2013 HOF In Balloting Thread

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/17483473-419/morrissey-for-mlb-hall-of-fame-numbers-arent-the-only-thing-that-counts.html

Another horrible column.

The worst line:

"Nobody was voted into the Hall, the first time there has been a shutout since 1996. If you want to say that innocent bystanders such as Alan Trammell were victims of the Steroid Era this time around, go right ahead. Just don�t blame the voters. Blame all the people who took pills and injected themselves in the hopes of getting stronger, faster and richer. They�re the ones who cast shadows on everyone else in the game."

[smg58]

We all knew that the steroids era would cause a major, major headache for Hall voters, and there is no way to avoid it that I can see. Even assuming that we could get each writer to apply some "internally consistent logic," that term would be defined differently by each writer. Plus, subjective impulses are simply harder to ignore when the objective criteria become murky; deep down and right or wrong, I wanted Piazza to get in yesterday, while I would sooner give the benefit of the doubt to trichinosis before I'd give it to Roger Clemens.

I certainly can't argue with anybody who wants more smoke to clear before voting for certain (or all) steroids-era players. I also can't argue with anybody who feels that Bonds and Clemens at the very least deserve to wait a ballot. The only two players I can confidently say I'd never vote for are Palmiero and Ramirez, because they continued to juice once the league started making an honest effort to eliminate steroids, and that's a character issue they don't share with everybody else. Beyond that, your subjective judgement call is as good as mine (and probably as flawed, too).

[Edgy MD]

If consistent logic can be defined differently by different people, it's not consistent logic. The practice of logic is designed to defy subjectivity.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/17483473-419/morrissey-for-mlb-hall-of-fame-numbers-arent-the-only-thing-that-counts.html Another horrible column.

I had no idea there was a Morrissey for MLB Hall of Fame movement. The Smiths were great but...

[Vic Sage]

Whether we or the voters like it or not, there is a character/sportsmanship criteria for HoF selection, and so voters are by definition asked to be moral arbiters of the game and watchdogs at the gate. Some voters ignore that obligation, some observe it only in exteme (in their view) situations, some just factor it in on a case-by-case basis, and some may use it to boost certain otherwise-borderline candidacies. But as a consequence, without any guidelines offered by the HoF, the BBWAA or MLB, the vote will necessarily be all over the board on the PEDs issue and only time will allow a consensus to emerge. So everybody needs to take a pill and calm down. Nobody has a constitutional right to be in the HoF, and they certainly don't have a right to be in TODAY as opposed to a year from now.

Also, as long as we are asking the writers covering the players to do so objectively while also being their moral arbiters, there will be an inevitable conflict with their journalistic integrity (such as it is), when they are covering stories they themselves are participating in. When people yell at the voters for their hypocrisy, because they are refusing to vote for guys they should have exposed in the first place, they are conflating these 2 very different roles. That the writers either didn't know or chose not to report about PEDs use while it was happening (for the most part), or their editors or publishers refused to run such stories, is an issue with them as professional journalists and investigative reporters. As HoF voters, on the other hand, they are still obligated to consider the character/sportsmanship issue, on whatever basis they individually choose to assess it, no matter how they covered the PEDs issue at the time. It's not "hypocrisy"... it's their obligation as voters.

Otherwise they should all recuse themselves and a new jury pool sworn in. Which would be ok too, since none of them would have survived a voir dire in the first place.

[Ceetar]

It's not hypocrisy to say one year a guy should be in the hall of 'fame' and then not vote him in?

But it's not the hypocrisy that's the real issue. No one's laid down exactly what the integrity clause means, but you have to be pretty damn dense to think it means to only elect 'good guys' into a baseball inner circle.

And that's well beyond the crap arguments used to not vote for Piazza or Bagwell.

The integrity clause is being used as an excuse for voters to play favorites and support their own personal biases.

[Zvon]

Kinda surprised by the no-one-in thing. Figured Piazza was a good bet. Lumping him in with the roiders is unfair. We all know that if Piazza was doing steroids Clemens would have been walking around with half a bat up his ass since 2000.

[stevejrogers]

Ceetar wrote: The integrity clause is being used as an excuse for voters to play favorites and support their own personal biases.

Just thought of something, there is more hard evidence that Mariano Rivera is guilty of negligent homicide/manslaughter than there is for Piazza as a PED user. Love to see if anyone uses THAT against Saint Mo when he comes up.

There is precedence, people didn't vote for Alomar based on the spiting incident, I'm sure the Roseboro incident is why Juan Marichal isn't a first ballot HOFer and drug related issues apparently kept Fergie Jenkins and Orlando Cepeda on the ballot longer than they probably should have.

