I think it's good seeing Fay practicing abstinence.
I think it's good seeing Fay practicing abstinence.
Well, I agree, the HOF has become another way to punish players.. whether we agree with the reasoning or not, it's a punishment used. If anything, it's a statement of baseball's hypocracy. I remember and interview where Towers said that as the Padres GM, he knew Camminiti was juicing, but the Padres really didn't care.. He was putting up MVP seasons and selling tickets. No one cared until Camminiti died (and did they really care then? Or was that just crocodile tears)..
Heck, look at the punishment system today.. It was largely implemented only because Congress forced MLB to do it. You have guys like Manny Rammeriz who keep getting multiple chances. It's not unlike Steve Howe's drug use. In the end, the owners say it's cheating, but they condone it. When the player retires (or is at the end of their career), baseball suddenly become all moral about it.
When I was a kid, we used to play these board game war games. One guy wasn't particularly good at it, and he compensated by pushing a few extra tanks on to his home country when no one was looking. Sometimes he got caught, other times he didn't. We all knew he was "Cheating" but that was part of playing with him. We'd just laugh when we caught him. In a way, I think that's how the owners feel about steroid cheating.
[Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob
Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!
Did Pete's gambling affect the outcomes on the field? I guess we'll never know, but it's hard to make an evidence based case that it did. In any event, they decide to explicitly ban him the from the game and he's never appeared on a HOF ballot. The decision was made and we didn't have to kvetch about it.
That's completely fair and I'm not suggesting we should have perfect testing done daily. Rather, I'm saying that the "punishment" should fit the crime. If MLB itself doesn't see steroid use as a "crime" meriting a suspension for less than 1/3 of a season, why should it serve as the basis for keeping a player out of the HOF?I disagree with this reasoning. How often would the players have to be tested in order to have a high degree of accuracy? Maybe daily? It's just not logistically possible. If anything, the current system is still flawed. Not a criticism of baseball, I just think it's going to be impossible to get 100% accurate testing.
If having "tainted" stats means the player should be ignored after he retires, shouldn't the same logic justify permanent bans from the game for failed tests. In other words, if any of the stats you're about to put up lack legitimacy, then do we really want you putting them up. It strikes me as hypocritical to say that a guy should only lose a tiny fraction of his career for cheating and then to ignore massive swaths of his career after he retires.
I agree completely. The damage is done. The bottom line point is this. At the end of the day, we remember what actually happened. Having a history museum that leaves giant, gaping holes in our collective record does nothing to enhance our celebration of the game. A Hall of Fame that has all of the game's best players, some of whom were liars and cheats, is a better institution than one that has just some of the game's best players, some of whom prior to 1990 were liars and cheats and none of whom after then were ever caught. Just trying (and failing) to explain it succinctly serves to make the point.Not that I care one way or another, but I can see why some people don't want to let cheaters like Clemens and Bonds in. They definitely changed what happened on the field by their cheating. In my mind, the damage has already been done, I really don't care if they get in the HOF or not.. Heck, the Giants 2012 division champship is somewhat tainted by roids.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Not wanting to decide the fate of a controversial vote is still a conviction...
I didn't vote in the previous presidential election because I didn't support either candidate and wasn't going to vote just to say I voted if I didn't support one. Isn't that a conviction?
If people can't support for why they're voting for something, they shouldn't vote. I think he's doing more to preserve the sanctity of the HOF vote than by voting just to show he has a 'spine.'
Last edited by Brutus; 12-31-2012 at 03:43 PM.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
Conviction is defined as a strong persuasion or belief. Fay just seemed wishy washy about the whole thing. His vote was prepared the night before, then he wussed out.
It's not that I laugh at the end result, but instead it was the way it was handled and then written about in a way to make Fay look holy that seems silly.
By not voting at all, Fay is not only avoiding a controversial decision to exclude the two players who were clearly the best of their generation, he is also implying that no other players on the ballot warranted a vote.
Neither implication is particularly symbolic of a backbone or overriding conviction.
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
I don't see how you arrive at the second point. A submitted ballot carries a vote on every player on that ballot. The HOF is not a typical poll where it's person A vs. person B and a race left unmarked has no impact.
It's not person vs. person, it's person vs. ballots. Every player on a submitted ballot has a vote cast for him or, by inference, against him. If you do not a vote a guy in, you are adding to his denominator but not his numerator.
If Fay could have removed a subset of players from consideration, adding to neither their numerator nor denominator, I get the sense that he would have done that. But to submit a ballot with blanks for players like Bonds, Clemens, etc. is to vote "no". And he couldn't in good conscious vote either yes or no for those guys. And since voting for anybody meant voting (for or against) for everybody, he abstained. It infers nothing about the remainder of the ballot.
Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.
Tim McCarver: Baseball Quotes
I remember one time going out to the mound to talk with Bob Gibson. He told me to get back behind the batter, that the only thing I knew about pitching was that it was hard to hit.
"Sometimes, it's not the sexiest moves that put you over the top," Krivsky said. "It's a series of transactions that help you get there."
By abstaining, Fay is in essence failing to vote for anyone regardless of whether they are worthy or not. So either he felt only Bonds and Clemens rose to the level of hall of famer or he basically is saying no one deserves consideration until he determines the appropriate course on the two best players of their generation.
I think it's irresponsible for a voter to abstain unless he feels it's a zero ballot. That's not the argument that Fay made though.
"This isn’t stats vs scouts - this is stats and scouts working together, building an organization that blends the best of both worlds. This is the blueprint for how a baseball organization should be run. And, whether the baseball men of the 20th century like it or not, this is where baseball is going."---Dave Cameron, U.S.S. Mariner
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
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At the very least, he should have voted for Alan Trammell.
Well that's certainly fair. But like Rick said, he is preserving the sanctity of the vote because he's not impacting the percentages of people he would vote or not vote for. It seems a lot of people are chastising him because he's a voter so therefore he should be obligated to vote. I respect him for not influencing the vote based on the premise being debated.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
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