Baseball & pro football hall of fame voters

Why does the media get to do the voting? Why not the players? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the players only get to vote on se;ections for the Veteran’s Committee, ie; players who have been eligible for 20+ years but who have never gotten enough votes.

It just seems to be a really unfair system in terms of bias.

By this I mean that there are a number of baseball writers. who also vote for the Hall of Fame who have said that they would never vote to induct a certain player because the player never gave them an interview or answered their questions and was “rude” to the reporters.

The player in question has over 500 homers & is a definite HOF

What the fuck is wrong with these reporters. I thought the players were supposed to be judged/voted on by what they accomplished on the playing field, not whether or not they were nice to a reporter.

plus, who the fuck are reporters to judge whether a player is worthy or not? If anyone should be a judge of that I would think that it would be the actual players. But then that gets into a question of which players get to vote etc.

But why do reporters have the final say in who does and doesn’t get in?

I just think it’s ludicrous.

I can’t speak for the football hall of fame, but as for the baseball hall of fame…

It was started by the Clark Foundation, named after Edwin Clark, a lawyer who represented Isaac Singer, of Singer sewing machine fame. Clark ended up partnering with Singer, and made a fortune. The foundation was interested in ways of drumming up tourism in Cooperstown, the disputed birthplace of baseball, and proposed building a museum. They contacted Ford Frick, then commissioner of baseball. Frick gave his support, and suggested they create a hall of fame as well.

I’ll quote Bill James, from his excellent book “Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame? Baseball, Cooperstown, and the Politics of glory”:

“The Hall of Fame selection process was an afterthought to an accident. Alexander Cleland (director of the Clark foundation) had not set out to create a Hall of Fame; he had set out to create a museum, and this turned into a Hall of Fame. It is tempting to say that had it all not happened so quickly, more thought have have gone into designing a process that would provide consistently defensible results.”

“The hall of fame never really thought through the issue of how to identify the most worthy Hall of Famers. The decision to tive the vote to the writers was very casually made, by a group of gray-suited men who were primarily concerned with serious money and management-type decisions. They didn’t want to waste valuable committee time worrying about who would be honored.”

Anyway, I won’t disagree with you that the BBWA’s monopoly on inductees (with the exception of the veteren’s committee) doesn’t serve the institution well. However, the veteren’s committee, composed primarily of old ballplayers, has done a MUCH poorer job than the writers. They have consistently voted in their old teammates and friends, to the exclusion of far greater players.

Most of the really bad selections have come from the veteren’s committee. Last year, I think, the hall of fame changed the veteren’s committee to include all living hall of famers. I could be wrong on this point, but I’m sure someone will come along and fill us in on how the veteren’s committee currently works.

Also, who is the 500-home run hitter who you are referring to? I’m assuming it’s Barry Bonds, who I am sure will be elected in his first year of eligability. I’m also curious who the reporter is that said this.

I’ll second the recommendation of Bill James’ book about the baseball HOF. As a slight hijack for the pro football HOF, it seems to me like it is a wholly owned subsidiary of the NFL, which to my mind lessens its credibility. The football HOF ignores any mention of a player’s accomplishments in the AAFC, WFL or the USFL, rival leagues to the NFL. For instance Paul Warfield is in the HOF, and deservedly so, but there is no mention of his jump from the NFL to the WFL. Otto Graham’s passing stats from the AAFC and Jim Kelly’s from the USFL are similarly and wrongly ignored. As a result, I don’t place much faith in the pro football HOF.

Look, the truth is, there’s NO perfect, 100% objective way to select members of any Hall of Fame. And there’s no reason to think any one group (fans, reporters, players, whoever) would do a better job than any other.

Luckily, in MOST cases, the worthiness of a given player is fairly obvious. A panel of fans or players would have selected Babe Ruth, just as the writers did. A panel of fans or players would have kept out Mario Mendoza, just like the reporters. There are only a handful of borderline cases (maybe the fans would have voted in Ron Santo, maybe the players WOULDN’T have voted in Joe Tinker). But there aren’t any blatant injustices, as far as I can tell.

Are there reporters who might hold a grudge against a given player, and refuse to vote for him? A few, here and there. But not NEARLY enough to keep out an obviously worthy candidate. Sorry, the petty vindictiveness of 1 or 2 reporters doesn’t disqualify them. Face facts- if Robin Ventura were a voter, he’d probably NEVER have voted for Nolan Ryan! Does that mean players are too emotional and subjective to be good voters? No! It means that, in any given case, a handful of people make irrational votes… but MOST of them take the job fairly seriously, and TRY to cast good votes.

As to the OP, I say categorically that NOBODY who’s clearly deserving, who’s stats are stellar, is kept out of his sport’s Hall of Fame simply because reporters don’t like him. If you’re Barry Bonds, you’re in, even if reporters think you’re a jerk. If you’re Pete LaCock, you’re out, even if reporters adore you.

And if you’re a very good but not spectacular player? A Dewey Evans, a Ron Santo, a Thurman Munson, a Gil Hodges? Then you’re a close call. And in such cases, whether you get in or not may well depend on whether reporters liked you. But hell, how would it be any different if fans or players decided? In such close cases, fans and players might decide yes or no based on whether they liked the player, too!

Finally, I’m pretty sure I know the player the OP refers to. There’s only ONE player with 500 homers who’s not already in the Hall of Fame, and who had chilly relations with the media: Eddie Murray.
Am I right? If so, here’s a News flash: Eddie Murray WILL be voted into the Hall of Fame, and PROBABLY on the first ballot.

So, all that fretting is for nothing.