Hall of Fame announcement nears

BBWAA members with voting privileges tend to be old, stuck in the past, virulently anti-sabermetric, hate the internet, make up their own rules, use arbitrary numbers to justify selections, hold grudges for decades, and are, as a whole, clueless. The latest example?

Barry Larkin is thought to be a no-doubt Hall of Fame shortstop, yet his stats are nearly identical to Alan Trammell, who is considered a borderline candidate at best. Nonsensical crap like that is why people get up in arms over HoF voting.

The Veteran’s Committee has to clean up after the BBWAA, such as getting the deserving Ron Santo in the HoF posthumously. But they have issues as well, playing favorites with borderline guys. See George Kell and Bill Maseroski, to name just 2.

The whole damn voting process needs to be overhauled.

I like the HOF.

When I was about 13, my family and I visited Cooperstown very briefly for a morning, and we whooshed around there like we were late for a train. Ever since I’ve wanted to go back.

But, about the whole Hall and the voting and such… this is where emotion and sentimentality often trump statistics (too often for certain curmudgeons around here). This is where all those days spent as a kid — or, heck, as a grown-up — watching and idolizing certain players come back at you, rose-coloured. Did Jack Morris’ high ERA bump him off the list of true greats? Maybe, maybe not. But when people talk about him being voted in or not, I’m back in 1988, I’m 10, his poster’s on my bedroom wall, and I’m playing tennis-ball baseball in the back yard with my brother, and me emulating Jack’s windup lets me get enough oomph on a pitch from my tired arm to strike my brother out.

Some people get a little swept up in it, some don’t. Personally, I like it.

(For the record, Jack should be in. And Tram. And Lou. Couldn’t we just put TramAndLou down on the ballot as one person?)

I feel like you took the words right out of my mouth. I couldn’t have said it any better. You summed up exactly how I feel about all of these HOF’s.

I watched some of ken burns’ series. He is a redsox shill, had hardly anything on old time Tigers and nothing on Kaline or the Tigers teams from the 50/60’s. plus he sounds like a tulip.

His 2008 piece suggesting a “pyramid” structure for Halls of Fame is a classic: : http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020108

(And I’m unable to care too much about the HoF thanks to my abiding hatred of that Neolithic mafia known as the BBWAA.)

I can see why it’s important to players. After they’re done playing, all but a few are out of the game and all they have left is the recognition that they get for their accomplishments. To be recognized as being one of the best at what you’ve accomplished is important to most people.

I care about awards too. Despite any bias, or screwed up logic or flaws in the way they are given out. I want to see my favorite players recognized for what they’ve done. The one award that I care least about are the gold gloves, because they are the most screwed up.

the only awards that matter are the player choice awards at the end of the season.
anything the writers touch is tainted by personal beliefs and statements. Maybe someone who didn’t always give an interview or wasn’t articulate enough doesn’t get in. Or didn’t play for the Red Sox, Dodgers, Cardinals or Yankees It’s all BS.
The Players should vote who gets in or like the Heisman only Hall of Famers vote

Not too bad, yet for all the attention paid to baseball’s history, there was not so much as a mention to the ’84 Tigers. Unbelievable, considering the 35-5 start and the drama of that World Series.

Speaking of that team, Morris should be have been in first or second time he was eligible. Talk about the pitchers who won the most games in the 1980s, and arguably the best pitching performace in the biggest game of any baseball player’s life (1991 WS game 7).

Higher than Eddie Murray, Willie McCovey, Ozzie Smith, Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson, Willie Stargell, even the great Hammerin’ Hank Greenberg…what do all of these players have in common? HoF induction, and all but Greenberg were inducted their first year eligible.

If you don’t play for either New York team ,Boston or LA, you have to be slam dunk no doubt about it best player your team ever had or you ain’t getting in. Trammell and Whitaker were the best double play combination ever to play the game but if you went to Cooperstown you would never even know they played the game. Check the career stats of L.Parrish and B.Freehan vs. Gary Carter. Very similar, yet Carter is in the hall because of his time spent with the NY Mets during which the NY media built him up to be much more than he ever was as a player. My point is all three were very good players with very good careers none actually special enough to make the hall but Carter gets in while Parrish and Freehan are ignored.

but that is another discussion. I guess it’s the hall of “Fame” not hall of Best players.

and it was the first one, that explores the game’s origins and the early days before MLB as we now know it came into being. It ended before any of the Tiger greats (including Ty Cobb) really came on the scene. The second episode prominently featured Ty Cobb so I wouldn’t say he ignores the Tigers.

That said, I don’t see the parallels between a documentary on the history of baseball and HOF voting. “Baseball” is not the hall of fame. No one voted on it’s contents – Burns picked the stories/angles he thought were most interesting. I tend to like his documentaries despite the fact that I haven’t seen much of “Baseball”, but he’s not for everyone.

If you want a truly Tiger-centric and excellent documentary, “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg” is really good (unless you happen to be a Nazi, in which case the fact that he’s Jewish might turn you off). I met the writer/director here in DC a few years ago – I was walking down the street in my Tigers cap and she asked me if I knew who Hank Greenberg was, which I said of course I do, and she told me about her documentary.