IT AIN’T BROKE!
Hall board of directors to critics:
THE DUST HAS settled from the Hall of Fame election, three no-brainer first-ballot candidates, Greg Maddux,
Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas, are on their way to Cooperstown in July and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are actually further away than they were the first time on the ballot last year.
In other words, there’s been a re-affirmation of both last year’s ballot and the high standards of the Hall of Fame process in which only the best of the best are able to get at least 75% of the vote for election. So what is wrong with that picture?
Apparently a lot in the minds of critics of the process — many of them the baseball writers themselves. Even though, once again, the system worked, people still think it needs fixing. This is always going to be the case in any election when people are so passionate about their candidates. Even before the election, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America formed a committee to study the process and make recommendations on whether to allow its Hall of Fame electorate to vote for more than just 10 candidates ... or to lower the 75% requirement for election ... or to make all their ballots public ... or to lower the requirement of 10 consecutive years in the BBWAA to be eligible to vote.
It is a worthwhile exercise, but any changes to the system the committee recommends, including the most likely one of expanding the number of players voters can check off on the ballot, ain’t gonna happen. I say this because any changes the writers propose have to be approved by the Hall’s board of directors, which is satisfied with how the system has worked.
“Expand the number of players you can vote for? No way,” said one board member, who pointed out further that there are five Hall of Famers themselves — Joe Morgan, Tom Seaver, Brooks Robinson,
Phil Niekro and
Frank Robinson — on the board. “Do you really think any of them would want to make it easier to get in?”
At the root of the clamor to change the system is the presence of all the steroid cheats on the ballot, particularly Bonds and Clemens, who, despite their overwhelming statistics, are languishing in the 34-35% range with scant hope of ever being elected. “How can you have a Hall of Fame without the all-time home run champion, or a seven-time Cy Young winner?” is the whine we continue to hear from some BBWAA members, to which another board member countered: “Some of your members don’t seem to understand the Hall of Fame is an honor — the highest honor of all in baseball — and cheaters shouldn’t be rewarded with that. That’s why (the Hall of Famers) are so passionate about keeping these guys out. You guys are doing a good job of that.” The other tired refrain from the “let ’em all in” crowd is that those writers who would invoke the integrity clause in the ballot in regard to Bonds, Clemens, et al, are being sanctimonious “when everyone knows the Hall of Fame is full of racists, drunks, adulterers and the like.”
And so it is. But those character flaws, representative of any institution — ever hear of Pro Football Hall of Famer O.J. Simpson? — have nothing to do with the integrity of the
game. This is why baseball’s all-time hit king, Pete
Rose, is not in the Hall of Fame either — for acts against the integrity of the game. As for
Gaylord Perry and Whitey Ford, who, long after they retired, admitted to doctoring baseballs on occasion? They were never caught when they played, unlike hundreds of other players suspended through the years for using foreign substances on baseballs or corked bats — and I suspect there’s hardly ever been a pitcher who didn’t, on occasion, try to get an edge by scuffing or doctoring the ball. Besides, I think anyone would agree, when it comes to cheating and the integrity of the game, there’s a big difference between doctoring a baseball and taking illegal drugs that could transform a 30-homer-a-year hitter at age 30 to a 73-homer slugger at age 37. Nevertheless, the debate will go on because there is no bigger hot-button topic for talk radio than the Baseball Hall of Fame. People will continue to insist the system is broken and changes must be made, even though there was no evidence of that in Wednesday’s election. And the Hall’s Board of Directors apparently agrees that nothing
needs to change.