Time to put Hall of Fame vote on shelf, overhaul system
Chipper Jones will be in Hall of Fame one day. But how does Fred McGriff get only 118 votes while Craig Biggio gets 388? (AJC photo)
Junk it. Fix it. At the very least, put all of this on a shelf for a while and let it breathe.
Maybe the whole system needs to be blown up. Maybe the voting populace needs to be redefined, or at least shrunk to a more workable size (enough to fit into small boardroom).
Maybe the powers of baseball and the Hall of Fame can issue some sort of declaration like, “This is what qualifies as cheating. That is what doesn’t.”
Or, “Frankly, we don’t care who did what.”
But right now the system stinks. It’s broken. When Craig Biggio gets more than three times as many votes as Fred McGriff, it’s totally broken. Something needs to change or everything needs to change. The only certainty is that whatever needs to be fixed won’t be done before 2014 ballots being mailed out.
So take a year off from elections. Maybe two years. Let it breathe — not like a fine wine, more like an old meat locker that needs disinfecting.
The only people who really would be upset about such a move would be those who are becoming eligible and obviously deserve to be honored, including Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine 2014 and John Smoltz in 2015.
They can wait. They’ll have their day. This is more important.
The results of this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame election were unveiled Wednesday. Nobody got in. The only winner was the U.S. postal service. Junk mail has had more impact than the 569 ballots that were mailed in.
Nobody can agree on Barry Bonds, who received 36.2 percent of the vote in his first year of eligibility, less than half the amount needed (75 percent). Nobody can agree on Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa or anybody else associated with performance-enhancing drugs to varying degrees.
Nobody, inexplicably, can agree on guys like McGriff, Jack Morris or Tim Raines, all of whom were checked on my ballot, but not enough.
The thumbs down given to Barry Bonds, Rogers Clemens and other suspected steroids users was one thing the voters did right.
Too few (18.6 percent) again checked the box next to Dale Murphy, despite the consecutive MVP awards and the fact he was fueled on nothing stronger than milk and Froot Loops.
Murphy was typically classy Wednesday. He thanked family members, fans and some media members for support. He was grateful for this year’s voting “bump.” But even he cracked, “Maybe I should’ve retired after 1988 — I would’ve had a better chance. But I played through some injuries. I could’ve gone to the American League as a DH, but I wasn’t thinking about the Hall of Fame, I was thinking about winning.”
If the Veteran’s Committee ever votes Murphy in, he should get his own wing.
The top vote-getter this year was Craig Biggio. Craig … Biggio.
How many times did anybody watch Craig Biggio play and think, “Now there goes one of the all-time greats”? How is he named on 388 ballots and McGriff on 118?
We need more time to let the PED issue play out. We need clarity on the voting process and the criteria. It’s clear that 569 voters were on 569 different pages.
If the Cooperstown gatekeepers seek to take the vote away from the baseball writers association, I’m completely OK with that. The media’s job should be to provide coverage and perspective on news, not be the news. It’s why most major newspapers, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, no longer allow writers to vote in college football polls or season awards. The Hall of Fame has been an exception because it’s a post-career honor. Besides, what’s Dale Murphy going to buy my vote with — a cheeseburger and fries?
Between suspected steroids-users Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire and (to a lesser degree) Jeff Bagwell, Hall voters rejected winners of eight MVP awards, seven Cy Youngs and eight home run champions. Bonds (1), Sosa (8), McGwire (10) and Rafael Palmeiro (12) rank among career home run leaders.
Michael Weiner, the players union’s executive director, reacted as you would expect a shill would: “To ignore the historic accomplishments of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens is hard to justify. To penalize players exonerated in legal proceedings … is simply unfair.”
Not really. If they cheated the game, all bets are off. That’s my opinion. Obviously some disagree. We need a uniform set of criteria. We need better than what have. And there should be no rush to get to the next vote.
By Jeff Schultz
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329 comments Add your comment
Big AL
January 10th, 2013
8:33 am
THe BB HoF voters are to be held accountable. They can’t be the same voters who vote Bonds as MVP several times and Clemons for CY Young seven times turn around and vote no to the Hall. The same writers/voters are the ones who brought them to the spotlight with all the accolades. Maybe they should have written their columns about 10 years ago when Bond’s body grew from stick man to the Hulk and Clemons went from has burned out has been to great after being a Jose Canseco team mate for a year. It’s the WRITERS FAULT.
