Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Alomar, Blyleven elected to the BBWAA Hall of Fame

There is just not much about the Giants off-season to get incensed about. Sure, you can quibble about Huff's salary, or mildly lament the overabundance of outfielders, or speculate on what might happen in Spring Training, but really, it's pretty quiet. I mean, no real nasty arguments, no WTF moments from Brian Sabean, no angst turning to dread turning to fear as the season approaches.

So let's start bitching about the Hall of Fame selections!!!!

Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar were the only players elected to the BBWAA Hall of Fame. I have no problem with either of these selections, although I wonder why Blyleven's election took so long. Also, a lot of players were NOT selected. Most notable among them, in my opinion, is Mark McGwire. With less than 20% of the vote, this was clearly an anti-character vote, which is so, so important (apparently) to just ever so many of the writers. Some other guys not elected: Barry Larkin, Larry Walker, Jeff Bagwell, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Jack Morris, Tim Raines, Dave Parker, Edgar Martinez. I'm not saying that all these guys should have been elected, but some of them give me pause; Tim Raines and Barry Larkin. Probably Jeff Bagwell. Definitely Big Mac.

But here is why this is worth getting excited about. The balloting brings out the baseball writers' explanations of how and why they voted. And these logically twisted, bizarre rationales can only be responded to in two ways, by anger and by laughter. Here are a couple of examples. And can you believe that BJ Surhoff got two votes? BJ Surhoff! Barry Stanton, ESPN, cast one. Here is Deadspin.com's take. Not enough to get you mad yet? How about this guy who is apparently without sin, so able to cast stones. But my favorite has to be our own Bruce Jenkins. Not so much for his selections, or his support for them, but for this sentence alone: "They'd be serving lemonade at the superstar's banquet while the above mentioned guys posed for oil paintings." (They are Jim Thome and Rafael Palmeiro. The above mentioned guys are Don Mattingly, Will Clark and Keith Hernandez.) I just love this sentence, my mind reels with the thought of what FireJoeMorgan could do with it. (Sorry, it is not on the innertube yet, check back.) Bruce, you've made my day.

5 comments:

M.C. O'Connor said...

The Hall of Fame is a joke. The people who vote watch a hell of a lot of baseball but have no idea who the best players are. How in the world could these clowns ignore Jeff Bagwell? Or Tim Raines? Or Edgar Martinez? How can you pick Alomar without hesitation (90%!) and skip Larkin? Such obvious ineptitude by the supposed "gatekeepers" has turned me off forever. How can Jack Morris be named on 50+% of the ballots and yet a FAR BETTER PITCHER (Kevin Brown) got, essentially, nothing? Absurd! These people are so full of shit. I expect fans to be biased, ignorant, narrow-minded, and provincial. But the people who vote are supposedly "professionals." They are supposed to be smarter--better equipped to make intelligent decisions. They are not. They are writers, that's it. They have no special knowledge or skill other than penning baseball stories. Don't get me wrong, good writing is hard--it takes lots of practice. But the vote proves that writing well about baseball does not translate into wisdom or an enlarged perspective on the game and its performers.

I'm sick of the fucking Hall of Fame. The people who run it are sanctimonious, self-important shits, and the people who vote are incompetent, self-involved idiots.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Check this out. This is way better than who won baseball's latest version of the Homecoming Queen vote.

Zo said...

That's more like the unrefined bile that we have come to expect in the offseason! Way to go Mark!

One more thing, Kirk Rueter got fewer votes than Benito Santiago.

Oh, and this just in: Adrian Beltre, 6 years, $96 million.

Brother Bob said...

C'mon MC, tell us what you really think of the HOF.
I think its selection process is more akin to how the Catholics pick saints, although the homecoming queen analogy is a good one also.
Anyway, I would absolutely love to visit Cooperstown, because, guess what, I fucking love baseball and I'm sure it would be totally easy to ignore the BS of the selection process while walking through the Hall itself.
I bet my brother would refuse to visit any pre-1947 displays because of his withering contempt for the whites-only baseball era. Well, he would rant about that for a good long time and then he'd look anyway.

JC Parsons said...

Very funny Bro...and pretty much exactly right. I spent most of my life dreaming of going to the HOF. That dream is pretty much dust. Perhaps I'll get there one day,

and I would look around,
and I would bitch about the overblown early selections,
and it would be kinda sad