OK, so that's not exactly true. He can resign from the BWAA. Or he could send in a blank ballot.
But whining about it is easier, not to mention more fun! So let's hear what The CHB has to say:
- "I voted for Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Alan Trammell, and Curt Schilling."
- "I did not vote for the greatest home run hitter of all-time. I did not vote for a guy who won 354 games and seven Cy Young trophies. I did not vote for a guy who hit 60 or more homers in a season three times. I did not vote for a catcher who hit 427 home runs. I did not vote for a first basemen who hit 449 home runs. I did not vote for a guy who hit 569 homers and cracked 3,020 hits."
So that means no Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, Piazza, Bagwell, Palmeiro or McGwire. To support his passing off the buck, The CHB trots out the least respected and most ignored criteria for the Hall: The player’s character.
Keep in mind that the Hall includes Ty Cobb (racist), Grover Alexander (drunk), Mickey Mantle (drunk), Gaylord Perry (self-avowed cheater), Babe Ruth (gambler, drunk), Paul Molitor (drug user), Ferguson Jenkins (ditto), Don Sutton (doctored the balls), Enos Slaughter (racist) ... the list goes on and on. And that doesn't begin to count all the guys who used greenies, uppers, amphetamines and other performance-enhancing drugs not called HGH or steroids. But no matter. It's OK to want to string a guy up for the color of his skin, but not OK to use a drug that has never been proved to make any difference.
Evidence of PED use doesn't matter to him, The CHB acknowledges. And, because he's not voting for the best players, talent doesn't matter either.
Which is something Shank knows all too well.
2 comments:
Yup, druggies, drunks and racists are in the Hall of Fame. You'd have to disqualify just about everyone elected before 1961 to eliminate the latter.
There are a lot who cheated on their wives.
That's not the character issue. The character issues are betting on baseball and using drugs that change the athlete physically -- that's a whole lot different than a greenie before a day game after a night game. There's also no definitive word on who used them. With steriods, there fairly definitive evidence has been presented == as lawyers would say, it's enough to avoid summary judgement and take it to a jury, which in this case is the BBWAA.
Haha, the writers as jurists! What a great idea. Like when George King left Pedro off the MVP ballot altogether? Or when Dick Young made public snide remarks about Tom Seaver's wife? Or when Dan Shaughnessy called David Ortiz a "sad sack of you know what?"
Yeah, that's a good one, Brucie.
Post a Comment