Larry
January 10th, 2013
8:39 am
“Dumbing down?”
Like the desperation of one forced through repeated rejection to seek the companionship of a mexican female because he can’t attract a good looking and intelligent African American female or is too unattractive to an intelligent “lighter skinned caucasion” female?
That dumbing down?
JD
January 10th, 2013
8:42 am
If the Voters wanted to send a message they should have included Murphy in his last year of eligibility…the guy was a saint and represented the very best in Baseball both on and off the field. Baseball’s Executives and most of these hipocritical gate-guardian Voters ought to be ashamed of themselves for lumping Murph and McGriff in with this controversy…these guys represented what’s best in the traditions of the game and these voter-writers represent the very worst in their attempt at protest.
Way to go voters…a real foul ball on your collective part.
nate from detroit
January 10th, 2013
8:48 am
I agree with Schultzie on the fact that the HOF should define what “cheating” is and what level of “cheating” will be tolerated in hall of famers. To you Murph bashers, are there not players in the HOF with numbers less impressive than Murphy?
JSS
January 10th, 2013
8:48 am
I wouldn’t know, I dated all of those (and some others), was that your problem? ¿Entienden? no…
JSS
January 10th, 2013
8:56 am
Don’t worry, that illiterate lap dog will be in here to spin this whole mess for you as usual when it all gets deleted…
Class of '98
January 10th, 2013
9:08 am
Jeff, whoever watched Tim Freaking Raines and thought ““now there goes one of the all-time greats”?
DP
January 10th, 2013
9:15 am
Jeff at 8:35, saying that both Murphy and Koufax were as good as any of their peers for 5 years so their situations are comparable is painting Murphy in the best possible light. What I said was that for 5 years Koufax was so great that the number of pitchers who might have been as great for any 5 year period, not just those 5 years, could be counted on the fingers of one hand; as I wrote previously, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, maybe Walter Johnson and Christy Matthewson though I haven’t really looked at their season by season stats. Clemens won over 350 games and even when juiced he never had a 5 year period where he was as dominant as Koufax. Koufax had 5 consecutive seasons where he was like Dwight Gooden as a rookie or Ron Guidry (25-3) in 1978 or Randy Johnson at the top of his game. Koufax had such electric stuff that he was a threat to pitch a no hitter every time out; he threw 4 in 4 seasons. He had 25-5 and 27-9 seasons for a team that could barely score. He threw a 15 strikeout shutout, a World Series record at the time, against the Yankees in 1963. He won 3 games in the 1965 World Series, including a 2-0 shutout in game 7 on 2 days rest when his elbow was hurting so bad that he could only throw fastballs.
I only saw Koufax in the last couple of years of his career on TV as a kid but saw Murphy for his whole career. I am not knocking him as a player. He was outstanding in his prime, but he was never at the level of a Mays, Mantle, Aaron, Ruth, Gehrig, Pujols, Foxx, Williams, Musial, etc. and his prime was in my opinion not quite long enough.
Nativebird
January 10th, 2013
9:16 am
So Steroid cheaters have now added the HOF entry to the many many wonderful features of Baseball that they have negatively affected and tainted, and YOU want to chunk the whole process to accomodate them. That’s is too good. That IS the problem with cheating in sports. Now our idol worshipping, and the billions of $$ that it sucks out of fans pockets have indeed finally surpassed ethics and integrity in all aspect of sports…including sports writing.
DP
January 10th, 2013
9:20 am
Najeh, you wrote that steroids are a character issue. I think they’re also a cheating issue. Guys like Bonds, Sosa and Clemens put themselves at a competitive advantage versus people they played with and against who didn’t use steroids. The pre-1947 players didn’t choose who they could play against and there have been no claims that the greats of that era did anything to give themselves physical advantages.
Of course there are people who say that if steroid cheats shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame, neither should Gaylord Perry who won over 300 games throwing a spitter, as he later acknowledged. I agree, Perry should never have been inducted and once he admitted regular throwing a spitter in a book I think they should have removed him from the Hall.
