Baseball's Hall of Fame vote: the media should abandon ship
Friday, January 12, 2007 | 10:44 AM ET
Two years ago, the Associated Press decided it would no longer participate in the voting system that determines the NCAA’s college football champion. It’s not the media’s fault that this sport is almost as bad as figure skating when it comes to determining the overall winner, but the organization decided it no longer wanted to be part of such a mess.
The rationale: our rankings are creating news, as controversy followed controversy. We’re supposed to be reporting the news, not creating it.
Fair enough. It’s a policy baseball writers should follow. The Hall of Fame voting is creating a similar fiasco, and it’s time for the media to abandon ship.
Personally, I would have voted for Mark McGwire. It gives me the creeps that the media is doing what Bud Selig didn’t have the guts to do, take a stand against steroid use in his sport. Selig and the rest of the owners needed The Great Maris Chase of 1998 to revive interest in the sport, since he’d tasered baseball by canceling the 1994 World Series. Sure, players juiced, but it the owners gave tacit approval by covering their eyes as television ratings and ticket sales emerged from rigor mortis.
Then, in front of Congress, Selig had the gall to say the owners wanted a drug policy but were stymied by the big, bad union. Please. Neither side cared. If Selig was fathered by a puppeteer named Geppetto, we’d all be able to hang our laundry on his schnozz.
His apathy created a nightmare scenario – cheaters in the Hall of Fame, with the most pathological of them poised to pass the classy Hank Aaron as the sport’s all-time home run leader.
(It’s funny to watch baseball try to slur Bonds now, years after embracing his 73-homer season. I’m sure it wasn’t a player or union source that leaked Thursday’s story about Bonds testing positive for amphetamines to The New York Daily News. Bonds is a bad enough character that people can find plenty of reasons to trash him, but with the once-skinny outfielder one healthy season away from breaking the record, the sport’s management is doing its passive-aggressive best to make him look bad.)
Bonds forever lost me with his insanity about how people didn’t want him to pass Babe Ruth because of race. You know what? People don’t care when you move into second. They care about first, and last I checked, Hank Aaron wasn’t white. The racism Aaron faced trying to pass Ruth makes Bonds’ problems look like a happy stroll through Stanley Park. (If you ever se the highlights of Aaron 715th home run, watch the look on his face when the two white fans congratulate him at second base. Aaron has said he was worried they were there to attack him.)
Thirty years later, Aaron is a respected figure across all races. No one wants to see him erased by the ugly Bonds. I feel the same way.
But I admit that in moments of weakness, I think Selig deserves it. If Bonds does pass Aaron, the commissioner and his sport will be stained by the knowledge that a cheater overcame a class competitor. (That is, until Alex Rodriguez catches up.) Selig never really paid a punishment for ignoring steroids.
But McGwire has and Sammy Sosa will. (I think Bonds may still get into the Hall of Fame because some voters will hold their noses and say that he was good enough to get in before he started taking drugs. The terrific book Game of Shadows detailed that happening after 1998.)
Truth is, McGwire is also a crabby guy. Sosa was the person who really embraced the race for Maris, as McGwire initially chafed under all of the extra attention. His “I’m not here to talk about the past” failure before Congress was funny to me, because when Jose Canseco played for the Blue Jays, I tried to do a feature on the one-time Bash Brothers when the Cardinals came to Toronto for an exhibition series.
When McGwire heard what I wanted to talk about, he grimaced and said, “Why does everyone want to talk about the past?”
Even though I may not have enjoyed dealing with him, it doesn’t prejudice my feelings on him as a player. Look, the guy hit 583 home runs, seventh all-time. The four eligible men ahead of him (Aaron, Ruth, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson) are all in the Hall, as are the next 12 eligible behind him. Now, we’ve got some voters coming up with ridiculous rationalizations that McGwire was no better than Dave Kingman. That’s a joke.
