in.

Nevertheless, here’s one man’s ballot for the 2011 class of the Hall of Fame:

• Larry Walker
• Roberto Alomar
• Bert Blyleven
• Tim Raines
• Jack Morris
• Fred McGriff
• Barry Larkin
• Edgar Martinez
• Lee Smith

---

[1] More than ever it seems as if the only folks who get into the politics business do so because they can’t keep a job doing anything else. Check it out sometime… would you hire most politicians to do a job at your home? Why is it then we give those dregs the keys to everything?

Halladay almost too good to be real

Roy Halladay has been away playing golf in Mexico before he reports to Clearwater to begin his Spring Training on Dec. 1, so there’s a pretty good chance he hasn’t seen the commercials depicting him striking out hitters in a video game. In fact, the makers of Major League Baseball 2K11 thought enough of Halladay’s body of work in 2K10, that they put him on the box of the game.

Certainly if there is one guy in the big leagues who has no time for playing video games it’s Halladay. After all, he was the guy who kept the press waiting for nearly an hour because he had to complete his post-game workout after he tossed a perfect game. So needless to say, Halladay has things to do. He’s not the kind of guy to sit in the clubhouse working a crossword puzzle before batting practice, plotting elaborate pranks where a dimwit gets traded to Japan or jerking around on some sort of mobile device.

In other words, Halladay is not like most of us. He doesn’t waste time. Hell, he even starts Spring Training three months early.

Though Halladay probably won’t wile away the time playing video games in which he is the main star, he did something quite remarkable in winning the 2010 Cy Young Award…

He made the Baseball Writers Association of America come to a harmonious, unadulterated consensus that seemed downright cute in this day of instant reaction and indignant anger over the most trivial of issues and obscure statistics. Better yet, Halladay’s 2010 season was so good that there wasn’t even the one voter doing his damndest to get attention by being different for the sake of it. You know, like that guy who voted for Javier Vazquez for Cy Young in 2009 because… well… who the hell knows. Maybe it was a gag like a hidden whoopee cushion or hand buzzer, or maybe it was one of those things where someone was trying to be different just like everyone else.

It’s a mystery.

So as a guy who has enjoyed poking fun at the BBWAA for the sport of it, this is actually quite refreshing. Give the voters credit for being correct. Besides, the name calling and laughing at the group of baseball voters is a lot like recycling old jokes about politicians in that only the names change. It’s almost like peace in the Middle East or something in that it’s a concept that seems rational, but is always just out of reach.

Of course the civility Halladay spawned might not last as the rest of the awards are handed out. In fact, some have grumbled about Bud Black taking home the manager of the year award when his team folded and missed the playoffs when the Giants slipped past, or the fact that Charlie Manuel came in fifth despite 97 wins. There likely will be some bemoaning the American League Cy Young Award winner when it is announced on Thursday. Felix Hernandez, the young star ace for the Mariners is expected to win the award even though he finished the season with a 13-12 record. Oh sure, he lead the league in ERA, starts, innings and was second in strikeouts, but even King Felix to keep Seattle from losing 101 games.

Actually, Hernandez could be this generations’ version of Steve Carlton in 1972 without all the wins. It was during that season where the youthful Phillies, with Larry Bowa and Greg Luzinski as well as rookies Bob Boone and Mike Schmidt, went 59-97 yet Carlton still figured out a way to win 27 games while pitching 30 complete games in 41 starts to win the Cy Young Award. Sure, Hernandez was approximately 100 innings and 14 wins off from Carlton’s effort in ’72, but a guy ought to get some credit for going out there every five days knowing he was going to have to do it all himself.

Still, it could be tough for Hernandez simply because of that 13-12 record. Though a win-loss record is often out of the hands of a pitcher, the stat isn’t as completely valueless. For one thing, good pitchers often win a lot of games. There is a direct correlation to winning and talent. As my friend Dan Roche says, winning is a fancy metric that determines whether or not your team goes to the playoffs. Better yet, a win-loss record—the decisions—are important because it shows which pitcher is in the game when it’s all on the line. In that regard, Hernandez had nine no-decisions and Halladay had just two.

