Should the Hall of Fame be losing credibility?
We all know what hall of fame I’m talking about, because, in all honesty, there’s only one. Most NBA or NFL fans don’t know or care where their halls are (Springfield, MA. and Canton, OH). Why would the NFL pick Canton, Ohio? I guess you could say “Why Cooperstown, NY” for that matter?
It is common knowledge, after all, that the foundations of baseball had nothing to do with General Abner Doubleday or that patch of land in central New York…
Anyway, it appears the Hall of Fame has suffered a momentary lapse of reason yet again. Come to think of it, the history of the Hall is plagued with such brain farts. But are such issues the fault of the institution, or are the individual voters to blame?
Intro Rant:
In this year’s HOF elections Andre Dawson was the only player named for enshrinement; even though one of the most decorated second baseman in baseball history also stood on the ballot. The aforementioned 2B almost made it though. Is almost enough though? This player won two World Series titles batted exactly .300 for a career (17 years), got voted to 12 All Star teams and won 10 gold gloves -the most ever at 2B? He also stole over 470 bases. How is he not a first ballot inductee?
In case you are unaware of who I’m talking about, it’s Roberto Alomar. You may know him quite well. The likelihood of him having played for your favorite team or in their division is quite high. He moved around a bit.
Ryne Sandberg got in after three election years. Sandberg made 10 All Star appearances, earned nine Gold Gloves, made only 10 post season at bats – has no rings– and batted .285. Sandberg also stole 130 bases fewer than the aforementioned.
Alomar finished with 73.7% of the voters approval. Seventy-five percent is needed for induction. He finished third; just below Bert Blyleven who may be in the top three of all eligible players not already inducted.
Blyleven won 287 games over 22 major league seasons and retired after accumulating 3,701 strikeouts. His strikeout total places him number five, all time, in that category. Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson are both ranked above Blyleven in Ks and while neither player is are eligible for Hall of Fame voting yet, it is safe to say that neither of them will take more than 13 years to get in – even with the steroid talk surrounding Clemens.
Other than former Tigers fireballer Mickey Lolich, every eligible pitcher around Blyleven on the strikeout list is in the Hall of Fame (Lolich is ranked 18th).
Blyleven is also 27th in wins all time. There are only two pitchers above him who don’t have 300 wins – Tommy John and Bobby Matthews. Matthews isn’t in the Hall because he wasn’t considered enough of a pioneer and only pitched 3 seasons of Major League ball after it was legal to throw the ball overhand. Tommy John isn’t in because, despite being the namesake of a popular surgery, his numbers only reflect the fact that he pitched decently for most of three decades.
All pitchers with at least 300 wins are either currently or will soon be in the HOF.
Bert Blyleven finished with 74.2% approval – up over 10 percent from last year. It seems the voters are getting smarter. Blyleven should go in next year, which is a good thing because he is just about out of BBWAA votes.
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Official Logo
The Hall Itself:
It is basically common knowledge that the sportswriters get the initial vote toward getting players into the Hall. Only members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) who have been active for 10 years or more are granted the right to vote for new inductees. None of these voters are required to be geniuses or even to be moderately intelligent, or open minded, scribes. They are only required to know how to construct sentences about a baseball game they recently watched. It isn’t MENSA.
What is less commonly understood is the process that takes place after the voting leaves the hands of the BBWAA electioneers. …Or after the voters realize that a player didn’t affect New York baseball as much as they could have and are thus passed over.
To start with, players who receive 5% of the votes or less in the previous election will be taken off the current year’s ballot. After that, they must be re-nominated by at least two members of a six man screening committee. Some players, very deserving of HOF consideration, have fallen to such a fate – former Cardinals Catcher Ted Simmons is great example.
When the HOF opened and elected its first class of icons in 1936, a group of veteran ballplayers were left in charge of selecting significant 19th century players and executives for induction. This group became the Old Timers Committee.
Since that time, the Old Timers Committee has developed into the Veterans Committee. Made up of living hall of famers and selected baseball historians, the Veterans Committee is responsible for the election of players who have passed their 15 years of eligibility, have been retired for more than 20 years, were non-players , or were taken off the ballots due to inadequate voters’ response.
The induction of owners, managers, umpires and executives are part of the Veterans Committee’s responsibilities. …And for you whiney Cubs fans, Ron Santo’s fate is in the hands of the vets as well. We will discuss Santo later…
For now though, I just wanted to make special note of the fact that while Andre Dawson definitely deserves to have a plaque in Cooperstown, he should also be entering the hall with some company.
The reason for writing this rant of a column is not to argue for the induction of Alomar and Blyleven, but to start a dialogue on the flawed system by which players are voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
I will discuss specific topics surrounding the Hall of Fame’s questionable induction record in numerous entries over the next few weeks. In doing so, I hope to reveal some of the problems surrounding one of the most prestigious institutions in all of sports.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
football was started in canton OH.. ive been there twice and it’s great. don’t hate it just because you’re a baseball elitist. the sport you love is a lie, sorry to say.
January 15th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
I’ll cry later – …Not a lie, by the way, a romantic notion of idealized postural life in central NY with a truly great A2qmerican at the helm… Its about romance. Baseball is poetry. football is over-hyped and too controlled by clocks and little men in striped shirts.
And No, football didn’t start there. It was just the home cite of the best pioneer team and and an important city. It is like if baseball had set up their Hall of Fame Hoboken, NJ because of the Knickerbockers and the Elysian Fields… the people of Canton petitioned to make that the site…
P.S. The Cowboys are going down… The Indians don’t have a chance even though the Tigers may lose 90 games this year, and I hate you because Im a Oregon Ducks fan… the Rose Bowl was fixed.