The Baseball Hall of Fame is in shambles and needs saving, immediately.
I know this is old news, but the fact that it still grinds my gears is a problem.
Only three players going in the Hall this year is a travesty, a tragedy, and a terrible reflection on what the Hall of Fame has become. Now I am not saying it is a total, ridiculous disaster like the 2013-2014 New York Knicks (Should have signed Jeremy Lin), but it does need plenty of adjusting to fit with the times, and to fit with the current baseball culture. If you can fix the system, then the rest of the chips will fall in its place and the improvement can begin immediately.
But before we get to the travesty and how to prevent it from happening again, let’s at least bring out the good news. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas each deserve their place in the Hall, this is most definitely true. Greg Maddux is one of the best pitchers in the past half-century, Tom Glavine was his shadow but in many ways also an excellent contributor to the reign of the 1990s Atlanta Braves, and then we have Frank Thomas whose decent years were scattered with a few phenomenal years---mostly in his younger days. Each of these players has the credentials, they have the impact, and they have the numbers necessary to be enshrined with the greats that had played before them.
Alright, good news over, now on to the bad news.
Craig Biggio (Missed it by two votes, which is more frustrating considering some of the God-awful throwaway votes by some of the writers), Jeff Bagwell (Biggio’s offense friend), Curt Schilling (Postseason Legend), Edgar Martinez (Saved Seattle Mariners baseball), and Alan Trammel (Classy man with good numbers in the roughhouse 80s) are not in the Hall of Fame.
What?
Tim Raines is not in the Hall of Fame. Repeat, the second-greatest leadoff batter in the entire history of the sport with more stolen bases than everyone except for four players is not voted in the Hall yet.
What?
Mike Mussina, a 270-win, high-caliber pitcher that went up against the offense-heavy American League his entire career and escaped with one of the highest winning percentages in the history of baseball is not in the Hall yet.
What?
Mike Piazza, hands-down the greatest bat ever seen amongst all catchers to play the game and arguably the best catcher in the last 30 years not named Johnny Bench (and…maybe Ivan Rodriguez) is not in the Hall of Fame yet.
What??!?!?!?!???????????????????????????
This is not only ludicrous, this is inexcusable. The Hall of Fame should have had more names in the 2014 inductee class; there was far too much talent in the ballot. And we even have advanced statistics that can more accurately display a player’s worth. So how is it that players that meet the criteria before you go advanced math on their numbers, and REALLY meets the criteria once you Moneyball them, still have the door closed on their faces?
The writers.
The process isn’t flawless, but it is not the main issue behind the exclusion of worthy players. The baseball writers themselves have become a huge joke. We have one writer submit his ballot with ONLY Jack Morris. We had writers submit totally empty ballots, similar to the fiasco last year when nobody was included to the Hall.
For no logical reason whatsoever, we saw players like Eric Gagne, Jacque Jones, Kenny Rogers, and Armando Benitez receive some votes. And perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back, we saw Dan LeBatard of ESPN deciding to sell his vote to Deadspin instead of filling out the ballot himself—adding to the mockery of the voting process.
The procedure isn’t the issue, the people in charge of voting are. We now have dozens of writers who rarely even follow the sport or have their own stupid agenda filling out dumb ballots and cluttering the chances of unsung heroes to finally have their moment in the Hall. If we have a repeat of Ron Santo—a worthy player who finally gets in only after his death—I’m just going to give up on the Hall altogether.
What we need is the Commissioner of Baseball to appoint a team of his most trusted baseball minds to devise a massive exam that you must pass before you can be considered eligible to vote for who should be in the Hall. A gruesome exam that will be demanding facts, and also demanding appreciation, knowledge, and respect of the sport. Only the strong will survive, and only those that truly care will go through the egregious process of becoming a voter. This way we have less writers like LeBetard somehow being able to decide if a baseball player should have the highest honor of being in the Hall.
But it should not just be writers voting in the Hall members. The current baseball players and Hall of Fame members should have a voice. While the writers carry the most weight in their votes, a certain percentage should belong to current ballplayers as well as past ones that got the ultimate recognition. Removing some of the power from the writers will give good underrated players like Mike Mussina and Jeff Bagwell a fighting chance in the future---especially with some of the upcoming candidates.