Then again, pitching for the Mariners had to be like dead man walking for guys like Hernandez and Cliff Lee. Imagine if Hernandez could have joined Lee in Texas or Halladay in Philadelphia…

Instead, Halladay was the great baseball writer unifier. A veritable Anwar Sadat, if you will. Oh sure, it’s one thing to win the award in both leagues, a feat pulled off only by Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Gaylord Perry, but to do so unanimously at the same time is something no one even keeps track of.

Oh sure, they count the guys who get all of the first-place votes. Actually, Jake Peavy did it in 2007 and there have been 13 guys to do it in the National League and eight in the American League. However, only one other pitcher has won the award in one league and then won it by taking all the top votes in another league.

Yes, it’s Pedro and Roy who are the only players to pull off a feat that no one knew existed.

What can’t he do? What can’t he do?

Always magnanimous in victory, Halladay, checking in on a conference call from Mexico where he was hitting the links with one-time Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter, Padres’ righty Chris Young, and teammate Mike Sweeney, humbly expressed surprise that he got all the first-place votes.

“This is special for me because of how close the competition was,” Halladay said. “So many guys had quality seasons. Coming into the final month, it was very close. It’s surprising (to win unanimously) and I’ll definitely take it. I’m honored it went that way. But a case could be made for four or five other guys.”

Come on… who is he kidding? A perfect game, 21 wins, a no-hitter in the playoffs... didn’t he see himself out there? It was like watching a guy play a video game.

Rocking the vote, part II

For a random hump day during the first week of January, there was quite a bit of interesting stories out there today. The Gilbert Arenas suspension is the big nation news since it very well could turn out to be the richest loss from a suspension and/or voided contract in sports history.

Actually, I don’t know if that’s a fact, but I seriously doubt any player has ever had a contract as large as the one Arenas has, canceled. Including the remainder of this season, Arenas is owed approximately $88.25 million until the end of 2014.

For Arenas sake let’s hope that he has some money in the bank because it sounds like he’s going to need it.

We’ll dive back into the Arenas mess later. For now the fact that just one player was elected into the baseball Hall of Fame casts even more bad pub on a broken system in which the BBWAA presides. Those guys could mess up a one-car parade.

There, I said it.

Regardless, it seems as if the biggest issues regarding Hall of Fame election are handing out the label of “first-ballot” Hall of Famer, which underscores certain biases members of the BBWAA possess. As I wrote earlier, there has never been a unanimous election to the Hall. In fact, the highest percentage of the vote ever received is 98.8 percent for Nolan Ryan in 1999 and Tom Seaver in 1992. That’s as close as anyone (including Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Connie Mack, etc.) has ever come to getting 100 percent.

The truth is some guys don’t get votes because of negligence. For instance, last year a guy named Corky Simpson in Arizona left Rickey Henderson off his ballot because… well, who knows why. However, Corky had no trouble voting for Matt Williams. Corky wrote about how he did not include Mark McGwire because of questions regarding steroids, but still voted for Williams despite his inclusion on the Mitchell Report and the investigation into steroid use in baseball.

Chances are Corky got a few good quotes from Williams when he made the trip to the ballpark, which, sadly, matters.

There is some sort of cachet to being a first-ballot Hall of Famer not amongst those enshrined, but by the writers that vote. Frankly, that’s just stupid. How can a guy not be Hall-of-Fame worthy one year, but good enough the next?

A Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer. You mean to say Joe DiMaggio, the proclaimed “greatest living ballplayer,” (when he was living, of course) was less of a Hall of Famer because he did not get in on the first ballot?

Either way, Andre Dawson deserved to have some company when he is inducted to the Hall of Fame next summer. In his ninth time on the ballot, Dawson cleared the needed 75 percent of the vote by just a handful. Meanwhile, Roberto Alomar, the best second baseman I’ve ever seen and the best in the Majors since Joe Morgan, came five votes away from getting in on the first ballot. In fact, so sure that Alomar would be elected, the MLB Network set up a camera and sent a production crew to the Alomar homestead to record his reaction when the inevitable good news came.

