Why the Baseball Hall of Fame Sucks
You know what really pisses me off? The idea that the people holding the key to the most sacred place in baseball have absolutely no business in deciding who belongs in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
After this most recent induction of players to the Hall, an indisputably deserving class including Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman and Chipper Jones, eyebrows should be raised in questioning why those four were not joined by even more candidates. Steroid abusers are in the hall of fame. It’s a fact. Jose Canseco, the godfather of steroids in baseball, stated in his book “Juiced” that he, himself, pushed a needle injecting steroids into Ivan Rodriguez’s ass. With Rodriguez getting into the hall ON HIS FIRST BALLOT, it is disgusting that the hall of fame continues to hold out the greatest hitter and greatest pitcher in baseball history, in Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. The barrier holding these “cheaters”, as nothing was ever proven, out of the hall has been broken down. I mean, COME ON! A guy who put up a career 762 homeruns and over 500 stolen bases isn’t even enshrined in Cooperstown. A pitcher who had over 350 wins in his career, ranks third all time in strikeouts and has won the most Cy Young awards EVER isn’t even enshrined in Cooperstown. Steroids or not, those numbers for both of them are ungodly, and based on their physiques, it is quite clear neither Bonds nor Clemens used steroids until about halfway through their long careers. And I won’t even go into the all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, continuing to be held from enshrinement. Or the best Designated Hitter of all time, Edgar Martinez, whom has an entire award named after him. Those are different stories.
Do I love the idea of steroid users being in the most prestigious palace in the baseball kingdom? No, I don’t. But it is ridiculous if there are proven steroid users who have infiltrated the “clean” paradise and the “writers” continue to hold out the legitimate best pitcher and position player of all time. Which brings me to my next point.
A ridiculous amount of the “writers” who are voting on who is inducted to the hall do not even currently cover Major League Baseball. The criteria for the writers to have a vote in the Baseball Writers Association of America, who elect each year’s new hall of famers, is that they must have written about baseball for at least 10 years prior to that year’s hall of fame voting. That means these people who decide the fate of the year-to-year do not have to actively follow or write about baseball. And it is even more absurd that once you are part of the BBWAA, you legitimately never lose certification until you die. Now, I won’t name any names, but a good amount of these “writers” who have released their ballots from this 2018 election are not actively baseball writers. Many are football writers or completely retired from writing. These also happen to be some of the people who voted for Hideki Matsui, Johnny Damon, Livan Hernandez, and Carlos Lee, all of which have NO BUSINESS WHATSOEVER even sniffing a hall of fame vote. Now, with 75% of the total writers needing to vote for a player to get them into the hall, thankfully these ridiculous votes didn’t matter. But that’s the point: THEIR VOTES DIDN’T MATTER. They weren’t taking their job serious and voting for the most deserving candidates. Instead, they were screwing around and leaving the gods of the ‘90’s and 2000’s off their ballot completely because of personal bias. Get over yourselves, fellas.
I’ll conclude in saying I am more than happy with the Baseball Hall of Fame class of 2018. Chipper, Thome, Vlady and Hoffman: Bravo. You guys deserve it. Some of the best to ever do it. But it is absolutely disgusting that the writers in charge of putting the most deserving candidates in baseball into its paradise continue to be thick-headed and refuse to adapt to a new-school thought that considers the fact that there are already juicers in the hall of fame. I can’t reiterate enough that the best pitcher and hitter of all time are not in baseball’s heaven. I wish the committee involved in voting players into the hall would be cut down to current baseball writers who continuously show a passion in covering the sport, and who actively publish baseball-related work. Those are the people who I truly believe would make a compelling argument for certain players, and eventually get each year’s hall of fame class to be perfect.