Yes, sportswriters apply their personal morality codes to baseball players. I happen to know a lot of sportswriters. You should be very uncomfortable with this. I also happen to know of active voters who haven’t covered a baseball game in decades, but that’s a story for another day.

Heh.

Don’t turn Cooperstown into Blooperstown.

Un-heh.

Maybe O'Connell is trying to say that even if there weren't an explicit integrity clause, the writers would essentially invent one and not vote for Bonds...? I guess that's somewhat logical -- absent an explicit statement that only performance on the field matters, it seems that the writers would have that right. Then again, I'm not at all sure that that's what he was trying to say. Strange response.

And perhaps the least relevant one if more and more great players are cast aside.

Really? Does the other three sports combined hall of fames, generate as much press as MLB? Heck, how many fans can name all the hof inductees for their respective sport in any given year? Nobody cares about the other hof's, baseball is the only one people give a rat's petard about.

I hear this all of the time about the HOF losing relevance, but the museum is top notch--better than it's ever been thanks to the renovation of 2004-2006--and attendance is actually up this year despite the continuing floundering economy. In general, people talk about the HOF more now than ever, whether it's debates about the worthiness of candidates, or debates about the location, or with questions about why the HOF is in Cooperstown. Along these lines, "relevance" is just not an issue.

Nobody cares about the other hof's, baseball is the only one people give a rat's petard about.


Well, it's the one that fans of the sport actually care about. People in general don't really give a rat's ass about any of the halls. Why do they care about it? Because out of the 4 major sports halls baseball's is the only one in which the writers decide who goes in or who doesn't. Thus the constant stream of articles about the hall for decades.


As for attendance isn't the attendance at its lowest point over the last quarter of a century or so?

I was at the basketball Hall of Fame a couple of weeks ago: I've always liked its current incarnation because it's built around a basketball court (to be fair, there's a nice field at Cooperstown too, and they can't exactly put it inside the building) – and because of the concept of the hall as a place that honors both genders, amateur players, and international stars and pioneers. It's well-thought-out. That said, I don't think anybody in Springfield and environs would give a rat's ### about it except that they've surrounded it with some nice eating and drinking establishments and made it a kind of destination center to hang out in, very visible from the freeway.

I believe the Basketball Hall is drawing 200,000 to 220,000 visitors a year at this point while the Baseball Hall is drawing 270,000 to 280,000 a year.

As for attendance isn't the attendance at its lowest point over the last quarter of a century or so?

Isn't that true for most things right now?

Such as?

Attendance has been low the last two to three years, but attendance figures have picked up this year. Next week is the induction; we'll see if they outdraw last year's rather apathetic turnout for HOF Weekend.

I trust Jack O'Connell to make moral jusgements:

"Bill Conlin has been a member in good standing of the BBWAA since 1966. The allegations have no bearing on his winning the 2011 J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which was in recognition of his notable career as a baseball writer."

And I refuse to even open a Lupica link, especially one about ethics. The only time I want to hear his name mentioned is as part of a dwarf-tossing contest.

I trust Jack O'Connell to make moral jusgements:

"Bill Conlin has been a member in good standing of the BBWAA since 1966. The allegations have no bearing on his winning the 2011 J.G. Taylor Spink Award, which was in recognition of his notable career as a baseball writer."

Statement of fact, not a judgment of his character. That a host of people misunderstood O'Connell's comment is a mark against them, not him.

If Conlin's nature had come out in 2010 would the Hall still have given him the award in 2011?

If Conlin's nature had come out in 2010 would the Hall still have given him the award in 2011?

No. I can't imagine any scenario where that happens.

Really? Does the other three sports combined hall of fames, generate as much press as MLB?

That's because the press gets to control who gets in and who doesn't. This conflict-of-interest has been pointed out before: The media gets to both be the news and write about the news. They are essentially writing about themselves, an easy story and an explanation of why there's so much press about it.

What better way to create a story then to loudly declare you're not going to vote for Albert Pujols and then write a long article about it. Delicious.

Writers for other sports do not have this privilege, so they don't really care.

Writers for other sports do not have this privilege, so they don't really care.

Not quite true. Most of the electors for the Pro Football Hall of Fame are active sportswriters. The difference (and it's meaningful in terms of column inches generated/interest produced) is that it's only one writer per city rather than the 500-plus who vote on baseball's HoF.

That being said, it isn't just the media that is responsible for baseball's hall being more noteworthy than the other sports, and can be seen in the disproportionate steroid outrage at baseballers compared to football players. Baseball has always had a firmer connection to its past (history and ballplayers) than the other major North American sports.

Statement of fact, not a judgment of his character.

