Letters to the Editor
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Let the Hall of Fame Votes Rot
The Baseball Hall of Fame takes itself way too seriously. The BBWA writers who vote for the Hall of Fame take themselves way too seriously. Most non-BBWA writers and commentators who write about the Hall of Fame take themselves way too seriously.
It's a bunch of plaques in the middle of nowhere in Upstate New York, in a town that has as much claim to having been the birthplace of baseball as Moscow (Russia or Idaho) does. And yes, I've been there. I didn't get goosebumps.
The latest fetish is the "all stats all the time" way of analyzing Hall of Fame candidates. The first thing the statheads have to remember is that they themselves have been all over the place in analyzing statistics over the years. The same people who are now knocking Jim Rice's qualifications were writing articles extolling Jim Rice's stats when he was alive (at least those of you who were past the diaper stage them--I'm looking at you, Bill James).
The Hall of Fame won't die if Rock Raines isn't in it, the Hall of Fame won't be laughed at if Jim Rice gets in.
Putting Bowie Kuhn in (and leaving Marvin Miller out) is quite a joke, but isn't the biggest joke in Hall of Fame history either. Hall of Fame stories are mainly chopping wood during the week the football playoffs take up the rest of the oxygen in the room.