DP
January 10th, 2013
9:34 am
I don’t think it has come up on this blog, but in other places I’ve seen people make the argument that Bonds should be inducted because he was a HOF quality player before he started doping. That’s based on the assumption that he only started doping after the McGwire-Sosa home run year when Bonds suddenly looked like the Incredible Hulk with a giant head. I think it’s very likely that Bonds started doping a lot earlier than people think but went onto stronger stuff to bulk up. Take a look at the first 5 full seasons of Bonds’ career, 1986-90. He was roughly a .265 hitter averaging 20 or so home runs a year and over 100 strikeouts a year. Then in his 6th season he takes a huge leap in production for the next several seasons. Then he bulks up and takes another quantum leap.
But see if you can find another one with all time great career hitting stats who didn’t really start producing like a superstar until his 6th season in the majors. Every other great player was producing at a superstar level by his 2nd or 3rd season, even if they came into the majors at 19 or 20 years old. Many, or maybe even most, were sensational as rookies. With Mantle and Mays you have to allow for Mantle missing his second season with a knee injury and Mays missing his 2nd and 3rd seasons because of the Korean War.
The closest comparison I can find to Bonds is Rafael Palmeiro, who served a steroid suspension late in his career. Palmeiro started his career in 1986, the same year as Bonds. For his first 5 years he was a .300 hitter with little home run power, some years less than 10 home runs. Then in 1991, the same year Bonds takes off, Palmeiro suddenly morphs into a home run hitter. I think the evidence strongly suggests both Bonds and Palmeiro started juicing in the winter after the 1990 season and the vast majority of their career stats are steroid aided. We already know that Conseco and McGwire were juicing in the late 1980’s, so it was available.
JSS
January 10th, 2013
9:40 am
What people forget about Murphy is that he played in a division that had three death valleys for power hitters (especially in dead ball eras): Dodger Stadium, the Astrodome, and Jack Murphy… Even with that, he hit 24 homers at San Diego…
Chief Noc-a-homa
January 10th, 2013
9:54 am
All I ever hear about is Dale Murphy. He wasn’t even the best Brave on his team. What about the greatest Brave in history, BIG BOB HORNER? Four home runs in one game. FOUR HOME RUNS IN ONE GAME!!! Screw this. I’m going back to my teepee to smokum peace pipe and drink white man’s firewater just like the old days with my boy Bob before the big games.
Bulldawg
January 10th, 2013
10:11 am
I still think Pete Rose should be in the HOF. Yes, I know he gambled on baseball, but is that really any worse than the moral failures of many Hall of Famers? Pete Rose represents what baseball is all about. He loved the game and gave it everything he had every time he stepped on the field. Rose’s stats were not attained by cheating. They were attained by playing the game the way it was designed to be played.
1966 Atlanta Braves...
January 10th, 2013
10:13 am
I agree that Aaron used cold medicine to make him feel better during his career, and also agree that the men that play baseball today have a mixed up mind set concerning their behavior, from the drugs to the tatoo on their neck. Sorry Pete Rose, Dale, Fred and the rest, you are not part of this modern day mess!
Sam
January 10th, 2013
10:17 am
As usual, narrative, speculative anecdotes masquerading as an argument from AJC writers. Look at the data; I don’t really care about the sight test, neither should you. Biggio career WAR: 62.1; McGriff WAR: 48.2, from a position designed to generate more value. How many people with 3,000 hits aren’t in the HOF? Rose, Palmerio, who actually tested positive, and now Biggio. C’mon! How many marginal players get insane votes by homer sports writers trying to please their readers? Too many.
Paddy O
January 10th, 2013
10:19 am
Bonds had admitted in court proceedings that he has USED steroids – the clear and the “something else”; he just tried to say he did NOT know they were steroids. If you beleive that, you probably think OJ was completely innocent of the Simpson killings. Palmeiro is proven. McGwire essentially stated he used. For those who claim that since Murphy is still famous, he should be in – does that apply to Bob Uecker and Jose Canseco, too? Murphy is a great human. His baseball CAREER simply does not measure up.
Cloudodust
January 10th, 2013
10:19 am
Long live the good ol’ days when the only PED’s were cigars and beer.
