Friday, May 17, 2013
MLB: Talking past, present and future with Ryne Sandberg
(philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com)
Per Sandberg: Self-Appointed Chairman of the Committee on HOF Justice. #norynonoryno
Read More...MLB.com: During your Hall of Fame acceptance speech in 2005, you spoke a lot about playing the game the right way. What was your take on the most recent voting?
Sandberg: Well, first of all, the voting is in the hands of the sportswriters who follow the game, and I think that the writers once again sent a strong message to baseball that illegal drugs and all that is not and should not be a part of baseball. I ...
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1 2 3 >1. Better late than never
2. Right for the wrong reasons.
3. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I feel so empowered.
I've got a good idea for one, though: define a unit of measurement as "the amount of intestinal fortitude and determination required to read this entire column." We could call it a chass.
I'm at about 1.4 millichass right now.
I would love to know if Chass is in the minority of writers who also voted for Morris for the previous 13 years; lots of them were late to this bandwagon....
Was he going to try that?
I think spite motivates just about everything Murray does these days. What a sad little man.
And while I noted earlier I'm on board with the idea that writers shouldn't be in the newsmaking process, deciding that you'll observe that philosophy two years hence, once you've gotten done making news with this particular gentleman, would be inexplicable if expressed by a rational human being.
My uncle survived 14 months in a Japanese POW camp, and he ain't a HOF'er, either. Not for baseball, anyway.
please, yes.
Sage advice that wouldn't be necessary if the thinking fans here didn't feel that omigod the hall-of-fame is the most important thing ever!
Except that isn't what he said, and the "spite" thing is purely projection.
What he said was that (1) Writers should not make the news (which is why his former paper doesn't allow its news/sports writers to vote for awards); and (2) no unimpeachably correct philosophy regarding the Steroid Era commends itself to voters.
There isn't really a thing to argue with in either of these.
2- The steroids issue has made it impossible to conduct a rational vote and cast a reasonable ballot. No matter how a writer votes or on what he bases his decision whom to vote for or not to vote for, his reasoning has to be flawed and open to challenge.
Nice work, Murray.
You're projecting and wishcasting. That isn't close to what he's saying, or implying.
Yea, I hate when my ideas are challenged too. Time for me to pack it in and take my ball and go home.
Its curious he's taking this stance by writing an entire news column devoted to this. Reminds me of when my four year old says he's giving me the silent treatment by yelling at me.
You're letting your spite cloud your judgment. He's saying that even his ballot and its decisions regarding Steroid Era players would contain flawed reasoning and be open to challenge. Because there is no correct philosophy to use.
And he's right.
That you would side with any one of the many grumpy drama queens proposing the most pointless response possible to something actually complicated is not a surprise.
No, he's saying that newspeople shouldn't be engaged in the process of making news, a statement I agree with. But only after he gets done trying to make news with his guy, which is incoherent.
For me it has become cringe-worthy. When every single one of his columns (and it is a column, not a blog) finds a way to take pot shots at the geeks that have ruined baseball it just makes him look small.
I'm old enough to be sympathetic to Chass' viewpoint, but at some point the level of discourse needs to go beyond simple name calling.
The point -- and Chass isn't alone in saying/insinuating this -- is that MLB and/or the HOF need to give specific guidance to the writers regarding the proper treatment of the Steroid Era. There's a good chance something like that will happen in the next few years and it should.
My point would be that they didn't need specific instruction with deadballers, they didn't need explicit instructions with spitballers, they didn't need explicit instructions with amphetamines, etc. etc. They idea that they are frozen like deer in the headlights without explicit instructions here is absolutely childish and self-serving of those voters who are saying so.
He's voted for years and years and years. Apparently, he was never before that concerned with writers "making news" and now he also doesn't know how to handle a ballot with PED guys. I interpret that as recognizing that things have passed him by and that he's done with it .... after the Morris thing (which is incoherent, but we're talking about a professional grump and troll here, so he should be held to a fairly low standard).
OK, if you go into the guilt by association and hearsay to the point where you can't vote Biggio or Schilling (because they played in a time where so many were using steroids) that's one thing.
But on what grounds can you give Morris a free pass on cheating and not extend the same to Alan Trammell?
Shame on you Murray.
I thought we had one. Most wins in the '80s. Number of times pitching 10 innings in a Game 7.
Yeah, this is what's so bizarre about the intestinal fortitude thing. They are playing baseball, not engaging in hand to hand combat in the jungles of Vietnam. People who can play baseball at this level all have "intestinal fortitude."
I know, but the notion that those things are equivalent to steroids is a distinctly minority idea, like it or not. And at the time of the voting on those guys, there was nothing like the unbridgeable split in opinion that there is today in re the roiders. It doesn't really matter whether that split is "right" or "wrong." No one should be happy that HOFers are being decided on the basis of a baseball writer's opinion of steroids.
