On a related note, this means there will be no players in the Hall of Fame from the 1984 Detroit Tigers–a team that won 35 out of their first 40 games and effortlessly rolled to a World Championshp.
Honestly, just this once what I’d really like is for the entire sports world to just fucking ignore those three voters completely. Don’t read their reasons, don’t comment on them, don’t write think pieces about them. Don’t make them briefly famous, because whatever they say, that’s the reason they voted as they did in the first place. They’re really nothing but trolls, doing something disingenuous and controversial so that they can get attention. Why give it to them? Why even let them sit at the grown-up table anymore, let alone dominate the conversation?
I will point out that Griffey added virtually nothing to his resume after age 30. That doesn’t negate what he did in his 20’s of course, but it is still a bit odd to make him a virtually unanimous choice.
NDP:
At least there’s Sparky.
I’m a Johnny-come-lately to this thread and apologize in advance for asking what may be an obvious question to some:
Why is Roger Clemens not a shoe-in? In his prime, he was THE dominant pitcher and has the resume to prove it, i.e. 7 Cy Young Awards (in both leagues!), 11 All Star selections, > 300 wins, . . .
Is it because of the drug thing? Because of accusations? If so, that’s beyond unfair; to screw a guy because of what he was accused of? The best pitcher of his era? Wow.
Yes, it’s the drug thing. No, it’s not just accusations. Mike Piazza has been “accused,” too, but without evidence.
This probably isn’t the thread to go into it in more detail for Clemens’ case in particular.
The relevant fact for BBWAA elections is simply that more than enough writers agree both that the evidence against Clemens, and Bonds, is compelling; and, compelling evidence of PED use ought to be disqualifying.
The best pitcher of any era, most likely. Or at least damn close to it.
I like this from Joe Posnanski:
Of course you can then add this part about Bonds, too:
In the end I guess the writers have spoken, and those of us that actually watched baseball in the 1990s and 200s will have to pass the word down to our children about what phenomenal baseball players these guys were, even without the drugs. At least until some special committee puts them in the Hall.
Look, it’s like Pete Rose. Just because these guys aren’t ~honored~ in the Hall doesn’t mean they’re being erased from baseball history. You can buy official DVDs of them playing; you can see their mementos in the Museum attached to the Hall.
Except it’s not like Pete Rose, because Pete Rose was specifically banned from baseball, including the HOF. Also, Pete Rose did violated rules that were actually rules at the time he violated them. IM(and not the BBWAA apparently)O.
As you said, we’ve gone over the PED issue before and it doesn’t look like the BBWAA purge did very much to move the needle, so these two will almost certainly fall off the ballot without election.
*I would add that I fully support putting Pete Rose in the Hall, even though he’s not even that great a player in my book - certainly nothing like Bonds and Clemens.
It is like Pete Rose, in the sense that you carry no special, added burden of conveying his memory to future generations. For all these guys, the evidence of their playing careers remains every bit as available to your kids without the bronze laurel, as it would be with it.
I don’t know if I’d be so harsh. As Blank Slate states, it was probably strategic voting: HoF Rule 4b limited them to 10 votes, and there were more than 10 candidates they wanted to vote for. The certainty that Junior would be amply voted in by the other writers freed up a vote for someone else deserving (in their opinion).
There’s at least one writer who publicly rages at being restricted to 10 votes, so it’s a problem.
ETA: IOW, don’t hate the playahs, hate the game.
I think it’s a lot worse that Bonds and Clemens aren’t in than it is that Rose isn’t in. Do I want Bonds and Clemens in? I dunno, I have mixed feelings.
I think Barry is a close debate with Ruth for best hitter of all time, and honestly comparing a player from the 20s-30s to a guy 60-70 years later is an act of specious value, in the era of my lifetime watching baseball (dates back to the 1960s) there has been no better offensive player than Bonds, period.
Clemens I think has some in-era peers who come close to him, Maddux arguably, Pedro arguably (Pedro’s shorter career hurts him in some metrics, but in say, ERA+ he ranks higher than Clemens over his career.) But I’d still broadly agree, Clemens and Bonds are the best pitcher/batter of their era, and the larger “modern era” covering the last 30-40 years, too.
For a very large portion of their career, baseball had no testing policy for steroids and no punishments specified for them. Unless I’m mistaken, neither player ever got caught using them during their playing career, which covered some years after testing was implemented.
That being said, both men used steroids, HGH and etc. Both men lied about it, both while giving sworn testimony. Both men had good attorneys and poor evidence against them so they avoided perjury convictions. But they represent the very worst of the behavior of professional baseball players in the steroids era. Not just for using them and other PEDs, but for their unrepentant behavior. As good as they both were, they were also both very good at making essentially the entire pro baseball community despise them.
Is that reason to keep them out of the hall? I don’t know. The steroid era is a black mark on baseball, and these guys are the poster boy. It’s an era that will live in infamy, so to speak. But I think the big mitigating factors–that they are so phenomenally good, that you cannot argue they were only good because of PEDs, that they were competing against a league that is believed to have had a majority of its members using PEDs, that what they did wasn’t even against the rules for most of their careers, and that they were never actually “caught” breaking the rules in their careers, are enough to say not only that they should get in, but that they will.
Maybe not by the writers, but both increased their vote share this election. But I think most of their “sins” are the kind that we can sort of forgive over time, due to how good they were and all the mitigating factors. Their biggest sin is just being unlikeable, and that has a bigger impact on baseball writers who covered these guys than it will a Veteran’s Committee down the road.
