Shank's Hall Of Fame Ballot, Explained

The Boston Globe, in a rare example of accountability, decided to publicize their Baseball Hall of Fame voter's cards this year. Here is Shank's:

So how come I'm only voting for two guys this year?

It's complicated. And it doesn't feel good. But it's the best I can do.

Tim Raines gets this vote and I think he'll be elected in his final year of eligibility (as was Jim Rice). Raines' vote total has been climbing. A candidate needs to be checked on 75 percent of ballots and Raines was up to 69.8 percent last year. He has a lifetime on base percentage of .385. He stole 808 bases with a higher success rate than Ricky Henderson or Lou Brock. He reached base more than Roberto Clemente, Brock, Tony Gwynn, and Ichiro. He was a World Champion with the Yankees.

Vladimir Guerrero gets this vote in his first year of eligibility. He hit 449 homers. He swung at everything and still hit .318 for his career. He was an MVP once and close several other times. He had a cannon for an arm. The WAR folks don't like him that much and he wasn't a good baserunner given his speed, but he always had the look of a Hall of Famer. Doubt he gets in on the first ballot. That's it. Raines and Guerrero.

That's interesting - I might have had the look of a a professional cyclist back in the day, but that doesn't mean I'm winning the Tour de France (or any other pro bile race), ever! Curious criteria, there, indeed.

Of course, he still has to kvetch about Curt Schilling:

As for Curt Schilling, I'm putting Schill in a corner for this year after he tweeted that the notion of lynching journalists was "so much awesome." This is not a political statement by me. To my way of thinking, lynching is not a political issue. There's no liberal/conservative take on murder. A place in the Hall of Fame is an honor and I'm choosing not to honor Curt's strong candidacy this year.

It seems there are a professional journalist or two, as well as a CNN panel laughing about Trump's plane crashing (and a lefty CEO and sundry others) that are just fine and dandy with killing President-elect Donald Trump. It seems quite evident to me that there's far, far more liberal take on murder than there is conservative take.

But wait - there's more!

Lastly, can we dial down the vitriol and all just get along? I respect the opinions of all voters and fans. This is the baseball Hall of Fame. These are votes. Can we agree to disagree with one another's votes and opinions without giving in to the hate and toxicity that has polluted the process?

We're barely a week into the 2017 year, and Shank just wrote perhaps the most hypocritical, disingenuous and chutzpah-filled paragraph of his entire career. Numerous of his fellow journalists want Trump dead, and Shank has made a cottage industry out of spreading hate and vitriol since he joined the Globe back in 1981. We have been documenting every single example of that since our 2005 inception, and as many previous ones as possible. What a freaking joke.