I'm just going to tell you straight up I don't care about Cooperstown. I realize to some baseball fans, Cooperstown and Ken Burn's baseball series and all that stuff is like, the epitome of off-the-field joy. Or something. Frankly, I have never watched a single episode of Ken Burns' series -- the man just bores me -- and I just don't give a crap who is or isn't in the hall of fame. That goes for any hall of fame, by the way. And for that matter, postseason awards. Baseball, hockey, football, college, Michigan, U.P., or otherwise. Sportswriters and broadcasters are ready to shed blood over who is All-U.P. or who gets in a hall of fame, and I think it's all pointless prattle. The athletes did their part on the field, that's where it ends for me.
The baseball debates, at least as they relate to the Tigers, grow even more tiresome.
I have written about baseball on the Internet since 2006. For most of that time, hall of fame talk was centered on Jack Morris and Alan Trammell. (And to some extent how Lou Whitaker got screwed.) Frankly, if my archives went back far enough at Mack Avenue Tigers, I'm sure I could find my original posts on the subject and just re-run them here, because nothing has changed. Morris might have been average in retrospect, but he sure stands out for the fame part. Trammell is his opposite case. What he lacked for fame, he made up for with stats on the field. Either should be in. Either should be out. Like I said, I don't care any more.
This keeping of players on the ballot forever thing seems ludicrous to me. Either you've got a hall of famer, or you don't. Those first ballot people? Those are your hall of famers. Taking eighty years to talk about it and gain ballot momentum and all that other stuff makes me weary. You make it in that way, your bust should be kept in the storage closet in the basement, I say. That's more like the hall of meh. And for every Bert Blyleven, you get a bunch of names hanging around doing nothing but taking up space with no real shot at getting voted in. Like Trammell.
Look, I like Trammell. He autographed a baseball card for me when I was a kid. (Eric Karros didn't, that SOB.) It would be great to see him rewarded, if that's what he wants. But I don't think it's an open-and-shut case, and I just don't really think it's real life-changing for me either way. So I don't care.
Anyway, that long rant was my way of introducing this thread for you to talk about HOF stuff.
Jay Jaffe at The Hardball Times published his projections today.
No surprise, Morris continues to inch closer but not get in, and Trammell is still far away but still on the ballot.