Pete is a different matter. Frankly, if not for the fact he essentially ran the Reds (and then actually did, for awhile) he never would’ve been able to continue his career long enough to get that hits record. He got it by holding on until he had gray hair and wasn’t a productive player, to slowly and feebly squeak out enough singles to beat Ty Cobb’s record. Even Pete himself has essentially admitted he isn’t half the player Cobb was.
Pete was good, he was Hall of Fame good, too. But aside from the statistical anomaly of his hits, his overall statistical value would make him an average to below average HOFer. His popularity during his career, and the hits record, means he’d have gotten in as a shoe in if not for the gambling. But the gambling I think calls into serious question whether or not he’ll ever get in.
There’s a history going back to the Black Sox, Commissioner Landis, and Shoeless Joe Jackson that when you entangle gambling and baseball you’re committing the worst of sins against the sport. Pete knew this. Pete has also been very bad at “coming clean.” For one, for years he would only concede that he was a gambler while playing and managing the Reds, but not that he bet on baseball games. Then he conceded he bet on baseball games, but not games involving the Reds. And even that concession that he bet on baseball, made in 2004, only covered his managerial career. To this day he denies he bet on baseball as a player. There is substantial evidence that he did and that he bet on the Reds, not just other baseball teams.
So the problem Rose has, is if he fully came clean it’d involve admitting “unforgiveable” Black Sox level sins. But as long as he doesn’t come clean, there will always be a perception he’s not telling the whole truth. He’s basically in a no-win scenario.
Additionally, despite his claims, he’s done very little to rehabilitate his image. He has indicated he’d like for the permanent baseball ban to end so he could take a more permanent position with a team (probably the Reds.) Probably some do-nothing ambassador position (years ago he may have been interested in some form of hitting coach type position, but he’s too old for that now.) But Pete has basically lived in Las Vegas casinos during his long ban from the sport, and continues to be active in gambling activities. He’s basically said that he’s “turned his life around”, but for a Commissioner to reinstate someone who was banned for gambling activities who has continued those activities during his ban, unabashedly would honestly be pretty stupid for that Commissioner. Rose has decided he’d rather make money doing appearances and autograph signings and memorabilia sales inside casinos (and then engage in heavy gambling) than even seriously attempt to get reinstated.
I think there’s a good chance Rose never gets into the HOF.
There was absolutely not, not even close, not even remotely, 10 candidates on the ballot this year that deserved to be elected. Anybody who thinks that they needed to leave Griffey off the ballot to make room for the 10 other deserving candidates is, frankly, insane.
Rose was declared permanently ineligible from professional baseball due to violating its well known and long standing rules regarding gambling on professional baseball. The BBWAA has, separately, declared that people who are declared permanently ineligible from professional baseball are not eligible to be elected to the Hall of Fame. (See also, Joe Jackson.)
Bonds and Clemens, McGwire and Sosa, et al, are not ineligible from professional baseball or from the Hall of Fame. They simply haven’t yet been elected to the latter.
Very extreme viewpoint, maybe you made it so as to make your other more pertinent point (which in the main I agree with, as in “strategic voting” is pretty silly), but IMHO, based on the established standards of the Hall, I think close to 15 are deserving:
Griffey
Piazza
Bagwell
Raines
Schilling
Clemens
Bonds
Edgar Martinez
Mussina
Trammell
McGriff
Kent
Walker
McGwire
Sosa
Edmonds
Each of these men are arguably in the best 15 at their respective positions (or top 50 for starting pitchers), if not top 10, and would at worst comfortably fit in somewhere from the median HoFer, on upwards.
I’d like to hear your arguments against each-if all you want to do is state that you are a Small Hall voter, then fine. But the actual Hall isn’t that small.
Note I didn’t add any of the relievers, tho I am reasonbky favorable towards the idea of them being in Hall.
The median Hall of Famer probably doesn’t belong in.
Yep, that’s me.
With the possible exception of Bonds and Clemens, I wouldn’t have voted for anyone on your list from Schilling on down.
And? All that does is show that chances are he was actually a clean player. His career declined as a typical athlete’s declines: no sudden ultra-resurgence in his 30s like Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, etc.
And, despite only being ‘good’ his last few years, he was a career .292 average hitter with 630 home runs…6th all time, with two steroid users ahead of him.
That also matches the time he went to Cincinnati and destroyed his knees playing on that green concrete they called Astroturf. One can only wonder what if.
Besides which, “added virtually nothing to his resume” is something no reasonable person can really believe. A center fielder who gives you 192 homers and a 118 OPS + over about a thousand games isn’t a standalone hall of famer, but as a second half career decline, it’s not exactly Jason Bay.
Except that he gave almost all of that back on defense. FWIW, -81 Fielding Runs from ages 31 onwards. It was a decade where he simply accumulated counting stats. Which of course does not take away from the 1st of half of his career, I was just noting that there have been significantly greater players of recent note who didn’t come anywhere within 3 votes of unanimity. Note that that might have had something to do with the purging of the voter rolls before this year’s election.
Then your Hall is only going to be about 40 players strong; you can argue for such a Hall if you like, but it ain’t the one in Cooperstown. Note I used median, and not the LCD argument which is often tossed out there, since I do agree that there have been quite a few mistakes.