[Ceetar]

SteveJRogers wrote: Ceetar wrote: The integrity clause is being used as an excuse for voters to play favorites and support their own personal biases. Just thought of something, there is more hard evidence that Mariano Rivera is guilty of negligent homicide/manslaughter than there is for Piazza as a PED user. Love to see if anyone uses THAT against Saint Mo when he comes up. There is precedence, people didn't vote for Alomar based on the spiting incident, I'm sure the Roseboro incident is why Juan Marichal isn't a first ballot HOFer and drug related issues apparently kept Fergie Jenkins and Orlando Cepeda on the ballot longer than they probably should have.

I mean I'd be surprised if a guy like Rivera didn't use something else anyway, but yeah no one cares about the other integrity stuff. drunk drivers, etc.

[Vic Sage]

It's not hypocrisy to say one year a guy should be in the hall of 'fame' and then not vote him in?

no, because guys can change their mind over time. but that's not what i was talking about anyway, and you know that. I'm talking about the brickbats hurled their way (including in this thread) because they didn't report on the PEDs while it was happening, but are now holding it against players in HoF voting. and i repeat: that's not "hypocrisy". That's doing 2 different jobs. whether they're doing either of those jobs WELL or not is another matter. But that's about competence.

But it's not the hypocrisy that's the real issue. No one's laid down exactly what the integrity clause means, but you have to be pretty damn dense to think it means to only elect 'good guys' into a baseball inner circle.

there's a world of difference between "only electing good guys" and choosing not to vote for cheaters and felons.

And that's well beyond the crap arguments used to not vote for Piazza or Bagwell.

writers have their suspicions about those guys. You may not credit their suspicions; neither might I. But this not a courtroom and they have no requirement to use only evidence sufficient for legal standards; their reasons can be entirely their own.

The integrity clause is being used as an excuse for voters to play favorites and support their own personal biases.

just as ignoring the clause by some voters supports THEIR biases. This entire process is a game of favorites and personal biases. If the HoF didn't want it not to be, they could vote to change the mechanism tomorrow, using blue ribbon panels, quantitative analyses and other more objective mechanisms. But as of now, this is the system, and blaming the voters because, in the aggregate, they came to a different decision than you would, is fine i guess, but not very meaningful.

[Ceetar]

yes, no one is arguing that this isn't the system, that doesn't make it mind-numbingly stupid.

The incompetence of the writers in either of said jobs is only fuel to the 'fix it' fire and supports the idea that the current system is screwed up.

Without twists of logic there's no solid reason why some of these guys aren't Hall of Famers. They're supposed to be constructing a hall of players in the top echelon of the game. Where you draw the line is a worthy debate, i.e. why Jack Morris probably shouldn't get in, but no one's arguing that it show be as low as the top 20 players in history or anything like that, and even if they were they're still wrong this year to elect no one.

If after all this time you still can't vote for a guy like Piazza or Bagwell because "you suspect" then the game is still beyond broken (if you consider PEDs broken anyway). But MLB has moved on. No one's erasing the years that comprise the "steroid era" if they could even nail down the start and end of it, and then there is the amphetamines issue, which are banned now but clearly weren't then. So what to do about that? This is their job as voters, and if they don't have an answer for it, I'm not sure what to tell them. Baseball marches on, and we can't just stick our heads in the sand and suspend the Hall until someone figures it out to the comfort of all.

[ashie62]

Gonna have to expand the ballot to 20 to catch up..

The BBWAA made their point, now rollem in...

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

The idea of sportswriters being the moral arbiters of anything is pretty funny. There's a group that needs to police itself.

Examples: Ian O'Connor covering Derek Jeter and singing his praises while writing a book with or about Derek Jeter. Or, the mountain of swag some of these guys get. (I've had friends who covered the Stanley Cup and come back with watches, jackets, back packs... The press room is a massive freebie zone, and that's not even counting the food.) Or, the incredible use of unnamed sources without accountability.

[Edgy MD]

Well, if it were really funny, it would have been funny a long time ago, and then not funny anymore, and then funny only in the sense that it's not funny, and then maybe ironically funny, or worthy of a brief smile whenever anybody thought of how funny it used to be, wondering about those innocent times when all it took to break up the boys in the frat house was Gracie Allen playing dumb on the radio, or sportswriters as moral arbiters.

And then maybe the Cohen brothers would make a movie about that time, of an America we knew existed, but is somehow unrecognizable when we are dropped into it --- with the Pullman porters, and the evening wear with those ridiculous shirt fronts, and the moral arbiter sportswriters, and the people who couldn't stop laughing about it. I'm thinking Adrian Brody and Kate Bosworth, or one of those chicks.

Really, I'm not sure why it should be surprising that they are acting in that role. They're asked to do it to an extent, and they've done it before. Like I said, I just don't like the inconsistent logic, and the abdicating of the responsibility to distinguish a little more seriously.

[Guest Kong76]

Something will come out about Jeter one day. He flew above/
below the radar, had the better chemists!! I live for that day.

[Ceetar]

Kong76 wrote: Something will come out about Jeter one day. He flew above the radar, had the better chemists!! I live for that day.

