Knee-Jerk Reactions: The Hall of Fame Hopefully Sets Off Down Road to Ruin

Well, I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. Baseball Think Factory’s Vote Counter predicted no one making it, but there was still the off chance of Craig Biggio sneaking in. But it’s official. No one is in the Hall of Fame.

Really, in a way, this was probably the best case scenario. The Hall of Fame is just speeding up the timeframe until they can be considered irrelevant. They’ve been struggling with budgets for some time, and a summer in which the marquee draw is Deacon White (died 1939) won’t do them any favors. If this election didn’t convince you that the Hall is fast approaching irrelevance, maybe the Hall shutting down will do it.

Even as a fan, I’m wondering why I care. There’s really only one player in the Hall I have any sort of emotional attachment to (Cal Ripken). Heck, Only ten players in Cooperstown even played a game after I attended my first baseball game. Half of those were out of the league within three years of my first game. I care more about the players not in the Hall yet. If the voters are just going to ignore every player from my era, why do I care about their Hall? It isn’t going to get much better.

Some Small Fixes to Help with Hall Voting

Hall of Fame season is fast descending upon us; the ballot for the 2013 was announced Wednesday, and writers are already mobilizing to build support for voting movements and ideologies.

I think most people can agree that the Hall of Fame is facing several issues, both in this election and the upcoming ones, and people are always determined to come up with solutions to the problems. Ideas like letting the players and managers vote, introducing a limit on ballots a player can appear on, and banning steroid users get thrown out with alarming frequency at this time of year.

So many of these fixes aren’t worth the trouble, though. The players and managers have a horrible track record in recognizing greatness in fellow players, whether through the All-Star Game back-ups or Gold Glove awards. Limiting a player ignores the many deserving players who, for one reason or another, haven’t gone in on the first ballot. Banning steroids users ignores the long history of cheaters already enshrined.

In truth, the real fixes Cooperstown needs are much simpler.

2013 Hall of Fame Poll Added: The Apocalypse Ballot Is Upon Us

The Hall of Fame voting season is upon us; in anticipation of that, I added two polls on the right sidebar. One asks the standard "What would your ballot look like?", while the other asks "How many players on the ballot are deserving of induction?"

This year should be interesting. I think there are very easy cases to make for fourteen different candidates. I've already started writing about some of them. Either way, it's a crowded ballot. I'm going to have to leave off some players I think are deserving. I honestly don't know who I'll leave off for my BBA ballot when the time comes, although I have ideas. Who knows what havoc this will wreak on the election process, though.

The Roger Clemens Verdict, Steroids, and the Hall of Fame

Roger Clemens was found not guilty of perjury the other day. I guess it’s big legal news, although I don’t follow the legal news circuit nearly as closely as I follow the baseball news circuit. It’s kind of big baseball news, so I feel like it’s worth mentioning here.

Really, it’s kind of interesting, for the sake of the Hall, even if I can’t quite determine what it means. Literally, it means there isn’t enough evidence present at the moment to prove Roger Clemens used steroids in a court of law. You can say that about a lot of guys, though; Jeff Bagwell has been Hall worthy since he hit the ballot, yet angry plagerists/voters don’t seem to care other than to use him as the test “we’ll just wait-and-see” case for players.

I guess you can continue believing Clemens used steroids, too, if you want. I can’t stop you or anything. But I would like to point out:

Fighting Tomorrow's Ignorance Now

This past Hall of Fame debate season, I noticed something sort of depressing. So many people dismissed highly qualified (or even over-qualified) players for Cooperstown based on things as small as “He didn’t feel like a Hall of Famer” or “I can’t remember thinking he was a Hall of Famer”.

This is really disappointing. First of all, people (especially the writers and voters) need to realize that the Hall is not nearly as exclusive as they seem to think. If you are an official voter, every player is worth at least a moment of reflection and a look at their Baseball-Reference page. You might be missing out on a player who would raise the Hall’s standards simply because they have a low “Gut Factor”. That’s just not the way to go about it. At least take the time to see if there’s a convincing case to be made. There are, what, thirty-some players per year? If you put a minimum two minutes into looking at each player, that’s an hour. I’d say a Hall ballot is worth at least an hour of your time, right? And it gives you an excuse to revisit memories, or at least get lost in Baseball-Reference. And if you still aren’t convinced, you can spread that time out. It’s not like we don’t already know who will be ballot next year, or the year after (or the year after that, or the year after that, or...).

However, I realize not everyone will follow this rule of thumb. So, I figured I’d do what I can to start combating misconceptions that will pop up when a player eventually reaches the ballot. Maybe if I start early enough, these ideas will work their way into the collective subconscious by then. Hey, if nothing else, it’s worth a shot.

So, I’ll start by trying to get ahead on next year’s ballot. Curt Schilling is coming up next year, and I’ve already seen people saying that he just doesn’t feel like a Hall of Famer. These people are wrong.