Paddy O
January 10th, 2013
10:25 am
Some say Rice being in indicates Murphy should be in. Rice’s BEST years were from 77-79; but he also had 200 hits in 86;
MURPHY
YR G AB R HITS 2B HR RBI AVG
82 162 698 113 168 23 36 109 281 MVP
83 162 687 131 178 24 36 121 302 MVP
RICE
82 145 638 86 177 24 24 97 308 MVP VOTE – #19
83 155 689 90 191 34 39 126 305 MVP VOTE – #4
The MVP in the NL was simply easier to get. Remember, neither of these years were Rices BEST years – those WERE Murphy’s best years. it also appears Rice was no slower than Murphy – he had a ton of triples for a power hitter.
Paddy O
January 10th, 2013
10:26 am
I”d think the best brave in history would be eddie mathews, no?
Chief Noc-a-homa
January 10th, 2013
10:30 am
No. Bob Horner.
Dnny
January 10th, 2013
10:33 am
Jeff, the last time I looked the HOF was/is about those who excelled at the game of baseball at their position or positions. Rose, like it or not, had more hits than anybody else that played the game. Bonds, like it or not, had more home runs than anyone that has ever played the game. There are other examples but I’ll stop here.
The big question that I want answered is this, what is the purpose of the HOF? Are they/should they be about displaying the players with the biggest accomplishments in the game? I say yes. We have presidents that failed the moral test while in office. Should they not be considered as one of our presidents because of that? Maybe we should just delete them from the list of presidents because they were of questionable character?
No, you don’t erase history, you simply live with it. The HOF should not be about judging character but about displaying the best players the game has ever known. The character/moral makeup of the players should not be a part of the hall. If character is an issue, then we need to look at those who cheated on the spouses, became alcoholics, beat their wife and or children, the list could go on and on, and not let them in either. What makes taking performance enhancing drugs or betting on games worse than wife/child beating? Those who are throwing stones at others do not want the skeletons to come out of their closet. Trust me on that one.
Paddy O
January 10th, 2013
10:33 am
I think I have adequately demonstrated that Rice is substantially better than Murphy; and Rice BARELY was voted in.
Paddy O
January 10th, 2013
10:38 am
that must be why Mathews is IN the HOF; Horner not. BTW, Horner NEVER had 100 RBI in a season. Potential does not support that conclusion.
Paddy O
January 10th, 2013
10:41 am
dnny – you have a profound equivalency failure. First, educate yourself regarding the criteria of the HOF. However, I do agree with you on Rose. Personally, I think Selig orchestrated the entire steroid era to pump up baseballs popularity. the cancellation of the WS in 94 had a serious, negative impact, Remarkably, only 4 years later McGwire & Sosa captured the imagination. Selig was a former used car salesman – I would NOT put anything past that POS.
Paddy O
January 10th, 2013
10:43 am
JSS – what was the rep of Fulton? pretty much a launching pad, no? did not Davey Johnson – a 2nd basement, and Darrel Evans, crack 40+ HR’s there?
Dnny
January 10th, 2013
10:57 am
Paddy O – You are correct about me not knowing the whole criteria for entering the hall but none the less, I stand by my statements 100 percent. The hall should be about the best players who played the game. Key players that fit that criteria are not there because they have been deemed morally ineligible. You cannot dispute that. It is what it is. We as a nation had a span of several years where many players took performance enhancing drugs. Wonder how many who are in the hall were addicted to alcohol or other drugs that wasn’t performance enhancing? I’m simply saying the hall should be about stats and leave the moral question alone. If you go by morals, maybe none of them deserve to be there.
Chief Noc-a-homa
January 10th, 2013
10:57 am
Four home runs in a game is the greatest accomplishment in the history of the universe. All who challenge me are inferior. Horner derived his samson-like power from the blond fro and prodigious beer belly.
Hoosier Aaron
January 10th, 2013
11:06 am
For Murph: 1984, 1985 and 1987 were just as good if not better than his MVP years.
No matter how you slice it – for the decade of the 1980’s, Murph was one of the three most dominate players in the game.
If Murph played in NY or Boston – he would’ve been a HoF ten years ago.
