Since it’s HOF season…a pre-pre Primer fave.
Phil Pepe of the New York Daily News, one of nine voters who returned blank ballots in baseball’s Hall of Fame election, said Wednesday that he was protesting what he believes are reduced standards for election.
...“Maybe my standards are higher than most people,” Pepe said. “But I think the Hall of Fame is too crowded. When you vote on people you’ve seen play, you see the warts. I never saw Babe Ruth pop up with the bases loaded, although I’m sure he did. The people on the ballot now are people I’ve seen fail.
“I think to go in alongside Ruth, DiMaggio, Williams, Aaron, Cy Young, you have to be the cream of the cream. The more you erode the standards, the more the standards will be eroded.”
Pepe said he did not want his vote to be considered an abstention. “If I wanted to abstain, I would have thrown the ballot away,” he said. “If I throw it away, it’s a non-vote.
“I voted. My vote was nobody on the ballot deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. My preference was that nobody get in. To get in, they would need three votes to cancel mine.”
...Another of the blank ballots belonged to Bill Madden, also of the New York Daily News.
“I felt nobody on that ballot represented true greatness,” Madden said. “A lot of players represented pretty good or very good, not great. Willie Stargell (the only player elected) was very good. The Hall of Fame is for great.”
Repoz
Posted: December 21, 2012 at 08:46 PM |
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1. Howie Menckel Posted: December 21, 2012 at 09:12 PM (#4330682)headline implies it, but the excerpt could have been read differently - especially with Madden still going strong
I may be getting more cynical as I get older, but do you trust them to fix the procedures properly? I don't. They won't want to tick off the BBWAA, so they'll leave that alone. They'll do something to get more inductees, but it will likely by the Jack Morris-type candidates, not the Ron Santo-type.
And again, there is zero chance that they will have a series of years of no inductions.
Maddux, Glavine, Thomas and Mussina hit the ballot in 2014. You really think they're holding out Maddux? You think they'll ding Glavine for steroids? (there's also Kent)
Johnson, Pedro and Smoltz hit the ballot in 2015. You think they're not voting in the Unit and Pedro? You think Smoltz will have a hard time of it? (there's also Sheffield
Griffey comes on in 2016. Ever hear any roids rumors about Griffey?
2017 is a bit of a "down" year as it's just Pudge and Vlad (and Manny). Gives them a chance to push a couple of the other guys through.
2018 will bring Chipper and maybe Thome. Rivera will follow the next year and maybe Jeter the year after that.
Far from a lack of inductees, I expect Maddux, Johnson, Griffey and Jeter to post some of the highest vote percentages ever. Maybe not Griffey given the petering out of his career. They may not get anybody through this year but they'll have a solid 15 inductees minimum over the 8 years after that.
Far from some drought, this may be the greatest run of HoF inductees of the last 60-70 years.
If you don't include the VC guys, the BBWAA does obviously have pretty high standards, but there are still clunkers every few years: 1948 had Pie Traynor and Herb Pennock go in alongside Ruth, Cobb, Speaker, Johnson; 1954 had Maranville and Bill Terry. In 1955, Joe DiMaggio got in...along with Dazzy Vance and Ted Lyons.
Keeler had a great "Hit 'em where they ain't" narrative and guady hit totals. Pie Traynor inaccurately was perceived as the greatest 3B ever when he got anointed, thanks to the stellar-looking AVG (.320).
The "high level" standard lasted longer than you say, in terms of their perceptions of the electees at least. More like 15+ years. The voters then thought their picks were better players than 1980s voters thought Stargell was.
Even Rabbit Maranville was a beloved figure who had just died, iirc, which is a dumb reason but it's not "eh, this guy was pretty good." Bill Terry hit .401 once, and nobody else did that anymore except Ted. They weren't voting for guys they thought were not legends in various ways.
If you hold to the Babe Ruth/Ty Cobb/Williams/Mays-level of HOF, you'd probably end up putting a guy in every 5-10 years, and it's pretty clear that that has never been the pattern.
The co-MVP award with Keith Hernandez was Pops' only MVP.
Though I'm sympathetic to your larger point (the standard isn't the absolute inner circle guys), I've never subscribed to the idea that the baseline (or even 25th percentile) Hall of Famer is what all current voters should be following. The BBWAA's Hall choices were built by getting past an electorate with disparate views on what constitutes a Hall of Famer. If you get through an electorate that includes both small and large Hall voters, you've earned your place. I see no reason why today's Hall of Fame electorate shouldn't include all kinds of voters, thereby requiring the next generation of BBWAA inductees to pass the same test as the other writer enshrinees. The problem is that today's BBWAA, as a whole, seems to have tighter standards, except involving relief pitchers, than previous incarnations of the BBWAA.
The writers for a very long time had a very high standard for the Hall. The VC pretty much killed that standard and then newer generations started using the VC picks to justify voting for players that preceding generations of voters wouldn't have picked. Though it also has to do with the fact that the whole era of clubs had died down by the 80's and 90's.
not sure what you're saying here, you have to admit: it's an awkward sentence.
None, and certainly not during that alleged 1998 off-season secret steroids summit where Barry Bonds supposedly told Griffey, "I'm so jealous of Mark McGwire that I, Barry Lamar Bonds, hereby announce my intention to start a-takin' more steroids than any man who ever lived"? And Griffey just flashed his winning smile and wore his cap backwards because, for the purposes of the media, this unverified conversation only reflected upon on the character of 50% of its participants.
Bonds (as quoted): "I've got three or four good seasons left, and I wanna get paid. I'm just gonna start using some hardcore stuff, and hopefully it won't hurt my body. Then I'll get out of the game and be done with it."
Griffey (speculated): "I'm going to go see "A Bug's Life" next week!"
This quote is fascinating because, at first glance, it seems really stupid, then there's a brief moment where it might actually seem insightful, but then ultimately, once you get what he's saying and how he's using it to justify his non-vote, it is revealed as one of the stupidest things ever said. At least that was my reaction.
These two sentences seem contradictory. We have to judge Stargell's worthiness based on stats that contemporary writers would use but we can downgrade him because of low WAR totals? Stargell was a 7-time All-Star, and was also top 10 in MVP voting 7 times (not the same 7 seasons - he had 10 seasons where he did one or the other or both). You can build a Hall-of-Fame that doesn't include him, but it's essentially half the size of the real one.
Great question. I guarantee you there have been years with only good writers no great ones on the ballot.
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