Decadent and depraved voting in baseball’s Hall of Fame
It’s that time of year again; time for the Baseball Writers Association of America to vote on which players get into the Hall of Fame. It’s time to look back at who stood above the pack to the cream of the crop and all those other clichés the sports pages have to offer.
And it’s the time of year when the BBWAA shows how dysfunctional, sanctimonious and fouled up the voting system has become.
Let’s start with the obvious. The list of candidates voters choose from is 37 names long. Included are players who had decent careers, but nothing anyone would call immortal: Shawn Green, Aaron Sele. David Wells is there too, and if the Hall of Fame had a wing for people it’d be rad to get drunk with, he’d be there. Alas, it doesn’t. So the potential list shrinks a bit.
We’re left with some very good players. Curt Schilling, who is borderline, but probably had a better career than someone like Jack Morris. Kenny Lofton, who probably will get in. Larry Walker, who probably won’t.
All this is because this year’s ballot also includes several of the best players in baseball history. There’s Mark McGwire, who broke Roger Maris’ single-season home run record in 1998, Roger Clemens, winner of seven Cy Young Awards and 354 games, and Barry Bonds, who once hit 73 home runs in a single season, finished with 762 home runs and won NL MVP seven times.
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Not coincidentally, it also includes three of the most controversial players of all time: McGwire, Clemens and Bonds. All three are alleged to have used PEDs, have taken flak for a refusal to admit to their alleged use, and their dealings with the media are mixed at best. When these names are mixed with the group of reactionaries residing inside the BBWAA, sparks are going to fly. This could be a Hall of Fame class to remember in more ways than one.
It’s a tough ballot this year, and not just if PED-alleged players gives you an ethical dilemma. Voters can put up to 10 people on their ballots, although many go with less. With so many good choices to select from, it could be hard to pick who should go ahead of whom. But the problem with BBWAA voting isn’t with who’s on the ballots. It’s with who fills out the ballots.
Every year, some voters take it upon themselves to become arbiters of some golden standard. They’ll not vote for anyone who’s in their first year of eligibility simply because if Babe Ruth couldn’t get in unanimously, why should anyone else? Or they’ll change their vote based on voting trends. And sometimes they choose not to vote at all! Let’s look at a few examples:
First up is that paragon of good taste and well-thought-out decisions, Jay Mariotti. Back in the days when he still appeared on ESPN, he announced he doesn’t vote any player in their first year, because that’s sacred. Thus, in 2010, Mariotti turned in a blank ballot, giving a reasoning that makes no sense: Alomar was worthy, just not on his first time up. And as for players like Andre Dawson, who’ve been on the ballot for several years? Well if they were worthy, they’d be in by now.
He’s not alone: that same year, five BBWAA voters turned in blank ballots. One, Lisa Olson, actually gives a good reason for abstaining, but what about the other three? It’d be nice of they came out and explained why. But the writers don’t make their voting transparent: they’ll compile a list of writers who announce their votes, but they don’t require someone to.
This sort of thing happens every year. When Tom Seaver came up on the ballot for the first time in 1992, he was probably about as slam dunk as it gets: three Cy Young Awards, Rookie of the Year in 1967, 311 wins, a career WAR of 101, 12 All-Star appearances, etc. He only got 98.8 percent of the vote. That’s a very high number, but it also means 1.2 percent of voters didn’t put him on their ballots. How’s that work? Quite easily, actually: three voters turned in blank ballots to protest Pete Rose being banned from Cooperstown.
Hank Aaron was left off nine ballots in 1982, Tony Gwinn off 13 in 2007. Five percent of voters left Willie Mays off their ballots in 1979. What does it say about the BBWAA when its voters leave some of the greatest players in the sport off their ballot?
I’m not sure anyone really thinks the various Halls of Fame are important. They’re a nice honor and they’re a capstone to a career. But nobody’s perception of Schilling will change if he doesn’t get into Cooperstown. Likewise, we don’t really know which players used PEDs. We don’t know if Bonds hit 73 home runs off pitchers who were using similar chemical enhancements. In the words of William Goldman, nobody knows anything.
If the sportswriting establishment gets on its high horse and decides some of the greatest players ever aren’t worthy of the Hall because of something they might have taken (and maybe the majority of the league, too), they’re fooling nobody but themselves. At the least, making the vote public would make sure readers can hold the most sanctimonious writers accountable for their actions.
After all, if you don’t want to vote for Bonds or Clemens, that’s your call. But you had better have a good reason why.
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