Your Hall of Fame Vote, Post-Mitchell

actually buck and shottie, i remember hearing or reading something about first balloting one of the times i was in cooperstown. goes back to '36 and the "lag time" it took to induct the first class and all the great players who didn't make it in the first year.

i believe the "first ballot" thing began out of respect for the guys who didn't go in with ruth, cobb and the boys.

 

I'd be interested to read what you read, TP. There were huge inductions in the three years following '36, and some of that was in order to have a "Hall of Fame" worth opening in Cooperstown in '39. But I don't remember hearing anything about "lag time."

I maintain first ballot wasn't an issue until very recently. Otherwise, Joe DiMaggio wouldn't have been a third-ballot selection. It just wasn't that big a deal, until the writers started withholding their votes for certain "bubble" candidates and then Seaver got the magical 98 percent. It became a self-important contest -- who "deserves" the highest percentage, who "deserves" first ballot, etc.

It's all crap. A Hall of Famer is a Hall of Famer, period.

 

buck - hey, fuck man, i'm not arguing a point. i'm just repeating what i remember reading or hearing while in town. and i'm sure the guys who vote today probably have no fucking clue why they won't vote someone in on first ballot.

to be honest, i can't remember which time i stumbled across the "first-ballot" stuff, or that it was 100 percent correct. it just made sense when i heard/read it, though, which is why it stuck.

 

i'll rifle through my cooperstown boxes and see if i can come up with something.

 

Should Clemens still even be considered the best pitcher of this era?

Does Randy Johnson or Greg Maddux get that status now?

 

what's a greater evil, hgh or randy johnson's mullet? i think the mullet disqualifies the unit

 

Or at least it should disqualify him from first-ballot selection.

Good point, TP, though I take it in another direction.

I think some of these guys have very precise reasons why they won't vote someone in on first ballot. And the thing is, it's their reasons. It's nothing which has ever been justified by any voting directives. It's just the "rules" they made themselves.

 

agreed. i easily can see the "tough first vote" as something rooted in honor, which only was bastardized by a buncha self absorbed pricks.

i'm going to try like hell to figure out where i heard or read my first-vote "facts." anybody have anything to add concerning the matter, please do.

 

Sad thing is if you know him just a little bit, he is the farthest thing from a horse's ass. Just another horn ball like the rest of us.

 

Bonds goes. Clemens, too.

I hate the steroids association. But they were good enough anyway.

Bonds is arguably the greatest hitter of all time. Clemens is arguably the greatest pitcher of all time. Sad to say, but maybe they could have achieved that status without the help. But we'll never know.

Maybe they woulda come up short. But I'd like to see how close to the pinnicle they woulda come. They woulda had Hall of Fame numbers anyway.

Sad to see Jim Rice ain't in the Hall of Fame. Career cut short, but he was a monster animal on the field. Writers dock him for being in monster animal in the clubhouse, but writers are cheap bastards sometimes.

Those writers wanted him to be a monster animal on the field, and he performed well. He didn't trust the writers, and preferred his own company in the clubhouse, and the writers should respect that.

Not everyone gets comfortable with the media. That shouldn't be a fault. Some guys just relate only to their teammates, and too many of us fault them for that. And some guys like the privacy thing, too.

 

Media guys hated Jim Rice and Steve Carlton, among others. Guys in the clubhouse said Rice and Carlton were total team guys, all the time.

I always respected those opinions. Some guys are there just for the team thing, and their intensity is focused only inside the clubhouse, with people they know and trust and play with.

I always thought you have to respect that. Some guys value privacy.

 

bonds isn't a team guy.