It never came.

In falling five votes short, Alomar was denied in an election in which five voters sent back blank ballots while admitted steroid user David Segui, pitchers Pat Hentgen and Kevin Appier, as well as first baseman-turned-broadcaster, Eric Karros, combined for five votes. That’s 10 wasted votes and does not include the nine votes spent on Ellis Burks and Robin Ventura.

All of those guys were nice players, but there isn’t a Hall of Famer in the bunch and if the people who voted for them don’t know that, they should not vote.

So with those 19 votes that were spent on making a point, silly politics, vendettas, or drunken dares, very easily could have been spread out so that worthy candidates like Alomar and Bert Blyleven could join Dawson.

Apparently there were several instances where the unfortunate incident where Alomar spit on umpire John Hirschbeck. Writers are holding this mistake against Alomar despite the fact that Hirschbeck and Alomar have buried the hatchet and become friends. This protest vote was made despite the fact that Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Cap Anson, and Juan Marichal are Hall of Famers. Among those names are men who attacked a crippled fan, punched an umpire, beat an opponent on the head with a bat, and helped foster nearly a half-century of institutional racism.

Some say without Cap Anson, baseball never would have been a sport that denied the inclusion of some because of the color of their skin.

But, you know, Alomar spit at a guy...

Nice Hall of Fame you have there, baseball.

Oh, but we’ll go through all this again next year. It will be the same ridiculous song and dance only with a few new names on the list like Jeff Bagwell and Larry Walker, both of whom are worthy.

So here’s my 2010 list:

• Jeff Bagwell
• Larry Walker
• Roberto Alomar
• Bert Blyleven
• Tim Raines
• Jack Morris
• Fred McGriff
• Barry Larkin
• Edgar Martinez
• Lee Smith

Certainly the numbers matter, but for me something Billy Wagner told me about Bagwell carries much more weight—Bagwell was the best teammate Wagner ever had, he said. Just like with Dawson, the respect Bagwell’s peers had for him matter much more than the results celebrated from an anachronistic organization.

Rocking the vote

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.

Albert makes it easy

If there is one thing we do well in the sports world, it’s our ability to complain. Oh, we whine, too. It doesn’t matter the motive or motivation—there are very few things sports folks do better than complain.

That’s especially the case amongst my brethren in the media. If something isn’t just so, get ready for an earful. Hey, I’m as guilty as the next guy even though when one breaks it down we are paid to travel around, see the country, watch ballgames and write about what we see.

What are we complaining about?

Nevertheless, there is always something. Lately I’ve had a bit of a beef with the voting results from the Baseball Writers Association of America. I thought J.A. Happ should have been the Rookie of the Year and Charlie Manuel probably should have finished a little higher in the balloting than sixth place.

Additionally, the two guys who did not include Chris Carpenter on their Cy Young Award ballot and replaced them with Javier Vazquez (what?) and Dan Haren (really?) should be forced to a Dr. Strangelove-type of torture in which their eyes are held open by metal prongs as the VORP of every player in the Majors passes on a projector.

The guy who gave a first-place vote to Miguel Cabrera for MVP can join them.

Still, the bottom line is I just don’t like the BBWAA. I’m just not into omnipotent secret societies with no oversight, and too much arrogance, but that’s me. Hey, I wouldn’t join the Elks, Moose Lodge, the Birch Society, KKK, Triple-A, Skull and Bones or Augusta National, either. Hey, I’m just not a joiner. But worse, I don’t like that the players’ union, MLB or the Hall of Fame hands them the responsibility of selecting the players who can make the most money.

Which is what they do.

I’m not for getting rid of the awards. Heck, I even like them even though there is something of an Academy Awards feel to them. How can they give a best actor award to guys who didn’t play the same part?