JSS
January 10th, 2013
11:06 am
@ Paddy O…
205 HR lifetime in ATL/Fulton over his career. He never hit a homer there as a visting player. Yes the ball travel in Atlanta, but 73 the year that the players your mentioned hit the number, the very next year Johnson fell back to 15 homers, Evans back to 25, while Evans went Johnson hit 26 of 43 (60%) in Atlanta, Evans 23 of 40 (57%) there… And until Murphy and Horner, they (the Braves) produced no real great power hitting numbers…
LawDawg
January 10th, 2013
11:16 am
The baseball hall of fame has always been a joke, and even more so now. For God’s sake, TWO PEOPLE voted for Shawn Green to be in the HOF and one for Aaron Sele (which I have to assume was his mother). Tim Raines in the HOF? Maybe. I can sort of see a case for Murphy and McGriff, but only because I am a Braves fan.
Meanwhile, Bonds and Clemens (probably the best hitter ever and the 3rd or 4tf best pitcher ever) are left out because of steroids? Really? Who gives a crap? Both of them had first ballot HOF careers BEFORE steroids.
Meanwhile, the HOF members include lots of cheaters. George Brett corked his bat, half the pitchers scuffed balls and used pine tar, nearly every member of the hall that played in the 7s and 80s took illegal drugs (greenies = amphetamine). Tons of alcoholics and coke addicts. Hell, they even have a couple of murderers. But the best players in the world took steroids for a few years. THAT is the bridge too far.
Oh, and Schultz, I like the message to the kids that cocaine addiction is A-OK and definitely not performance enhancing (Raines), but taking steroids in 1998 to extend your career after a string of injuries is worse than Hitler.
Dnny
January 10th, 2013
11:24 am
Bravo LawDawg!!!!
LawDawg
January 10th, 2013
11:27 am
I hate the fact that Biggio is probably going to get into the HOF simply by hanging on long enough to get 3000 hits. Did anyone ever during his playing career say “there goes one of the all-time greats” or “I need to take my son to this game. This is his last chance to see that paragon of baseball, Craig Biggio”.
I doubt it.
Also, can someone explain to me why I am supposed to care if athletes “cheat”? Get better at testing and have harsher penalties. Baseball and Selig LOVED steroids after they nearly destroyed the sport in 1994. Steroids are the only reason baseball is not a historical footnote in the world of football, and for the same reason: Huge freaks performing inhuman feats of strength, aided by steroids.
Also, I guess we need to just go ahead and preemptively shut down the football hall of fame….or are we still pretending that people can look like that strictly through exercise?
Gator Mike
January 10th, 2013
11:34 am
Jeff, I totally agree with you. How do we know that cheating was not going on in the 70s and before???
I am fed up with all of those politically correct airheads with a holier than thou attitude. Perhaps Bonds, Clements, Sosa, etc did juice up as did a lot of others who did not get caught. Well, all baseball fans certainly loved watching Clements pitch and Bonds knock the ball out of the park. I suppose many of the purists believe that those in Congress such as Pelosi, Reid, etc are squeaky clean. The baseball HOF is a joke.
1966 Atlanta Braves...
January 10th, 2013
11:42 am
Paddy————you are so—-right Ed Mathews is the BEST brave, and be damn Paul Richards for sending him to Houston.
DP
January 10th, 2013
11:43 am
Hey LawDag, since you’re asserting that Barroid Bonds was the best hitter of all time and a HOF worthy player before he started juicing, how about coming back to us with a comparison of the hitting stats over the first 5 years of his career versus those of Ruth (post pitching career), Gehrig, Dimaggio, Foxx, Williams, Greenberg, Hornsby, Cobb, Musial, Mays, Mantle, Aaron, Griffey Jr., and Pujols? Bonds was a barely above average major league hitter at age 25, when most are near their peak and a monster at 40, when most have retired. Could you tell us about some other HOF players who fit that criteria, and if there aren’t any what might cause the discrepancy?
bruce benedict
January 10th, 2013
11:55 am
People griping about players already inducted in the HOF that had “character issues”- they didn’t cheat- at least as far as we know. Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, etc do not belong in the HOF- there is no question as to whether they cheated- just look at how their bodies blew up! Their numbers mean nothing. Sports already lacks alot of integrity- let’s try to hold on to some semblance of it.
Brown
January 10th, 2013
12:03 pm
Jeff,
I agree the HOF voting system needs to be fixed. But not sure why BBWAA needs to sit around and wait for more clarity on PEDs. What is going to get more clear by waiting around? It only gets muddier, the deeper you dig into it – and why make those that are deserving wait around until there’s more clarity on an issue that doesn’t involve them.
