Good article, Lobstah. I saw Grantland and had to check that Simmons had nothing to do with it before I carried on. Just some random thoughts: The thing that really irks me is the those that are being punished because they are suspected of something. Whether it be Piazza's bacne, Bags' propensity to lift a lot and his known association with Ken C., or the others; these guys have never tested positive and have vehemently denied usage. You can't tell me that Piazza, who is arguably the greatest hitting catcher of all time (at least top 3), shouldn't be inducted as a first year candidate all because some guy says he saw acne on his back! Ridiculous. All they did this year was create a backlog that they are not going to be able to rectify unless they change some of the rules. For instance, I can't believe they count blank ballots. Granted, I believe there was only 5 of them this year, but it doesn't make any sense. If those writers don't want to vote, bye bye. Also, anyone that votes for Aaron Fucking Sele needs to lose their voting privilege as well. Actually, strike that. Whoever added him to the ballot in the first place needs to go. You know what, I'm starting to get angered over this and there's nothing I can do to change it. I could sit here and bitch and write more paragraphs, but I'm gonna stop now. One last note, though, I would really like to see transparent voting. That wouldn't fix anything per se, but it would be nice to know the next time someone votes for one of the Aaron Fucking Sele's of the world.
You can't tell me that Piazza, who is arguably the greatest hitting catcher of all time (at least top 3), shouldn't be inducted as a first year candidate all because some guy says he saw acne on his back! Ridiculous.
Is this really the limit of the evidence at hand? If so, that really is ridiculous. We were having a discussion the other day here about Cooperstown in regards to Ozzie Smith and Alan Trammell. Here
Piazza's never been implicated in any steroid investigation; not the Mitchell Report, which Mets clubhouse employee during his stint with the team, Kirk Radomski, was a major part of, nor has he ever tested positive once. He's only been vilified in columns from New York Times writer, Murray Chass. On that note: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/01/26/dermatologists-...
Agree wholeheartedly on the "suspicion of use" part. I also thought they brought up a really good point with the amphetamine use by old-timers. I mean, shit, if steroids existed and were accessible back then, do we really think those guys wouldn't have used them?? And yeah, the Piazza snub got me super fired up as well. The guy was one of my childhood icons! I don't understand why there ISN'T transparent voting yet. Even the NCAA coaches' poll is transparent, right?
Baseball has never been clean, and I wish these writers would stop pretending like it has. I don't really know what constitutes a 'first ballot hall-of-famer' anymore, but you should be able to make the argument for at least 5 or 6 of the guys appearing on the ballot this year. The HOF voting shouldn't be an avenue for writers to make political statements. They should just vote in the best of that particular era and move on. The end of this article gave some solid ideas on how to reform the process, and I think some if not all of these need to be instituted, because the system is clearly broken.
Well I think some, if not most, of these guys are intelligent and understand baseball, but as Goldmine alluded to, they're trying to use their ballots to make a statement. And that shit just shouldn't fly. BoobsAreAwesome brought up some good points too- make the votes publicly available and take away votes from anyone who turns in a blank ballot.
Preaching to the choir. However, I think it's been pretty well shown throughout the years that most of the HoF voters don't have a good grasp on the actual statistical analysis that is needed to determine relative player worth. Some do; the vocal minority who write the blogs. But it's important to remember that for every young Bill James acolyte, there are ten old-time sportswriters who don't really know what they're doing.
The problem is they still see it as something to buy into. That is, that Sabermetrics and the old-school way of judging baseball players are two competing viewpoints. If you'll allow me to get dramatic, it's a bit like evolution and creationism. Who's your team?
I follow the Cards pretty closely as well. Lived there for a few years, close proximity, need an NL team, etc. I'm excited we got Price and it looks like David Glass is actually willing to shell out some dough, so maybe a few things to look forward to.