Why Do We Vote In Hall of Famers, Anyway? A Rant.

Posted by Dan Levy.

I’m going to make this quick, mostly because I’m already so annoyed about reading Hall of Fame stories that I feel bad adding one more to the pile. Also because, well, I’m starting this at 1:27 and it’s going to lose some cache in about 30 minutes when we can spend all night debating who did or did not get into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Here’s my only point in this rant: Bert Blyleven? That’s what we’ve become? We’ve become a nation that debates Bert Blyleven so hotly that we end up hating other members of the media who disagree with our thoughts? Even Jeff Bagwell and the did-he-or-didn’t-he steroid era guys spark so much pundit fodder that it has to make the average baseball fans sick and, frankly, start to hate the sport a little.

Well, I take that back; the debate certainly won’t make anyone hate the sport, but it could make you detest the off-season and it certainly makes you despise some of those sanctimonious jerks who cover the game…especially the ones who have the honor of making an annual Hall of Fame vote and use that to prove ridiculous points like “it matters if a player is a first-ballot guy or not” or “he was bad with the media” as reasons to vote or not vote for a player.

So why do they even have a vote? Not just the sanctimonious jerks, either. I mean everyone.

Why not just make the Hall of Fame — any Hall of Fame — a museum? Sure, the annual ceremony is what drives people to come every year and show up for a swanky event that probably keeps the lights on the other 364 days. And yes, the debate, while asinine, does get people talking about a sport that’s not in season at the moment. And, of course, the players would never want this to happen because getting to the Hall of Fame is a culmination of their career and the truest form of preserving their legacy.

But we’ve devolved this annual ritual into a hot-button debate about Bert Blyleven, for crying out loud. Before that it was Goose Gossage for years and before that it was Jim Rice. But we’re not going to put Mark McGwire in the Hall? People may not vote for Barry Bonds when he’s eligible, a notion that’s as criminal as the asks he reportedly committed against the game itself????

Just avoid all this gray area and make it a museum, with different exhibits for different milestones and different wings for different eras. It’s about the history of the game, isn’t it? It’s about telling the story of the sport, so how do you have a National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum without any of the players from an era that helped define the game for the next 100 years? The stories will tell us more than enough about the greats of the game. Voting them in this way is a ridiculous, and unnecessary, ritual that’s become more for the writers relevancy than most players on the ballot.

Would the Holocaust Museum not include Hitler? (It’s a ludicrous analogy, but I’m going with it anyway.) Would Goebbels not be a first-ballot guy because he was second fiddle at best? Why can other museums tell their part of history without a bunch of silly, self-agrandizing plaques on the wall, voted by a bunch of pompous, power-hungry members of the media?

Seriously, it’s gotten out of control, folks. These sports debates are the equivalent of screaming to each other about whether or not ABBA should get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (checks list…oh my God, ABBA is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame). Nevermind. I have another rant to start.

Congrats to whoever got in to Cooperstown this year. You do, or don’t, but probably do, deserve it.

Posted on January 5, 2011 at 1:53PM

This Post tags: Hall of Fame, Media, MLB, Rant, soapbox

 

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