WWTBAM Bored

It's great that Goose Gossage got in and all, but after I saw the vote totals, my first thought was...

What two voters voted for Robb Nen??? Rod Beck??? Travis Fryman??? I can kind of understand how a player could get one vote (although Brady Anderson and Jose Rijo got none), since writers might vote for a friend just out of loyalty, but two votes?

I also thought it curious that no player who missed the 5% cutoff got more than 2 votes this year.

And, this will be the last year we see Dave Concepcion's name on the ballot. My question was, "Dave Concepcion played into the late 80s??" I just looked it up and saw that he played his entire career with the Reds, which I didn't know despite being a Reds fan. I figured that he must have gotten traded late in his career like so many aging athletes do. Guess not.

Those scattered votes for people who merit no consideration for the Hall is what makes the current system seem so farcical.

They might have been the votes that pushed Rice in. Whether they merit entry in the Hall may be another discussion but votes for the majority of people at the bottom of the list that clearly do not merit consideration are just dumb and expose the system for the broken system that it is.

It should not matter if a player was your friend. Perhaps some mechansim should be put in place where voters who consistently vote for players that do not receive a certain percentage of votes would get their voting privileges revoked.

Or better yet a more logical procedure should be established. I don't know off the top of my head what it should be but there certainly must be a better one.

tanstaafl2 wrote:Those scattered votes for people who merit no consideration for the Hall is what makes the current system seem so farcical.

They might have been the votes that pushed Rice in. Whether they merit entry in the Hall may be another discussion but votes for the majority of people at the bottom of the list that clearly do not merit consideration are just dumb and expose the system for the broken system that it is.

It should not matter if a player was your friend. Perhaps some mechansim should be put in place where voters who consistently vote for players that do not receive a certain percentage of votes would get their voting privileges revoked.

Or better yet a more logical procedure should be established. I don't know off the top of my head what it should be but there certainly must be a better one.

Limit the number of players for which one can vote. With the unlimited nature now, a voter could vote for three solid candidates plus 4 "joke" candidates. Limit a voter to three players, and you would see these other votes dry up.

BTW, I still am amazed that some many voters are ballot-lynching Mark McGwire for the Steroid Era.

tanstaafl2 wrote:Those scattered votes for people who merit no consideration for the Hall is what makes the current system seem so farcical.

They might have been the votes that pushed Rice in. Whether they merit entry in the Hall may be another discussion but votes for the majority of people at the bottom of the list that clearly do not merit consideration are just dumb and expose the system for the broken system that it is.

It should not matter if a player was your friend. Perhaps some mechansim should be put in place where voters who consistently vote for players that do not receive a certain percentage of votes would get their voting privileges revoked.

Or better yet a more logical procedure should be established. I don't know off the top of my head what it should be but there certainly must be a better one.

How about revealing the names of the voters who voted for any player who didn't make the 5% cutoff? If there was a threat of exposure for these votes, maybe writers would think twice before casting them.

tanstaafl2 wrote:Those scattered votes for people who merit no consideration for the Hall is what makes the current system seem so farcical.

They might have been the votes that pushed Rice in. Whether they merit entry in the Hall may be another discussion but votes for the majority of people at the bottom of the list that clearly do not merit consideration are just dumb and expose the system for the broken system that it is.

It should not matter if a player was your friend. Perhaps some mechansim should be put in place where voters who consistently vote for players that do not receive a certain percentage of votes would get their voting privileges revoked.

Or better yet a more logical procedure should be established. I don't know off the top of my head what it should be but there certainly must be a better one.

I would doubt Rice lost out because of the throwaway votes. My guess is most of those throwaway votes appeared on the same few ballots. One thing people forget about until there is a slam dunk candidate who somehow doesn't get 100% of the vote (And nobody's ever gotten even 99% of the vote before) is that there are many more HoF voters out there who spitefully turn in blank ballots than there are voters who jokingly decide "Hey, it would be cool to vote for Todd Stottlemyre for the HoF!" So the blank check voters (Hey, if it said I could vote for 10 players, I'd probably ALWAYS vote for 10 players) get cancelled out by the "I'm never voting for anybody" old crones or Pete Rose sympathizers....

My only concern was with how low Tim Raines' total was. I wasn't expecting him to make it on the first ballot, but he's got a looooong way to go if the statheads are to finally push him through....

lb13

Appa23 wrote:BTW, I still am amazed that some many voters are ballot-lynching Mark McGwire for the Steroid Era.

McGwire is getting lynched because adjusted for "inflation", he's not good enough to earn consideration.

I think people forget (And I know since at the time he used to be my 2nd favorite player) that McGwire's career was basically OVER in the mid 90's. But boy, he sure did make a great, uh, comeback, didn't he.....

lb13

Appa23 wrote:Limit the number of players for which one can vote. With the unlimited nature now, a voter could vote for three solid candidates plus 4 "joke" candidates. Limit a voter to three players, and you would see these other votes dry up.

BTW, I still am amazed that some many voters are ballot-lynching Mark McGwire for the Steroid Era.

There is a limit. It's ten.

But what's wrong with allowing those other votes? Don't forget, any player who doesn't receive at least 5% of the votes is eliminated from the ballot. Will anyone remember, a year from now, which players did or didn't get a handful of Hall of Fame votes? Can you remember, without looking it up, which players fell off the ballot last year? Can you remember which of them got at least one vote? --Bob

And since I like to do this after each HoF vote, here are the likely first timers for next year's election, who all played their final game in 2003....

And it's making me old to see that two of my BBBL Merry Men legends (Erick Almonte & Mike "Kerosene" Williams) appear on the list of last games in 2003....


Jay Bell
Mike Bordick
David Cone
Joe Girardi
Rickey Henderson
Jesse Orosco
Dean Palmer
Craig Paquette (OK, maybe not)
Dan Plesac
Greg Vaughn
Mo Vaughn
Matt Williams


Henderson is a lock. Cone and Williams could get enough support to hold over to the next election. The rest of the list is pretty disposable, though Orosco may get more than the usual share of throwaway votes....

lb13

My Judge Judy was being interrupted every five minutes yesterday showing Rick Gossage in his living room clutching his cell phone. In protest, I refused to watch the news after Judy ended, since they could have showed it once and we would have gotten the idea.

He was wearing a ball cap with an un-baseball logo, so no word on what uniform he will enter under (that sounds awkward, but you know what I mean). Apparently he has to clear it with the HoF officials.

Thus ends my local report.