Murray Chass on Baseball: Hall Falls Down

The Many Moods of Murray Chass.

The board’s action prompted me to take a radical step. At a Baseball Writers Association meeting, I proposed that the organization withdraw from voting for the Hall of Fame. Ten-year members of the BBWAA make up the Hall’s electorate.

It wasn’t that I wanted Rose to be eligible so that he could be elected to the Hall. I would not have voted for him. But I was offended that the board didn’t trust the writers to do the right thing. If the writers were going to do the Hall’s work by voting for its members, we should make the rules.

Had a vote been taken at the meeting at which I introduced the motion, I believe it would have had a good chance of passing, and the Hall would have had to find another electorate but with great damage to its prestige. However, the vote was tabled. A sharp minded writer who wanted to retain the vote saw the possibility of having it ended and moved to have the motion submitted to the entire membership in a mail vote.

The tabling motion won, and my motion was resoundingly defeated in the mail vote after pro-Hall members had a chance to campaign against it.

I wish now that the writers would refuse to have anything to do with the board’s game of Hall politics, but writers like being part of the process. They like the prestige attached to it. Two writers even served on the committee that elected Gordon. Writers served on the committees that helped determine the makeup of the ballots.

Maybe the board next will ask the writers to figure out a format that will facilitate the election of players the writers rejected for 15 years.