We have had many ballots before with "flawed reasoning" open to challenge. This isn't supposed to be perfect. I don't get why sportswriters think this process all of a sudden should be an open and shut case. HOF induction has been debated for years. Are they just mad because there are more voices to challenge them now? It strikes me a ridiculous that writers would give up because their reasons might be open to challenge. Isn't that exactly what they do for a living? Challenge ideas?
I think this would be an awful, awful idea.
For the record, I don't think Murray voted at all during Jack's first 10 or so years on the ballot, due to the Times' policy on such things. It was only after being released from the shackles of the oppressive NYT* that he began flexing his electoral muscles.
* An extrication which also allowed him to perform his uniquely Chassian brand of journalism, i.e. Backne Tales for All, Stan the Monster, Who Will I Help Marvin Miller Groundlessly Smear this Week...
I know, but the notion that those things are equivalent to steroids is a distinctly minority idea, like it or not.
As is the idea that writers need to be given an offer they can't refuse as to how to handle the issue. It's funny but not surprising that the only people pushing this "further guidance" suggestion are the ones who want to see steroid users in the Hall.
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What specific instructions are they supposed to get? They're not going to say "keep them all out" and they're not going to say "you have to ignore steroids." At best, the Hall would say something like "Please only consider positive tests/confessions/convictions and don't vote "no" on players just because a nutjob has carried on a bacne-based crusade against them for years."
I wonder if Ray would like that sort of wording? I wouldn't, even though it expresses my POV pretty much to a T.
I think the only people pushing it are writers. Probably guys who want to vote against Bagwell/Biggio/Piazza, but have no excuse to do so under the current rules.
1. A stage that included Alan Trammell would take attention away from Jack Morris and the 2013 HOF ceremony should exclusively be focused on Jack.
2. There are already three being elected to the HOF by the veterans committee. If you start voting more players than just Morris, you are going to have to take a break during the ceremony for dinner.
Including guys like Trammell just doesn't make any sense.
where Y=times article read/time X distance to bathroom.
No, I would like to see wording to the effect of "We didn't think we needed to tell you this, but please disregard steroids use because you already disregarded amphetamines use, you twits."
Except don't make the instructions seem so respectful.
I would like to see wording to the effect of "We didn't think we needed to tell you this, but please disregard steroids use because you already disregarded amphetamines use, you twits."
Thanks for being Exhibit A of what I was talking about. But then I know I can always count on you for support.
"Disregarded" implies a conscious consideration, but amp use didn't even rise to that worm-level bar.
The writers didn't "disregard" amp use; the idea that something so trivial could keep someone out of the HOF -- or that it should even weigh on their HOF chances -- never tinctured their consciousness. The greenie era writers disregarded amp use in the same sense that I disregarded stopping at the local bordello on the way to work today.
Exactly. I'm not sure that there are any specific instructions that you can give that wouldn't be perceived as a slap at the membership's collective judgment - that's why there was so much flack about the Pete Rose rule when it was added. The BBWAA as a whole - despite the posturing from a handful of its vocal members - doesn't really want to be given specific criteria on what they must consider when voting.
-- MWE
Here's my serious answer: I wouldn't provide any instruction per se; I'd simply remove the character clause to stop voters from abusing it. The character clause was rarely invoked before, and the HOF screening committee can simply screen out any player that in their view would so fail the character clause that he wouldn't be a worthy selection. So, maybe Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. Players like that.
Which is exactly the point of those who keep pushing for those instructions. They're pissed that their views on steroids don't seem to be shared by 75% of the HoF voters, and knowing that, they want to try to rig the results in their favor.
While I would handle the matter differently as set out in #45 above, I don't really care whether the voters would perceive action on the HOF's part to be a slap at their collective judgment. Frankly, their collective judgment should be slapped at, because it is retarded. I mean, sheesh. If reasoning this bad, this illogical, and this dishonest shouldn't be "slapped at," what should be?
Maybe, but all I meant was some statement from MLB and/or the HOF regarding its postion on the Steroid Era, even if it's, "We take no position on steroid use with regards to HOF eligibility and we remind voters of the stated criteria for election. As has been the case for _____ years, we counsel writers to apply these criteria using their best judgment."
Even something like that could be useful, as it would give a faction of writers comfort that "Yes, MLB and the HOF really does want us to vote as we see fit." As it stands, there seems to be a big group wondering if that's really what they should be doing.
That's certainly a legitimate POV, but given the context we're now in, it would still be a hamhanded move that would certainly meet with a huge amount of resistance, since it would be clearly sending a one-sided message to the voters.
And what if the anti-steroids writers simply refuse to vote for Bonds & Co. anyway, which at this point would almost certainly be the case. What next? Strip them of their votes?
Of course not. Japan doesn't count.
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