Letters to the Editor
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it's about fatigue
I side with Kaufman on this one.
At a certain point, arguments about the hall of fame (or all-star game or whatever) all boil down to the same thing: X group of voters deciding Y aren't really using any kind of objective standard or relying on evidence therefore their decisions are often ludicrous. After a while, it's easy to just get tired of making the same arguments about the same group of idiots.
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Term paper due?
A little short on your deadline for a term paper today were you?
Not one of your best columns, at the very least you could have explored more why these and not others are uninteresting.
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Bravo
Mature article. The HOF arguments are stupid. The only way to transcend the pettiness is to revamp the voting process. Does it make sense that writers are the gatekeepers? (i know that HOFers get a say too)
My proposal: Let every person on the planet who has put on a big-league uniform for at least an afternoon have three votes a year. The 2 players who get the most votes deserve to be in the HOF. Big-Leaguers are the best critics of other big-leaguers, not Johnny Pressbox writing for the Dayton Daily News.
King: how are you going to file a term paper everyday if you take the highroad?
( ::elbow nudge:: There is a reason Garrison Kiellor only posts one article a week)
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How Do We Know?
That Ripken or Gwynn never used steroids....I guess that's just one of those givens that we are supposed to take for granted.
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Pete Rose
Until they vote in Pete Rose, the Hall is a joke. When they exclude someone who is arguably the best baseball player ever, everything else is meaningless.
Gambling didn't improve Pete's statistics. Drugs did improve McGuire's.
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Pete Rose
Is another prime candidate for possible steroid use....A lot of those goons and gamblers he was hanging around were in the gyms all those years.
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Pete IS in the HOF, in a way
I visited Cooperstown in 1991, when I was 25. With me was a serious girlfriend with whom I knew I had to break up, and she was humoring me by walking through the HOF with me. I remember that Pete Rose appeared in several exhibits, and my companion asked, "How come he's in these exhibits if he's not allowed in the Hall of Fame?" The answer is that Pete most certainly does appear in the HOF; he just doesn't get a plaque, which King rightly points out is the most boring thing about being "in" the HOF.
So I'm eager to get back to the HOF, too, with my sons this time. You really ought to go with your baseball pals, not your bored and angry girlfriend.
And hey--the Dayton Daily was a fine paper in its day; Erma Bombeck worked there (though admittedly not in sports), and so did Hal McCoy, who once got an award from the very HOF in question (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_McCoy).
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Hmmm...
Pete Rose may have taken performance-enhancing drugs? Huh, maybe that's why he's just a little bit weird.
King, we need to get back to really riveting debates: Should Michelle Wie get any more chances to make the cut at a PGA Tour event? Should they roll back the "hot" golf ball to 1995 standards? Are the artificial bristles in those brooms they use for curling ruining the sport? Fans want to know!
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Maybe
We need a two strike policy for tha Hall Of Fame.....Like---Sammy Sosa, steroids AND corked bats. No way.....Any applicant is allowed to have one enhancer.
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Pete Rose
Pete never used steroids, but he and many many other players used amphetamines, known as Greenies, to give them a boost when they needed it. If MLB would like to look under that stone, they would be hard pressed to find any player of the modern era of baseball who can say they always played clean.
I also think that Pete Rose should be in the hall of fame for his amazing contributions to the game of baseball, and that his addiction to gambling (which is a disease) should not be the thing keeping him out. I could point to countless other victims of addiction that have been given second, third... etc. chances in life and in the game of baseball. Sadly, Pete has been singled out and made an example because he is an easy target. The hall of fame is not complete with out his plaque.
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Does King get a vote?/More interesting argument re: McGwire
Just wondering; he seems to be speaking of the voting process in the 3rd person, and doesn't mention voting for/against anyone.
King is definitely right that without the steroids specter, McGwire would be in, no question. But that's a different question than whether or not he deserves to be in on the merits of his playing career alone.
There's a strong case to be made that he is at least marginal for the HOF even without the steroids (again, I'm talking normatively, not about what voters actually would do). Yes, of course there are players with inferior stats who are in there, but again, my point is normative --- just because the bar has been set low before doesn't mean it ought to continue to be. The standard for the HOF isn't, and shouldn't be, whether or not you are better than the worst guy in there. If so, someone like Andre Dawson would be a no-brainer.
Every other aspect of McGwire's game is sort of middling-to-good, except for sheer number and frequency of home runs. Which, granted, is extraordinary. However, the case against McGwire (the non-steroid case) isn't just limited to his one-dimensionality; it also raises the question of whether it's time to start putting a discount on power numbers.
Historically, McGwire's HR numbers are astronomical. But he's the first of a generation of inflated power numbers. Blame it on steroids, tightly wound balls, whatever -- that's not the point. The point is that what looks extraordinary by historical standards (viz., 586 HRs) starts to look not-so-extraordinary in context. Did you know that Mike Piazza has 419 HRs? I sure didn't, and I wouldn't have guessed that. Fred McGriff has 493. Frank Thomas is closing in on 500, as are Gary Sheffield and Jim Thome. All fine players, but none are undisputed HOFers, with the possible exception of Piazza only because he was a catcher for many years -- not a very good one, but it makes the offensive stats look a little better.
My point: McGwire's worthiness is very arguable even without mentioning the word "steroids."