There is a way to do it properly, which is to have Commissioner Costas form a voting taskforce of the best baseball minds from all facets of the media. Just make sure they have a good attendance record at ball games during the summer. How about 110 games during the regular season? That’s two-thirds of the season… good number, right?

Or not. Whatever. It’s just baseball.

Baseball, however, does not seem to be what Albert Pujols is playing. Fact is, he’s playing a different game entirely and was justly bestowed his third MVP Award on Tuesday in an even more just unanimous vote.

In other words, this one was pretty difficult to mess up.

Credit Pujols for being so great. In fact, dig through the archives of this site and there are probably three or four posts about how Albert Pujols is the best hitter I’ve ever seen (hey, they’re my eyes) and probably the best right-handed hitter ever. I tried to get Charlie Manuel to admit as much last spring when the two of us just shot the breeze in his office in Clearwater with the CNBC ticking off the trading day on the TV above our heads. Charlie wasn’t biting but that’s because it probably wasn’t politically correct to call an active player the best ever. That’s especially the case if the guy is in the same league, too.

Baseball people are weird about hyperbole. It’s no fun.

But what Charlie said was, “He’s up there. He can be whatever you want him to be.”

That’s not a knock of any sort – far from it. After all, we were talking about a player that truly is an once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon. In fact, Charlie said Pujols and Manny Ramirez were the two best right-handed hitters out there right now, which might be out of some sort of loyalty to his former pupil.

Come on… Pujols is clearly in a different league than Ramirez.

“Home runs, ribbies, slugging, average, he can do whatever you want,” the Charlie said. “He can be whatever you want him to be.”

That’s Charlie-speak meaning Pujols can do whatever it is the situation calls for.

That doesn’t begin to describe Pujols’ greatness though. In taking the MVP Award for the third time in five years (he probably should have four of them), there isn’t much Pujols hasn’t accomplished in nine seasons in the league. He has all the awards, gotten the big hits and, most importantly, won the World Series.

And get this, he’s nine years into his career and hasn’t even turned 30 yet.

Can we put him in the Hall of Fame already? Why deal with the formality of a vote? Who would be the guy who didn’t vote for Pujols?

Put simply, if the second nine seasons of Pujols’ career are anything like the first nine years, we’re looking at the first player in history to have more than 700 homers and 3,000 hits as well as the fourth guy to get 500 homers with more than 3,000 hits.

That’s unreasonable either. Actually, with nine straight seasons of 100-plus RBIs and only four seasons where he failed to hit at least 41 homers he’s well on his way. Considering Pujols is just now entering his prime, the numbers could pile up.

Or maybe not. As Barry Bonds described a few years back after a game in Philly during his chase for Babe Ruth’s home run mark, there might come a time when teams simply decide not to pitch to him any more.

“Albert’s going to have to deal with a lot of walks,” Bonds said. “He’s going to get walked a lot, unfortunately. He’s that good. Unfortunately, he plays in the National League, and when you’ve got pitchers coming up, and in a different league, it’s a little bit different. If he was in the American League, we might be saying something different, but in the National League, if he keeps going the way he’s going, he’s going to be walked a ton.”

Yeah, we might be getting to that point now. Pujols got 44 intentional walks last season, plus three in three games during the playoffs.

So was Pujols the MVP this year? Yeah, but why not just give him the award in perpetuity and tell him to give it back when he’s finished.

Back later...

The clown show is swamped today with work and kids and other types of silliness. However, it will return with a full slate of goofiness tomorrow. Get ready.

In the meantime, here are a few thoughts:

* When did they replace Jane Pauley on "The Today Show?"

* Speaking of "The Today Show," did Brett Myers really spit on national television? Really? That type of behavior is so unlike him.