He's willing to fake being hit by a pitch to help his team but isn't willing to take what nearly all his teammates are taking to heal faster, workout harder? That's hard for me to believe.

[Edgy MD]

Piazza's co-author has come out and said that his book will explicitly deny steroid use. Guess the notion of holding a vote until he comes clean in an autobiography isn't going to work.

Seriously, though, how is waiting until his autobiography comes out in any way getting to the bottom of the story?

Whether or not it clears up the rumors of PED usage, it'll totally put the gay thing to bed.

[Guest Kong76]

How will it tell us that?

[Edgy MD]

I dunno, that picture just promises me so much.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

What about his acting stint as the villain in Teen Wolf?

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Ceetar wrote: Kong76 wrote: Something will come out about Jeter one day. He flew above the radar, had the better chemists!! I live for that day. He's willing to fake being hit by a pitch to help his team but isn't willing to take what nearly all his teammates are taking to heal faster, workout harder? That's hard for me to believe.

Seeing that PED use was widespread throughout baseball, and especially a large number of his teammates have been identified as users, it is hard to believe that Jeter spent his entire career clean as his hagiographers wish us to believe. But even if he somehow never touched the stuff, he still benefited. Roiders were on base when he came to bat causing the pitchers change to change their approach, roiders protected him in the lineup, roiders wore down starters and let Jeter feast on weak relief pitchers. And I don't recall Jeter ever calling out any of the roiders on his team. He fully accepted the benefits to his own performance and the team's success. These things are obviouslytrue of every player in baseball, clean or roided full tilt, but somehow we only hear about Jeter being the good guy.

[Frayed Knot]

That's been the problem with this whole process of fans/media/whoever trying to separate who did with who didn't; folks tend to pick guys who (either way) reinforce their own predetermined views.

A large chunk of the reason the Yanx re-signed ARod to the size and the length of the contract they did was that everyone knew he was clean and therefore was the perfect person to re-take the career HR record from that cad Bonds and rightfully return it to one of the good guys (and, for Yanqui fans, bring the record back to the land of pinstripes where it belongs). But, of course, that fantasy lasted about a year before Centaur-boy's name got leaked and so parts of America then turned their lonely eyes to Pujols to play the part of the next white knight, as if we know anymore about him than we know about anyone else in MLB.

We have no proof that Jeter did anything but we have no proof otherwise either. Those writers and fans who claim to KNOW Jeter to be clean are that way because they WANT Jeter to be clean.

[Edgy MD]

Mets � Willets Point wrote: What about his acting stint as the villain in Teen Wolf?

[Gwreck]

Edgy MD wrote: t'll totally put the gay thing to bed.

I thought marrying the Playboy model and having kids with her did that already.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Well, he wouldn't be the first gay guy to have married a woman and had kids.

[Edgy MD]

Pretty compelling PED article from the magic year of 1969.

[Frayed Knot]

Even NATIONAL LAMPOON chimed in with a warning around that same era so it's tough to claim we weren't aware.

[Farmer Ted]

The Sports Xchange
2:01 p.m. EST, January 11, 2013

When Mike Piazza's autobiography "Long Shot" is released in February, the former major-league catcher will deny using performance-enhancing drugs during his career.

Suspicions of steroid use among several prominent players surrounded the Baseball Hall of Fame vote this week. Along with Piazza, players who fell short in their first year of eligibility were pitcher Roger Clemens and slugger Barry Bonds.

Piazza received 58 percent of the vote, which was below the required 75 percent for election.

The 12-time All-Star finished his career with 427 home runs and a .308 batting average in 16 seasons. Despite being a 62nd-round draft pick, Piazza went on to become one of the top hitting catchers of all time.

"Anybody who's looking for Mike's answer to PED questions will find it (in the book)," veteran sports reporter and author Lonnie Wheeler said in an interview with Newsday. "I believe he's clean."

Wheeler also said Piazza in his book will discuss PED use in baseball.

Given the climate of controversy with the candidates this year, Piazza wasn't disappointed about being left out of Cooperstown in his first year of eligibility, Wheeler said.

"He was laughing about it," Wheeler told Newsday. "I think he understood that the whole situation was so murky and complicated, and with nobody getting elected, that it was just an unpredictable scenario that he got caught up in. Frankly, he knew it was coming.

"I think, like I did, that he felt that he deserved it and was optimistic that he would get in and saw no reason why he shouldn't."

[Ceetar]

two ways it goes I guess, he apologizes for his fellow teammates "everyone was doing it" but declares he wasn't which I don't think would go over well, or

he notes it was all over, declares it evil, and lauds baseball for fixing it, which paints him as the hero in the writers eyes and they elect him next year.

curious though, if he'll throw anyone under the bus.

[G-Fafif]

"We got a 68, and I'm going to go back and study a little harder and hopefully get a 75 next year."
--Craig Biggio

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Pretty compelling PED article from the magic year of 1969.

That issue was among the very first SI's I ever leafed through. The needle on that cover gave me the godamn creeps.