The Hall of Fame ballot, please …
By Brian Kollars | Tuesday, December 22, 2009, 01:09 PM
Hal McCoy on the Hall of Fame:
The Hall of Fame ballot is signed, sealed and hopefully (Please, Mr. Postman) delivered.
Shortly after I mailed it, I picked up the Dayton Daily News and saw where esteemed colleague Sean McClelland had written about his ballot. You may ask why McClelland is voting on the Hall of Fame? To be a voter, one must be a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America for more than 10 years.
Before coming to Dayton, McClelland covered the Yankees and Mets for a newspaper in New Jersey and when he came to Dayton he covered some games on my days off.
But I digress.
I found it interesting that his ballot was almost identical to mine, with a couple of minor exceptions. And we never once discussed the ballot.
We agreed on voting for Barry Larkin, Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven and Lee Smith.
We differed in that he voted for Mark McGwire, Roberto Alomar and Jack Morris. I didn’t vote for those three and I voted for Edgar Martinez.
I’m already on record as to why I don’t vote for McGwire. Says McClelland, “… Because that home run total (583) is hard to ignore and every era has it scoundrels.”
I can ignore McGwire because he ignored Congress when asked about steroid use by saying, “I’m not here to talk about the past.” Well, if he isn’t willing to talk about his past, then I’m not willing to consider his past on the baseball field.
McClelland also points out that other scoundrels are in the Hall of Fame, citing racist Ty Cobb, who once went into the stands to beat up a fan. I didn’t vote for Cobb, either. No writer did. When Cobb was in the first class of Hall inductees, he wasn’t voted in by writers.
Sean (and I’m not picking on him, it’s just that he made his ballot public and made some comments) voted for relief pitcher Lee Smith, as did I. And he said Smith should have been voted in by now. To that, I heartily agree. He said Smith isn’t in yet because the electorate tends to shun relief pitchers.
The same could be said about designated hitters. Edgar Martinez is a designated hitter - and, yes, as a National League guy, I hate the DH was much as I hate pot roast, even though I eat it to keep a semblance of peace in the McCoy household because the boss makes it, cooks it and eats it.
But Martinez is, by far, the all-time best DH in the history of the game. So if he is the best ever, he belongs in the Hall of Fame.
We both voted for Blyleven and I can’t understand why he doesn’t get the 75 percent needed to induction, just as I don’t understand Andre Dawson missing every year. Blyleven was 271-231 with a 3.22 ERA, pitching mostly for gosh-awful teams. I am staging a bit of a protest myself, not voting for Jack Morris (whom Sean voted for) until Blyleven makes it.
Blylven had 262 COMPLETE GAMES and 60 SHUTOUTS. Think of that - 60 of his 271 wins were shutouts, mostly because he usually had to pitch a shutout to win.
Jack Morris was 254-186 with 175 complete games and 28 shutouts. Until Blyleven makes it, I’ll look no further at Morris.
Finally, we get to Alomar, the guy with glossy numbers but who sullied his name forever by spitting into an umpire’s face. Again, Sean points out the scoundrels already in the Hall of Fame and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Ty Cobb not only spit in an umpire’s face, but probably punched a few or at least stepped hard on their feet with his spikes.
But this is my ballot and it says character should be part of the equation. Spitting in an umpire’s face is not Hall of Fame stuff to me, except maybe The Kleenex Hall of Fame.
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