* Also, "The Today Show" will never, ever be mentioned on this little corner of the Internets ever again. Better yet, because the slicksters from NBC decided to descend upon Clearwater, Florida to visit with a handful of Phillies' players this morning (no, no video for you - go to every other blog to watch it), perhaps it's time to revoke the voting privileges of the local chapter the secret society known as the "BBWAA." As explained before, the sect is as detrimental to our nation's sovereignty as Skull & Bones, the Elks, the Masons, the Rotarians, the Stonecutters and the executive board of Wal-Mart.

And to think there are some that whine publically when they are not offered membership with this group.

Finally... the Tour of California wrapped up its second stage today in Sacramento. Judging from the groundswell clogging my e-mail in box as well as my fax machine, it's obvious that the event hasn't captured the imagination of the rest of the country. Regardless, I'll admit that I have tuned in for the nightly coverage on VERSUS, but really have no idea what is going on other than Mario Cipollini is riding again.

But I'll be honest - I tune in simply to listen to Phil Liggett. In fact, if there was a channel in which Phil Liggett read from the telephone book for 24-hours straight, I'd dial it up.

Also, there is a "Let Levi Ride" petition out there. Check it out... it don't cost nuthin'.

What... no secret handshake?

I'm not much of joiner. Actually, I subscribe to that line from an old Woody Allen movie that I would never want to be a part of an organization that would have someone like me as a member. Oh sure, I like the idea of joining things and being part of a community or a group and all of that. In fact, when I was in high school I was a member of a street gang called The Wilson Drive Cobras. We ran the turf from Race Avenue west to River Drive with an iron fist. We still do. Watch your step.

But the truth is I don't like leaving the house. I once almost joined the Elks Club until it dawned on me that I might actually have to go hang out at the local Elks Club. Come on... there's only so much duck pin bowling a guy can do.

Nevertheless, I can't help but be intrigued by the recent carping amongst some media types regarding membership into the Baseball Writers Association of America, or BBWAA as they like to call themselves. Just like the Elks Club, I am not a member of the BBWAA because I work for the web site of a regional cable television sports station. Food chain-wise that makes me a bottom feeder, but what are you going to do?

The requisite for membership in the BBWAA was that one had to be a full-time employee of a newspaper and also cover baseball regularly. That was until this winter when some of the ex-newspaper writers working for big cable TV sports station web sites were re-admitted to the club. No big deal, right?

Well...

Apparently there are a bunch of people out there who are joiners. Not only do they join clubs that want them as members, but also they want to join groups that don't want them. No, we aren't talking about racist or sexist groups because that's totally different. It's illegal, too. Besides, the most boring club in the world is the one where everyone is exactly like you. Who wants that? Not to sound like a Benetton ad or anything, but there's nothing worse than being around a whole bunch of people that think the same way. Diversity in ideas is the best thing that can happen to any gathering.

Anyways, whenever people get left out of something there is always a big stink and that seems to be what is going on with the BBWAA these days. It seems as if a handful of well known Internet baseball gurus were denied membership into the BBWAA because, it seems, they don't actually attend baseball games.

Now I'm not going to name names because the BBWAA rejects really don't need the publicity. One of them, in particular, is pretty good at drawing attention to himself enough as it is already having been accused of leaving fake reviews for his stat-soaked baseball book(s) on Amazon.com. Nevertheless, it appears as if those dudes really don't understand the purpose of the BBWAA and its mission. And frankly, why anyone really needs membership in that particular association is beyond me.

Aside from being a secret society, a lot like the Elks or Skull & Bones without the pedigree, the BBWAA's aim is to provide access and convenience at the ballpark for its members, and provide oversight on working conditions for its members and the media. Additionally, certain members who travel regularly with the team they cover vote on the BBWAA awards that are given independent of Major League Baseball, and other media organizations. Writers who have 10 consecutive years of membership are given a vote for the Hall-of Fame, though that's an honor bestowed by the Hall of Fame. If the folks who run the Hall decide to give the vote to any other group, there's nothing the BBWAA can do aside from open up its own Hall of Fame and Museum.

If that happens I don't think too many people would go. Cooperstown is really quite lovely.