Only one benefit I see to Maddux and Glavine having to wait one year – and that is to send Smoltz, Glavine, and Maddux all in at the same time in 2015.
P.S. – How lucky were we to get to see 3 Hall of Fame starting pitchers play for the Braves at the same time. It’s really unbelievable when you think about it . . . and unfortunately it also makes you wonder how the hell the Braves didn’t win more than one Series.
Stuart
January 10th, 2013
12:08 pm
Dale Murphy Lifetime stats: 398 lifetime homers, 2,111 hits, 1,661 RBI’s, .265 Batting Average. These are just above average stats for a great power hitter.
Now compare:
Fred McGriff Lifetime stats: 493 lifetime homers, 2,490 hits, 1,550 RBI’s, .284 Batting Average.
Can anyone REALLY say that Murph is more deserving of the HOF than McGriff?
Dnny
January 10th, 2013
12:12 pm
DP – I do not disagree that Bonds probably cheated. I personally believe he did. That said, the hall is no doubt full of others who have done things that, had those things become known, probably would have not made it in. One immoral man or men judging other immoral men is ludicrous to me. Cocaine, alcohol, other drugs ok, sexual immorality ok, but don’t dare try to extend your career with performance enhancing drugs. That is the worse crime there is. Those who vote on hall members are self righteous hypocrites! How many stadiums were filled to capacity across the nation to see Bonds break the home run record? How many stadiums were filled to capacity to watch the Sosa McGuire home run battles? Did they cheat? Yeah, probably but most of the pitchers were also on PED’S so who had an advantage? Their stats say they should be there so let them.
DP
January 10th, 2013
12:16 pm
Dnny, if we can’t have less than perfect men and women judging other less than perfect men and women, let’s just go ahead and do away with the courts and empty the jails, because who are we to judge? There is probably somebody who didn’t get caught who did something just as bad as the guy on death row, so let’s let the perfect be the enemy of the good and let the guy on death row free.
Dnny
January 10th, 2013
12:22 pm
DP – a terrible analogy. In no way shape or form can a person extending his career or making it better through PEDS be put in the same category as a murderer or rapist or such as that. That is sooooo silly.
DollarDawg43
January 10th, 2013
12:32 pm
This year’s voting was no travesty. The players who put up the so-called deserving stats cheated and these are the consequences. Until Shoeless Joe gets in, it is perfectly fair for Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens et al to be excluded as well…and Shoeless Joe was only guilty of ignorance and had the misfortune of playing for an owner so horrible he wouldn’t even pay to have his team’s uniforms washed half the time. He certainly wasn’t paying his players what they were worth. Its no wonder they took the money but Shoeless Joe was always lights out.
If there is a HOF travesty, it is his exclusion.
Mike A
January 10th, 2013
12:39 pm
Shoeless Joe helped throw a World Series. That should preclude him being elected into the Hall.
The difference between gamblers and steroid/amphetamine/etc users is the drug users were still playing to win. Shoeless Joe was playing to lose. Gambling threatens the legitimacy of the game itself, which is why the 1919 scandal almost killed baseball. And it’s why gambling is treated so severely by the Hall and MLB (Pete Rose knew this fact, but ignored it).
Walter
January 10th, 2013
12:41 pm
I’m not sure that this will be read by Jeff considering the 200+ comments that are already posted but I’ll shoot anyway. Everyone is entitled to their opinions but if you seriously think Dale Murphy and Fred McGriff are worthy of being in the Hall of Fame then I have to question if you watch baseball outside of the Braves organization. Murphy was good, maybe even great, he had a few good years, but compare him to others in the HoF and his numbers, the impact he made in games, the impact he made on his team, aren’t really comparable. Biggio played on an Astros team that had Bagwell, Caminiti, Hampton, Finley, Hunter and a young Gonzalez. He switched from Catcher to 2nd base and was an all-star at BOTH positions, never been done before likely never be done again. Seven time all-star, 4 Gold Gloves, 5 Silver Slugger Awards and his number retired by the only team he played for for NINETEEN years! Morris might get in via the Veteran’s committee, as might Raines and McGriff. Mr. Schultz, if you don’t know the criteria of which you are suppose to cast your BBWAA vote then maybe you shouldn’t be voting… The BBWAA has done a very good job over the years of making the distinction as a group who belongs in the HoF and who was great but not exactly worthy of being enshrined as one of the greatest of all time, not just at their position but in general. I do feel that a few players were cheated out of first ballots this year, but a statement was made, and the players; past, present and future would do well to take notice. The system is a generally good system, sometimes they may not recognize the importance of someone who may not have had the best numbers but that’s why they have the VC. The HoF is suppose to be sacred, an enshrinement of a game that is still to some this nations greatest pastime. I don’t want cheaters, or gamblers in something that is suppose to be sacred. These people inside the HoF are people we should want our children, and their children to look up to, and know, not just in Atlanta, but across the country. Murphy and McGriff were kinda big here, but Maddox and Glavine were known and feared around both leagues, had fans in more than just the south, and most of all, had the respect.