We’ve got other voters giving up their privileges or saying they won’t vote for anyone from 1994-2003 because they don’t know who was clean and who was dirty. Come on, it’s time to stop the madness.
Rafael Palmeiro got caught. Keep him out, fine. But McGwire didn’t. Sure, he used them, but in a sport where there was no crime, why does he get punished? Media members shouldn’t be Bud Selig's henchmen.
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About the Author
Elliotte Friedman is the host of the CFL ON CBC. Prior to being named host in 2006, Friedman worked on the CFL on CBC broadcasts for the three seasons as a sideline reporter. A Toronto native, Friedman is well known for his additional work on Hockey Night in Canada, as well as his presence on the Torino 2006 Winter Games telecasts as a hockey reporter. Prior to joining the CBC, Friedman worked at The Score network and was widely regarded as one of the best reporters in the country. Friedman used his reporting skills to break stories and file feature reports for high profile events including six Stanley Cup Finals, four Grey Cup Championships, two World Series and one Olympic Games. He is also a regular on the nationally syndicated Prime Time Sports radio telecast, hosted by Bob McCown.
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Comments
The Bambino
newfoundland
Time to put this aside I think. I don't care if you take steroids, eat Jam Jams, peppermint knobs or beaver tails. To hit a ball over the fence that is travelling at 95 mph dipping and curving you are a professional athlete. Furthermore, the fact that the writers/media dictates who belongs is a farce. It's the fans who pay the salaries and cheer on their favorite players. Selig made a mistake, live with it. Let the past be the past.
So, Wade Boggs ate chicken before every game, a big superstition of his. He hit over .300 at will. Should we go back to the restaurants he ate at and have their chicken tested?
I'm a Mets fan. I watched Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry from the day they started. Two players who we all know had problems of their own, both on and off the field. It killed me to learn of their drug issues, and marital woes, but when they donned those uniforms and took the field they were still my favorite players to watch. I too was also a fan of the home run hitters. I'll never forget Jose Canseco hitting the hard rock cafe at the skydome. I'll never care that he may have been taking performance enhancing drugs. I'll just remember how far he hit that ball.
Posted January 22, 2007 01:50 PM
Gene Hutmaker
I am the author of "BANNED in the BRONX The Yankee Hater Memoirs 1953-2005". Regarding The Hall and the "Steroidies" - for some of them you do not need the so-called hard evidence - how about JUST LOOKING at them; NO way would I consider BIG Mac, NO NEVER Palmeiro, NO INGLES Sosa or SUPER HEAD Bonds for Cooperstown. Check out my book by visiting my wesite www.bannedinthebronx.com.
Posted January 20, 2007 12:07 PM
Floyd
Calgary
Do you think it is only the hitters that are juiced? You better believe that the pitchers, the strong armed catchers and the speedy outfielders are also on the stuff. So doesn't it all equal out?? Look at the size of Rocket Roger.
Posted January 18, 2007 12:07 PM
M. Danyluk
I love baseball. I loved playing it as a kid in Surrey and Enderby, BC, spending hours upon hours practicing. I loved coaching it as a parent in Vancouver, spending 4 to 5 days a week on the field. I loved watching games at Nat Bailey. I loved watching the championship last year in Whalley, BC. I even love watching baseball movies. But I lost interest in the Majors years ago, and they've done nothing to get me back. I still love the sport of baseball, though.
Posted January 17, 2007 06:49 PM
Carlos Gonzalez
I am absolutely bored and tired with all the talk about steriods in baseball. If there were no rules against using steriods in baseball, then it is logical to think that anyone in the past could have used them and we would never know. Thus always drift in a realm of speculation. A world were everyone is suspect and nobody is completely wrong or right. Every one is crying that Bonds should not get inducted to the hall of fame should shut the hell up because he will anyways and time will make this a fact. He was clean when he started & if he is smart he will be clean when he ends it. At which point one in the hall you can once again complain, pout and possibly stamp your feet real hard if it make you fell better. I say lets enjoy the game of baseball, and stop smearing the game we love with this grey topic.