The fact is that folks like me who are adept at sending out faxes or e-mails to clubs to ask for credentials don't need the BBWAA. Neither do those whiny rejects from ESPN and other outlets.

Besides, clubs have certain criteria. The Elks insist that its members be Americans and believe in God. The folks at the Augusta National Golf Club want its members to be (white) men with $250,000 to $500,000 for yearly fees. The BBWAA wants newspaper writers, a select few Internet dudes and regular attendance at the ballpark... that and $50 gets one in. That's it. So as far as clubs go, it kind of sucks.

Hell, there isn't even any hazing -- no ass paddling, pin wearing or binge drinking...

But if they get duck pin bowling, I want in. Until then, I'll keep avoiding all clubs that want people like me as members and I'll keep sending out those faxes.

We like you... we really, really like you

Undoubtedly, whenever Jimmy Rollins steps into the batters’ box during the first two games of the NLDS, the packed house at Citizens Bank Park will scream, “M-V-P!” over and over again as if they have some odd social disease. Likewise, when we go to Coors Field in Denver for the second pair of games (if necessary), the friendly fans will also shout, “M-V-P!” from the mountaintops whenever Matt Holliday comes to bat.

On one hand it’s kind of neat to hear so many people scream in unison, mostly because it’s not something that occurs in normal life. For instance, I’m sure you have never gone to the grocery store with a bunch of friends to gather in the produce section so that you can scream, “BROC-COLI!” until you begin to hyperventilate, turn blue and pass out on the floor at the feet of the cart checker. Frankly, it’s just odd behavior.

Plus, the folks at the Whole Foods don’t like it – trust me on that one.

But what makes those chants seem so odd instead of neat is that, essentially, the fans are screaming, “WE LIKE YOU!” at one person. Actually, they aren’t just walking up to a person they know to say, “You know, we’ve known each other for a long time and we’ve been really good friends throughout the years and because of that I just wanted to say… well, I like you.”

That’s it. One, “I like you.” It’s not shouted by the liker to the lickee with such an ardor that it seems angry or until someone has to get a restraining order or a taser. A simple, solitary, “I like you” goes a long way.

But there is nothing about sports fandom that is normal. We all know that. Compared to the soccer fans in Europe or the Broncos fans in Denver, Philadelphians are a relatively tame bunch. They also don’t have any trouble revealing their true feelings toward the Phillies’ shortstop either, which is nice. I think Jimmy thinks it’s nice, too, even though he says he tries to block out all sound when he goes to the plate.

You know, kind of like in that really bad Kevin Costner movie… wait, that didn’t narrow it down. I meant like that really bad Kevin Costner movie about baseball… that didn’t narrow down either, did it?

Anyway, I think you know which one I mean.

So what’s the point of all of this? It’s simple. I’m going to reveal which players I’d vote for in the Baseball Writers Association of America ballots for the post-season awards. Truth be told, I don’t actually vote because I’m not a practicing member of the BBWAA. Dogmatic organizations are such a turn off, though I have to admit I enjoy a good, ol’ secret society. And when it comes to secret societies, the BBWAA is right up there with the Skull & Bones, Masons, Elks and Stonecutters.

Here are the votes (without comment): MVP 1.) Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia 2.) Matt Holliday, Colorado 3.) Prince Fielder, Milwaukee 4.) Chipper Jones, Atlanta 5.) David Wright, New York 6.) Hanley Ramirez, Florida 7.) Aramis Ramirez, Chicago 8.) Chase Utley, Philadelphia 9.) Miguel Cabrera, Florida 10.) Todd Helton, Colorado

Manager of the Year 1.) Charlie Manuel, Philadelphia 2.) Clint Hurdle, Colorado 3.) Ned Yost, Milwaukee

Cy Young Award 1.) Jake Peavy, San Diego 2.) Brandon Webb, Arizona 3.) Carlos Zambrano, Chicago

Rookie of the Year 1.) Ryan Braun, Milwaukee 2.) Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado 3.) Kyle Kendrick, Philadelphia