Today, I witnessed one of the worst mistakes in the history of sports. Lots of things in sports are voted on: NCAA rankings, MVPs, Rookies of the Year. Hall Of Fame voting occurs once a year as well. Today was the day they released the list. These votes are usually controversial, but people on both sides can usually understand where the other side is coming from in the discussion.
I was pulling for a few guys over other guys. I figured that Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Palmeiro and Clemens would be held accountable for the steroid era. I really wanted to see Biggio and Bagwell (The Killer Bs), but figured the best we could get this year was Biggio. As much as I disagreed with it, I assumed it was all but a done deal for Jack Morris' mugshot to appear on a plaque this year. Also, I assumed Tim Raines would edge closer, although I wanted him in ASAP as he was a great HOF leadoff hitter.
What never entered my mind, what shouldn't have entered anyone's mind, was what happened. What happened, was that no player appeared on the 75% of ballots necessary for induction. That is absolutely shameful. Every voter should lose their right to vote. It is gutless what these men, who never played baseball past 4th grade, did to some of the well deserved players on the list.
Craig Biggio ended up on the most ballots at a 68% clip. Biggio is the one player from the 1990s that I don't think was punished under the steroid specter, but that only shows another bad side of the vote this year. There's only two things that they could have been thinking when they sent in their votes this year: 1)Nobody on this list is a Hall Of Famer or 2)Some people on this list used steroids, so I will punish every player on the list for that. The first one is outright false, and for that stupidity alone, you should lose your vote. The second one, is so unfair and gutless, that you should not only lose your vote but be banned from ever being allowed to cover baseball ever again.
I understand, a lot of people saw this as the Roid Ballot. Many people, from fairweather to hardcore fandom wanted this vote to exclude players like Bonds and Sosa, who are fairly or unfairly linked so closely with steroid use, that they appear next to steroid in the dictionary. However, because some people are highly suspected to have used illegal substances to enhance their performance over the span of their careers, it is completely unfair and ridiculous to punish every player on the list. And I believe that is what many of the voters were doing.
Here's how the votes broke down:
Jack Morris 385 (67.7%)
Jeff Bagwell 339 (59.6%)
Mike Piazza 329 (57.8%)
Tim Raines 297 (52.2%)
Lee Smith 272 (47.8%)
Curt Schilling 221 (38.8%)
Roger Clemens 214 (37.6%)
Barry Bonds 206 (36.2%)
Edgar Martinez 204 (35.9%)
Alan Trammell 191 (33.6%)
Larry Walker 123 (21.6%)
Fred McGriff 118 (20.7%)
Dale Murphy 106 (18.6%)
Mark McGwire 96 (16.9%)
Don Mattingly 75 (13.2%)
Sammy Sosa 71 (12.5%)
Rafael Palmeiro 50 (8.8%)
Some guys who fell off the eligibility list for next year include Kenny Lofton and Bernie Williams. These vote totals are a joke. On this list, appears the second best leadoff hitter of all time (Raines), the best offensive catcher of all time (Piazza), arguably the best DH of all time (Martinez) and one of the best 2nd basemen ever (Biggio). To say that none of those four are HOF-calibur in any ballot year, is to say that really, no one is HOF-calibur.
Apparently, there cannot be a first-ballot HOF anymore. Rickey Henderson was a 1st ballot Hall Of Famer. He is the best leadoff hitter of all time. Lou Brock was a first ballot hall of famer, and he is not the best, second best or third best leadoff hitter of all time. Tim Raines is the second best leadoff hitter of all time, and for another year (his 6th freaking ballot) he will not get to the Hall. What did he do to deserve this? Play in the shadow of Rickey Henderson for his whole career. That's all he ever did "wrong" in his career.
The biggest problem I have with putting no one in, besides the obvious fact that many of the people on the list were clean and certainly hall of fame quality, is that this sets a dangerous and upsetting precedent moving forward. Will ever player who played in the 90's be punished for steroids, even if they were never linked to steroid use in any way? What about next year, when the ballot includes first timers Frank Thomas, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux, be punished for what others did?
These big three were never linked to steroid use. They are all cream of the crop players. Frank Thomas was an amazing player, an upstanding symbol for the league and a 500 home run hitter with a .300 career average. Greg Maddux posted the lowest ERA in a season since Bob Gibson, and won 350 games in his career, won four Cy Young awards in a row (Finished Top 5 Nine Times) and won a World Series ring and several Gold Gloves. Tom Glavine is one of five left-handed pitchers ever to win 300 games, he won two Cy Young Awards and a World Series ring in which he was named World Series MVP. All three did plenty to be first ballot guys, but will they be punished?
The voters have a chance to fix this injustice. Next year, they can put in those three, along with Craig Biggio, Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell and Jack Morris. But for this year, they have really screwed up badly. They not only robbed some of the best clean players ever from the Hall, but they set a dangerous precedent that cannot continue to exist. We cannot punish everyone. Remember when your teacher used to take recess away from all students because a few students had done something wrong? Well, we're not in elementary school anymore and in real life, people get rewarded for doing the right things in life. Let's reward the players who were clean, and have no specter of steroids surrounding their great careers.
This also, unfairly, gives a black eye to MLB. I know it is the Baseball Hall Of Fame, and not the MLB Hall Of Fame, but most people think of it as such. When the Hall voters do something like this, it brings back up all the steroid discussions that had begun to fade in recent seasons. Sure, MLB is at fault at some level for allowing steroid players to play in their league without enough checks to prevent such illegal activity. However, it is unfair at this stage, to say that the players MLB was trying to send to the Hall were all guilty by association.
Guilty by association; we don't live in that society. I still believe in innocent until proven guilty. When voters are voting this way, you can be sure that most 90's stars will be called out, even when it is completely unwarranted. I will wait for next year, and when it comes, if Frank Thomas does not get in on the first ballot, you can have fun reading my meltdown post. They better get their sh*t together next time.