Brown
January 10th, 2013
12:53 pm
Because it’s impossible to truly know who juiced and who didn’t, and to what extent – I think you have to vote people in based on their numbers and their impact to the game and its history.
If you look at the McGwire-Sosa HR battle, and Bonds chase of the single-season and career home run records – they were huge moments in the game, but we all know they were shrouded in possible or blatant cheating. And if/when the alleged juicers make in into the HOF, they will still carry a tainted history, even if they don’t get an official asterisk.
I guess my thought is that the BBWAA should not try to police, and try to determine who used and who didn’t. Vote players in on their credentials, and let the fans decide if they want to view them as Hall of Famers or not. I think Cooperstown should also have a big ‘Steroid Era’ exhibit, explaining how players changed their physique, changed the record books, and tells the story of the Congressional court hearings and other legal proceedings surrounding the issue.
The Steroid Era is part of baseball history whether we like it or not, and you can’t tell the story of baseball without. Tell the story, rather than hiding from it.
Tebow Rotting On Bench
January 10th, 2013
12:57 pm
Bottomline Jeff, the baseball writers should not be able to punish Bonds,Sosa,Clemens,McSteroidgwire,etc. with their votes. The votes should be about the stats the players put up. Were those stats among the greatest 10% of all playes ever ? None of you sports writers are doctors that tested players for steroids. The court system exonerated Clemens & Bonds of steroids use. But a group of writers can prevent the all time home run king Barry Bonds from being a hall of famer.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Roid Raging
January 10th, 2013
1:03 pm
None of those dirty players should be in HOF. Heck, Bonds & Clemens should have restraining orders keeping them 5,000 feet from Cooperstown premises. These roiders made a mockery of the aplle pie & cracker jack game that adults played like kids but become millionaires. Who thinks Chipper roided ? We know Javy Lopez did. We for sho know jordan Schafer did but he still is an Atlanta Brave. So see if it mattered that players used steroids they would be permanently banned not sent to their rooms. Wake up MLB fans because Bud Selig sold you a dead mule as a race horse and you want to buy more from him !
Tanner
January 10th, 2013
1:07 pm
Pete Rose has the all time hits record but isn’t in hall of fame.
Barry Bonds has all time home runs record but isn’t in hall of fame.
Why have a hall of fame if two of the best players ever (by the numbers) aren’t in it ? Cooperstown is a joke.
Hillbilly D
January 10th, 2013
1:07 pm
What about the greatest Brave in history, BIG BOB HORNER?
I saw Bob Horner play and I saw Henry Aaron play. Bob was no Henry. Bob was a guy who had HOF potential but due to injuries and other things, he never got there. Very good hitter, and a very quick bat but things didn’t fall into place for him.
What people forget about Murphy is that he played in a division that had three death valleys for power hitters (especially in dead ball eras): Dodger Stadium, the Astrodome, and Jack Murphy…
They also forget how good he was defensively, in CF.
A decent fielder with an average arm but a mountain of Ks quite a choice there.
Kingman wasn’t a decent fielder; teams spent years trying to hide him at 1B. He was a K king for his day but 156 was the most he ever had in a single season. There were 14 people last year in MLB who had more K’s than that. Mickey Mantle was also criticized for his K’s and 126 was the most he ever had (and you have to take his production into account). 126 would’ve tied him for 48th in Ks last year. This truly is the era of the K King.