The Baseball Hall Of Fame, And The BBWAA's Irrelevance On Full Display...

     Honestly, I'm surprised they managed to elect a whole three players this year.

     A pity, really, as there were far more deserving inductees than ballot spots to vote them in.

     But the Old Cranks Society met the bare minimum of expectations this year, electing Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas to the Baseball Hall of Fame. All three new to the ballot for 2014, all three more than deserving of the honor. But, as it is seemingly every year anymore, it's not about who got in, but who didn't. Or rather, why they didn't.

     Initially, I had intended to write about the ongoing debate on whether or not Jack Morris deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, particularly over the middle infield double-play team that contributed every bit as much, if not more, to the Detroit Tigers' last World Series victory than the "winningest pitcher of the 80's," as if such a thing holds any real relevance. I admit, I was looking forward to ripping 97.1 The Ticket's Pat "um, ah, ya know... and stuff" Caputo a new one for lashing out at sabermetrics as the reason Morris isn't a Hall of Famer, conveniently ignoring the traditional stats that back that argument up. (The Detroit News' Kurt Mensching sums up both the traditional and stathead arguments against Morris pretty well here.)

     But then, this happened.

     Now, it's not very often that I agree with Dan Le Batard on anything. But his take on the steroid controversy is far more well-reasoned then most of the fossils that make up the Baseball Writers Association of America. And I must admit, I gained quite a bit of respect for him with this stunt, in which he turned his vote over to Deadspin in exchange for a charitable contribution. And the ballot their readers came up with for him is a far better one than most of the writers who came up with their own, and even Le Batard was impressed with the respect with which the Deadspin voters treated the process, even in making a mockery of it. And for that we should all be thankful, because it only serves to illustrate just how incompetent the body normally unilaterally tasked with making that decision really is.

     Case in point: Ken Gurnick, the Dodgers' paid shill MLB.com beat reporter, who turned in a ballot having voted for Jack Morris... and only Jack Morris. "As for those who played during the era of PED use, I won't vote for any of them." Which makes sense; let's just ignore an entire 20-year period of baseball history in order to put yourself on a moral high horse, while denying entry to players like Maddux, Glavine, and Craig Biggio, who have never even been accused or suspected of steroid use! Worse yet, Gurnick ignores the fact that Maddux and Morris were both in the major leagues at the same time for a nine-year period, and that Morris didn't actually retire until 1994. Throw in the fact that PED's have been an issue since at least the mid-80's, possibly earlier, and Gurnick's already tortured argument falls apart entirely. The worst part is, he admits to having no reason to believe Maddux used, nor any legitimate reason to deny him a vote! Luckily, he's already on record as stating he will abstain from voting in the future, but given his willingness to make the story about himself here, I question his ability to objectively report on baseball from here on out.

     Then there's the fucklogic of one Murray "Don't call my blog a blog!" Chass, who embodies everything I despise about print journalism, and is right up there at the top of the list of reasons the newspaper industry is dying a slow, painful death. Chass thankfully retired from The New York Times in 2008, and has since spent his time writing blogs, denying that he is writing blogs, and screaming at anyone who will listen about how much he hates blogs. In his post about his Hall of Fame ballot, he cites Jeff Bagwell, the aforementioned Biggio, and Mike Piazza among his list of steroid users who won't be getting his vote. Again, never mind that there is no proof that any of them used, they are cheaters in his mind. Naturally, people with actual brains in their heads ripped Chass a new one, and rightfully so.

     How does Chass respond? Why, with a ridiculous rant about how the filthy bloggers don't have anything other than anonymous hearsay to go on, and then... using anonymous hearsay to prove his point. Seriously, all you have is backne, and the word of one reporter who won't back up his accusations? You're going to have to do better than that. And if you get to denounce guys who write for entirely credible news sources simply because their work is web-based, then I get to denounce you as an ancient relic of a bygone era, not to mention a tremendous hypocrite. Truly a shame he went back on his threat to give up his Hall of Fame vote.

     And it just goes to show how out of touch the BBWAA is with baseball. And this has got to be the year that something finally changes. As always, you have the idiots who will deny someone a vote just to ensure that nobody is unanimously elected. If you think Mantle, Ruth, and Mays weren't first ballot hall-of-famers (and as nobody has ever received 100% of the vote, somebody had to have thought this), you should be taken out back and shot, or at the least kicked out of the BBWAA. Or Marty Noble, the half-wit who limited his ballot to three players for the sole reason that "I don't want 28 people entering the Hall at once," proving once and for all that absolutely no justification whatsoever is needed to grant or deny a vote to anyone. If this isn't proof enough that the process by which players are elected needs to be entirely overhauled, then there really is no reasoning with you.

     The worst part of all of this is that players who should by all logical rights be in the Hall based on individual merit are now held to an unfair standard simply because of the era in which they played. And, as Buster Olney rightly pointed out six years ago, the fault lies at the feet of Major League Baseball for not doing more at the time to get to the bottom of the problem, instead making whipping boys of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens while simply ignoring the greater problem. And until MLB addresses the issue head-on and completely instead of leaving it in the hands of the ink-stained wretches' best guesses and stances on morality, we're in for several repeats of the class of 2013.

     Call Dan Le Batard self-serving and sanctimonious if you will, but in his explanation as to why he agreed to give his vote to Deadspin's readers, he raised some entirely valid points about the antiquated process that is the Hall of Fame vote. The process has become less about honoring the greatest players in the sport, and more of a grand power-trip of writers carrying out their agendas and wielding their vote as a weapon against anyone who's ever slighted them. Besides, to dismiss Le Batard's actions as simply attention whoring ignores the self-righteous saber-rattling on display by the rest of the organization at large on a regular basis. There's a part of me that believes that the reason that he has been so vilified for taking part in this, is that he's exposed just that, and proven that, at the very least, the fans are better at this than the writers. The BBWAA has been forced to confront the debacle the election process has become. The self-congratulatory circle-jerk has come to a screeching halt. Egos have been deflated. And for one brief moment, the public was allowed to be part of the good ol' boys club, and the good ol' boys didn't like it one bit.

     And for that in itself, this was all worth it.