Posted January 17, 2007 04:28 PM
Brian
Toronto
With a .260 career average, there is a sound argument that he's a juiced Dave Kingman. Add the .217 career post-season average, with only 5 HR in 129 ABs, suggests he also failed to perform when it mattered. Attempting to compare a one-dimensional player like McGuire to HOF players like Aaron, Ruth, Mays, & Robinson can't be done. These HOF didn't just hit homeruns...all of them had at least 1,000 more hits than McGuire, all had a career average of at least .294, all averaged two hits to every strikeout (McGuire has a 1:1 ratio), & all had at least 100 more stolen bases than McGuire (including The Babe!). No question McGuire's steroid use cost him some votes...but one dimensional players don't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. If so, can we call back Vince Coleman???
Posted January 16, 2007 05:49 PM
Boom Boom
Winnipeg
As I am reading the blog I must admitt I agree with most of the points raised, until the mention of Palmero in comparison. Pulleeaase! If you are willing to give McGwire a pass because he "probably used steroids but was never caught" but Palmero used and WAS caught so he is out is ridiculous.
The issue is steroids period. If you used "yer out"!! Never mind nice guy, a**hole, throw their sorry butts and records out of baseball. To suggest any other resolution to this issue will only evoke ALL of the other non sensical arguments. Oh, and this means you too Barry, when it's your turn.
Posted January 16, 2007 12:27 PM
Surfer
Toronto
Pete Rose was the tops in his talent of baseball. He could pretty much do anything. But he got caught gambling on baseball and will now have to face a lifetime ban from the Hall of Fame. If he can't get in because of his betting although he should get in because of his baseball achievements why would you allow a guy whose talents will always be suspect due to his juicing up, Would he have been able to achieve what he did without the steroids, probably not, and therefore he doesn't deserve to be inducted in.
Posted January 14, 2007 11:59 PM
Dan
Burlington
Have hall of famers vote on who gets in. They are baseball, they understand what it takes to be a member. They understand stats and they are connected enough to baseball to know who should and shouldn't be there. No one would really have the right to question them either. Let baseball take care of baseball.
Posted January 12, 2007 04:17 PM
B
USA
I couldn't agree more on eliminating the media's role in HOF voting, or at the very least make the voting selections available to the public. The selection process is ridiculous. I don't completely understand how a guy like Bruce Sutter was not HOF worthy for 13 years but then on this 14th try he gets in. If the media is given this privilege, they should be held accountable for their votes and scrutinized for why on one year a player is worthy and on the next he's not. By changing your vote year to year, it really takes the credibility out of the process. The other drawback of media voting is I think in a lot of cases the objectivity isn't there. If a guy wasn't nice to the media or didn't speak with them much of the time, there'll be a tendency of some the voters to not vote for him on that basis alone, which defeats the purpose of what I'm sure MLB intended by having media vote - objectivity.
Posted January 12, 2007 03:54 PM
Matt
Waterloo
Such a sensitive topic and one that will be debated for many years. I agree that the press should not be involved in Hall of Fame voting. I believe some sort of "expert" panel should be implement to decide on who gets into the Hall based on a pre-determined set of criterion. Of which the major component should include the obvious - stats. Which at that point the conversation should stop. The numbers are there...if McGwire or Bonds or Sosa or anyone else from 1994-2003 are question as to the validaty of their stats that has to fall on Selig's sholders and not the players. Selig is responsible for the evironment that these players played in. If there was a drug policy in place or even the perception that steriods would not be acceptable these players would not have had the chance to amount the stats that they were able to. The stats are there and there should be no question...and no "*"...see you all in the Hall...
As a side point...I have not been able to even bring myself to watch a full ball game since the cancelation of the World Series and to be honest the only interest I have had is the Home-run race...but I tend to just watch the highlights. Baseball is dead to me...and that is a shame...
Posted January 12, 2007 12:08 PM