And the sky is blue. So what? This was the first statement from the BBWAA after finding out that Conlin was a pedophiladelphian. His membership excoriated him for his lack of care for the victims and that he cared only about the process.

Since reporters spent so much time with Conlin on the road and at the ballpark during his lentghy career, I am amazed that they didn't somehow find out about it - or did they know and decide not to mention it, as the first report ot the police (by a woman who is now a prosecutor) was in 2009.

And the sky is blue. So what? This was the first statement from the BBWAA after finding out that Conlin was a pedophiladelphian. His membership excoriated him for his lack of care for the victims and that he cared only about the process.

That just proved that some of the members are as stupid* as many readers. O'Connell did nothing wrong, had nothing to apologize for (though I understand why he did). But hell, we've covered this already right here.


* A fact I'm certain you would readily attest to in other circumstances.

No. I can't imagine any scenario where that happens.

The question was rhetorical, I'm thinking.

As for attendance isn't the attendance at its lowest point over the last quarter of a century or so?

Isn't that true for most things right now?

Such as?

Such as most arts and cultural institutions (theatres, symphonies, museums), churches, civic organizations (scouting, Elks Clubs, etc.). Basically, almost anything that does not involve sitting in front of a television set and/or without enormous marketing dollars behind it.

The phenomenon was captured well in the book "Bowling Alone" a decade ago. There is a web site dedicated to the book:

Since the time of the book, cultural control has passed even more to the user. The ability for us to program our own cultural/media intake via things like Tivo, Hulu, iTunes, MLB.com, the NFL Sunday Ticket, and the Internet in general has unsurprisingly led people to swallow a whole lot less cultural castor oil than they used to.

So while the HOF is not tied to high culture, the vast majority of museums have attendance and funding trajectory issues, and it would not be surprising to see Cooperstown be subject to the same issues.

In NYC, there have been a series of ads for Cooperstown that do not even mention the Hall of Fame. Odd thing to do leading into July and the induction ceremony weekend.

I haven't gone since 2008, which was a very sparsely attended ceremony (Goose Gossage, Dick Williams, Bowie Kuhn, Bob Niehaus, Barney Dreyfuss). At that time, the merchants in town were ticked off at the Hall for the Petroskey kerfuffle/departure from the HOF. Despite his less than stellar handling of the "Bull Durham" incident, the good burghers liked him because he personally dealt with them and their business concerns.

Sorry to Dave Niehaus - went ot school with Bob Niehaus.

SOSH - would you also argue that the Paterno statue and named buildings should remain unchanged?

SOSH - would you also argue that the Paterno statue and named buildings should remain unchanged?

I don't really have a strong feeling one way or the other. Renaming things is rather common (see many sponsored ballparks), and you can always just Saddam any statue, so I'm not sure these are exactly the same. Along those lines, if the Hall wants to remove any mention of the child-molesting columnist from the place, I wouldn't object.

But I don't like pretending it never happened. Bill Conlin won the Spink. Taking it away doesn't change that, just as you can't change that Ryan Braun won the NL MVP* or O.J. Simpson was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

* Imagine if the BBWAA reacted to the Braun hysteria (from both inside the membership and outside, O'Connell being a notable exception) with a quick revote. Would they have had then tossed out the revote when his protest was upheld?

* Imagine if the BBWAA reacted to the Braun hysteria (from both inside the membership and outside, O'Connell being a notable exception) with a quick revote. Would they have had then tossed out the revote when his protest was upheld?

The AP did a re-vote for the NFL Rookie of the Year award when Brian Cushman tested positive for illegal PED's, while Villanova took the DuPont name off the arena after a murder by the donor.

Frankly, I'd rather let everything stand and serve as a Ozymandias-like reminder to the ugly incident that happened in Happy Valley.

The AP did a re-vote for the NFL Rookie of the Year award when Brian Cushman tested positive for illegal PED's, while Villanova took the DuPont name off the arena after a murder by the donor.

Cushing, but yes. I didn't like the decision by the AP. I'm not bothered by Nova's choice. The name of San Francisco's baseball park used to be something else (and before that, something else). Renaming things is common.

Frankly, I'd rather let everything stand and serve as a Ozymandias-like reminder to the ugly incident that happened in Happy Valley.

Yes, that's the other argument for not changing. That leaving as is serves as a reminder of not just what happened, but also reminds us how such things can happen, and thus helps us guard against a repeat.





That would probably be my preference.

As for attendance isn't the attendance at its lowest point over the last quarter of a century or so?

Isn't that true for most things right now?

Such as?

People who have been in my kitchen, for one.

Doing what everyone else is doing should not invoke the character clause.

but n/a is not a number.