And now we need to discuss the limit of 10 players per ballot: Should be removed immediately, because of the PED controversy and because of the entourage of upcoming excellent players as well as great ones that have yet to receive the required 75%. Next year, we have John Smoltz (Amazing), Randy Johnson (One of the 15 best) and Pedro Martinez (At his peak, one of the 5 greatest pitchers ever) coming up—and I have not even mentioned Gary Sheffield, Carlos Delgado, and to a lesser extent Nomar Garciaparra. Is it really a bad thing if we see 7 or 8 players entering the Hall of Fame? It would make for a wonderful celebration.
The true dilemma occurs with what to do about the PED and steroid players. Some argue that we have cheaters and pricks already in the Hall of Fame. Ty Cobb is one of the biggest jerks in the history of America, and we even have the man that started preventing blacks from playing professional baseball (Cap Anson). So if we allow racists, and handicapped-abusing monsters in the Hall, why not players that decided to illegally enhance their performance during a very, very, very competitive period in baseball?
Why can’t we just separate these players and group them into a specific era? Similar to the Dead Ball Era, we can have the Home Run Era, which would sound more accepting in the Hall of Fame as the Steroid Era. The problem is just like what Anson did back in the late 1800s, it was accepted at the time, and technically even needed after the 1994 strike nearly set back baseball 25 years. Steroids saved baseball, it became a necessary evil that everyone behind the scenes was secretly acknowledging. Baseball would not be baseball today if it had not been for the Steroid Era of the 90s.
The same group of men appointed by the commissioner along with the writers should find a way to separate the records to their perspective era. Do remember that Babe Ruth lost his record of most home runs in a season because there was an increase of games decades after he passed away. If you separate the records to different timeframes, you can then leave it up to the baseball fan as to which record he or she wants to accept. You want to accept Bonds’ 73 homers? Or Maris’ 61? Or maybe even Ruth’s 60?
Not only would that allow for the fan to see the different eras and the numbers related to the perspective era, but it would also provide some clarity as to why certain other players couldn’t reach the numbers. For example, we have lots of great players in the 1940s and the 1950s that lost years because of World War II and the Korean War. Ted Williams spent time in BOTH wars, and still had over 500 home runs. What if he had played those three years? What would have happened to his home run and hits numbers? What about Willie Mays? He also lost two years to the Korean War, and that was during his peak years.
We need to recognize these players, even if we can’t truly celebrate what they achieved as they ruined the Hall of Fame grading curve with the inflated numbers. We need a committee to basically reset the Hall of Fame members and decide which still deserve a spot, and which deserve a mere mention in the Hall. We need to recognize the cheaters of the past as well. After all, if we are deciding to treat the Hall as a morality spot, we should probably open up some skeletons of players that are usually highly regarded.
Baseball has far too fascinating and far too vast a history for the Hall of Fame to dictate what to show and what not to show. The Steroid Era needs to exist and needs to be in that Hall, scandalous players and all because you would also be erasing some of the memorable moments that had occurred around this same time: Cal Ripkin’s record, Ken Griffey Jr.’s pure 90s dominance, the rise of the Atlanta Braves, The 9/11 Mets game, The Double that saved baseball in the Northwest coast, the true grit 98 Yankees, the Subway Series, the amazing 2001 World Series, Hideo Nomo’s arrival, Canadian Baseball winning the World Series, Pedro Martinez conquering hitters for several straight years, and so much more.
The Baseball Hall of Fame needs quite a bit of an overhaul, because being stuck in the past and becoming the moral police is no longer a feasible option. Too many innocent victims are falling to the current voting process. The Hall of Fame needs to split into different eras, and we need to shuffle the players already in the Hall to their perspective eras, and then destroy the limit as to how many players you can vote in the Hall. But this vote of yours will have to be earned, as my proposal for changing the procedure involves a tough test issued to you by a commissioner-appointed committee. Then, and only then will we see the likes of Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines enter and not be punished because of the likes of Barry Bonds.
Your game got crowded Baseball, it’s time to stop being so narrow-minded, and open up.
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