Monday, the Baseball Hall of Fame announced that Rickey Henderson, the best lead-off hitter the game has ever seen and Jim Rice, a very good leftfielder for the Red Sox will become the newest members of the Hall this July.That's nice and hardly unexpected. The main problem that I have with the Hall's voting, done by the Baseball Writers Association of America, is that it is absolutely flawed. Take a look at the bottom of the voting where players such as Mo Vaughn, Matt Williams, Jesse Orosco, and Jay Bell all got votes for the Hall of Fame. Absurd. For the record, none of those players should ever be mentioned in the same sentence as Cooperstown. All were solid players in their own right, but non deserved to be counted among the game's best in the Hall of Fame. Nevertheless, for some reason, the some baseball writers decided to include these players on their ballot. It makes no sense.
Speaking of making no sense, the fact that Henderson was not a unanimous selection is a crime. His numbers and contributions speak for themselves. The writers have stubbornly never elected someone unanimously, which is preposterous. Apparently there is some sort of prestige with even being voted in on the first ballot, which is also ridiculous. I know that players like Tim Raines will eventually make the Hall of Fame but they shouldn't have to wait. The Hall of Fame selection method need to revised so these travesties don't happen.
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I was actually very disappointed to see Jim Rice get into the Hall of Fame but not Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy, or Tim Raines. There is no doubt that Rice was the best hitter out of the bunch. However, when you factor in base running, defense, longevity, and clubhouse factors, I would certainly give the nod to Dawson, and maybe to the others as well.
I am also on the Bert Blyleven, Jack Morris and Alan Trammell bandwagon. Trammell I think is especially hurt by two factors: (1) the emergence of power hitting shortstops in the past decade; and (2) not being Cal Ripken.
I couldn't agree more about Blyleven Morris and Trammell. The biggest injustice of the three is Blyleven. The HOF is turning into a popularity contest, perhaps it always was.
The debate will only heat up as more and more "steriod era" players continue to become eligible for the Hall. I don't think it should matter. At various times in all sports, players have benefited from factors that weren't legal in their sport. The NFL's steroid use in the 70's and 80's was rampant, but the greats from those eras are enshrined.
In my opinion one of the biggest HOF injustices is Roger Maris. While all of his numbers seem to barely fall just shy of HOF worthy, everything else about him speaks volumes. He held the single season home run record for nearly 40 years, played in numerous all-star games, won multiple MVPs and won three World Series. He is a player that wasn't always friendly with the media and the media never forgot it.
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