I think it’s most likely the older guys who won’t vote Bonds, Clemens, etc. in.
Cobb and Ruth were part of the first class selected in 1936. It was pretty difficult for the voters since they could only vote for 10, yet had every 20th century player from which to choose, Only 5 got the 75% required (Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Mathewson, Johnson), but left out were Cy Young, GC Alexander, and Rogers Hornsby. In fact, including the 5 chosen, 45 of the top 50 in that balloting eventually got into the HOF. Ruth had been retired just a year, so some voters may have skewed towards honoring the oldest first. Also, in that first year you could vote for active players. So the process for Ruth and Cobb is really not comparable to that today.
Given that 2/3rds of the voters didn’t choose Bonds or Clemens, its unlikely enough will die out over the next 13 years. Maybe if Bonds or Clemens confess it will chance the perception, but I think those are the last two that will ever cave. Look for the 2035 Veteran’s Committee on The Steroid Era, to resolve the issue.
I wonder if any of the writers who won’t vote for people due to suspected PED wrote gushing (or even just positive) articles following the great home run seasons of McGuire, Sosa and Bonds?
Here’s a link to a Grantland.com column about baseball reporters and players during the height of the PED era.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/10261642/mlb-hall-fame-voting-steroid-era
A couple of points:
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Baseball writers generally don’t make the best investigative journalists. If that’s what they wanted to do, then they wouldn’t have chose to write for the Sports section.
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Back in the late 90s, fans wanted to read exciting stories about big guys setting big records.
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In those cases where baseball writers actually did some good investigation into PEDs, Sports section editors really wouldn’t let them use much of it in their columns for fear of being sued.
It wasn’t just about fear of being sued; it was about not having enough proof. They didn’t have much evidence and sources didn’t want to go on the record. The libel concern is real, but even putting that aside, you do need to meet certain standards before you can publish a story. To this list I’d add that writers are fans, and I think that made them disinclined to look into a “negative” story about the sport.
This is all true, although the standards to avoid libel were set pretty high, at least according to the Grantland.com story.
Also, it goes without saying that most sportswriters pursued that line of work, because they’re sports fans. “Serious” journalists want to become the next Woodward and Bernstein. Sportswriters like to watch sports for free.
Again, it’s not just about libel. It’s also about the standards of the publications. A newspaper won’t let you print anything you want as long as it’s not libel.
That’s a lazy overgeneralization. There are sports writers (like the Fainarus) who do great investigative work. Ever watched Outside the Lines? The point I was making is that because they were sports fans, they were predisposed to celebrate what was going on in the game and participate in the myth-making apparatus instead of taking a hard look at what was going on.
I used the phrase “most sportswriters,” to avoid making an “over-generalization,” but I stand by my generalization of “most.”
Fainaru-Wada and his brother are the exception, not the rule. Great sportswriters, like Bob Ryan and Joe Posnanski will be the first to admit, they’re fans and not investigative journalists.
The simple fact is that if you did not vote for Maddux, you are an idiot and do not deserve to vote for the Hall of Fame.
Once one of the whispered about players gets in, like Piazza or Bagwell, that will open the door. I don’t think McGwire or Sosa will get in, but within ten years Bonds and Clemens will.
Bill James was on MLBTV last night and talked, briefly, on the PED problem. He said there were three mind-sets amongst the voters, a) those that think PEDS should not be an issue b) those that think that PED use is an automatic disqualification and c) those that try to find middle ground, i.e. trying to apply a “handicap” to PED player’s stats.
James declared this issues like this are never settled on the middle ground. Also, that it was extremely unlikely that the “ban-em-all” position would hold up, so he confidently predicted that the “let-em-in” position would win out. BUT, he said it would take a generation for that to happen.
Even if by generation he means a “baseball generation” (20 years?) that still extends past Bonds/Clemens 13 years of remaining eligibility.
The only way I see them getting in is if the HOF expands the voting group to include internet journalists and sabermetricians increasing the voting group by at least a couple hundred.
I think it does make sense that a lot of this will be resolved by the veterans committee.
Some people left him off as a strategic choice so as to make room for someone who was more borderline (be it the 75% or 5% thresholds). I think you are painting them with too broad a brush here (and I say that while being one of Greg Maddux’s biggest fans).
And since it’s a special committee, it won’t have writers on it. If they put a lot of thought into it, it can be made up of experts on PEDS (assuming there are such things in the year 2525) to resolve all the, otherwise worthy candidates in pass.
In fact, admitted/implicated users should be able to bypass the BBWAA and thus avoid the long waiting period. So the committee could convene in just a few years and not 20.
1994-1995 Maddux was even better.
I usually claim that too, but by ERA+, Pedro’s 2000 was better than Maddux’s 1994 and 1995 seasons, which were, in turn, better than Pedro’s 1999. So it’s kind of a wash.
The logical extent of this of course is that if everyone took this approach, Maddux would be off the ballot.
I don’t know what’s wrong with just voting for the ten best players (or fewer if you feel ten players are not deserving, as in fact most voters feel.) The system would work that way. For that matter I do not understand how a person could submit a ballot that didn’t have Greg Maddux on it and not feel ashamed of himself.
Pedro Martinez in 1999-2000 was worth 21.4 WAR total (going by B-Ref), which is, frankly, almost hard to believe. Maddux in 1994-1995 was worth 18.2 - but of course those were shortened seasons.
I’m not sure if you can objectively say one was better than the other; you could give Maddux credit for games that never took place but, well, you’re giving him credit for games that never took place, and for that matter an entire season that essentially doesn’t count for anything because no championship was awarded (I personally feel it was disgraceful for the BBWAA to vote out awards in 1994.)
That said, I also feel WAR might exaggerate the accomplishments of elite pitchers in the steroid era by a win or two, for statistical reasons far too boring to go into here.
Maddox has that Cub taint on him.
Looking at next year’s ballot, I don’t think I could vote for any of the pitchers other than Pedro and Randy, regardless of whether or not I think they’re Hall-worthy. Mainly because I just think it’d be weird to have two of the best pitchers in the last several decades share the stage with a much lesser pitcher (Smoltz, Schilling and Moose were great - but they weren’t Pedro or Randy).