Hall under renovation
Bigger’s better in Cooperstown
It won’t happen tonight at 6, when at least Jeff Bagwell and Tim Raines are expected to find out they have been voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as the Class of 2017.
And it won’t happen next year, either.
But slowly and surely, change is coming to Cooperstown. The logjam is breaking. The curtain is being lifted.
The Hall of Fame is going to get bigger and better, sooner than later. And this is all good. Thanks to a recent rule change by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and the invaluable efforts of Ryan Thibodaux’ online ballot tracker (@NotMrTibbs), a couple of trends have emerged in voting this year that bode well for the chances of those superstars — most notably Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — most intimately associated with the steroids era to get their plaques up on the wall.
It’s a bit like that 11mile crack that suddenly emerged on the Antarctic ice shelf. We’ve known our planet’s been getting toastier. Now, there’s some compelling evidence.
We’ve known that the voting electorate in baseball is getting younger and more accepting, or at least tolerant, of the foibles of PED users. This year, it’s becoming clear. Resistance to Clemens and Bonds, two of the most dominating players in the history of the universe, is melting.
As of last night, with a bit more than half (221) of the 435 or so expected ballots this year, Clemens and Bonds were receiving on average 62 percent support from the electorate on Thidbodaux’ site. Now, to be clear, those who reveal their ballots early tend to be more sabermetrically oriented and more openminded about voting for PED cases than the remainder of the voters, so their actual level of support will likely drop — but not by that much.
After sticking around 36 percent for their first three years on the ballot, Clemens and Bonds — they move in perfectly orchestrated tandem, folks, like Astaire and Rogers — saw the number rise to 45 last year. This year, it looks as though they will easily get past the 50 percent hump.
That’s notable progress, the kind that generates its own momentum. It’s not guaranteed, but in their remaining five years on the ballot, both Bonds and Clemens are likely going to keep gaining votes. It happens to the semi-best usually.
Bagwell, for example, has pretty much an airtight Hall of Fame case, but because he was so muscly (and played in Houston), he was the focus of a whisper campaign that kept some voters against his candidacy. In Year 7, he looks like a lock: He was at 88 percent last night, with Raines, in his 10th and final year, at 90 percent.
Ivan Rodriguez might well wind up on the right side of 75 percent, but it’s looking iffy. His case for Cooperstown is even more solid than Bagwell’s — can you believe Johnny Bench is the only first-ballot Hall of Fame catcher? — but Rodriguez, remember, was called out by none other than Jose Canseco in “Juiced.”
Give Rodriguez time, however. He’ll get there.
The other reason to hold out hope that the Hall of Fame will be opening its doors for the Clemens and Bonds types in the baseball universe is that beginning next year, all voters will have their ballots made public. That will not happen until days after the election results are announced, so as not to make the writers the focus, but it means they will no longer be able to enjoy anonymity.
I’m not into public shaming as a rule and a practice, but I think it’s a great idea. For anyone who doesn’t, it looks pretty clear to me that voting for the Hall of Fame bears little to no relation to democratic elections. It’s an elite voting body voting for elite candidates, and there’s no good reason not to know who’s voting for whom.
Each voter should still stick to his principles, but if there’s outcry regarding a ridiculous ballot, that’s good for everybody. It’s still amazing how poor of a job voters did when it comes to how shoo-ins like Joe DiMaggio (just 88.9 percent of ballots in 1955), Sandy Koufax (86.9, 1972), Mickey Mantle (88.2, 1974) and Frank Robinson (89.2, 1982) couldn’t even crack 90 percent of ballots.
And there still hasn’t been a unanimous candidate.
Thanks to public ballots, the first unanimous candidate could be Mariano Rivera in two more years, or Derek Jeter in three. And wouldn’t it be something if that’s when Bonds and Clemens clear their bar as well.
Don’t bet against it.