Another Year, Another Snub, More Idiot Sports "Journalists"
As much as I love the politics, let's get back to our core competancy (bitching about MN-related sports, of course):
Every year when the Baseball Hall of Fame voting results come back, I get angrier than the year before. And, man, am I starting to get angry. Control of this process really needs to be taken away from sports writers and given to people who (i) know the first f-ing thing about baseball, and (ii) don't have philosophical axes to grind. They should review the votes of each voter every year, and if anyone's not within a prescribed margin of error from the other voters, they should have their balloting rights revoked.
Just two examples from this year: First, Jon Heyman of SI voted for Jack Morris (god bless him, Game 7 '91 was the best performance I've ever witnessed, but he had a career 3.90) AND DAVE CONCEPCION (!!!) but not Bert. He goes on and on about how for him career numbers don't mean much, it's whether you were "dominant" enough, specifically claiming Blyleven never had one truly outstanding season (we'll skip over debunking this for now), and then he votes for Dave Concepcion. A guy who hit .319 in his best season, and had a career OPS under .780. Good god.
Second, Rick Telander, for whom I normally keep my loathing in check, decided not to vote at all to protest steroids and Selig. He claims he can't judge anyone anymore, and questions whether even Tommy John's recovery from surgery might have been aided by HGH, and laments that we'll never know. I'm not even kidding. He also says, IN THE SAME COLUMN, that under normal circumstances he thinks John should be in the Hall (despite his numbers being clearly inferior to Bert's in almost every significant category) because he has a surgery named after him. No, really, he does.
The logical pretzels these guys tie themselves in to justify these choices made on "gut feeling" are so idiotic and inconsistent it befuddles my mind. Dave Concepcion. Seriously.
I'll try to publish a comment to this post tomorrow to link some of the plethora of sources of good material showing how easy a call it is that Bert Blyleven is a Hall of Famer. For the time being, I'll just point out that the next time I see a supposed expert on the game of baseball state that their reason for not voting for Blyleven is because he didn't finish high enough in Cy Young voting often enough during his career (you don't think that had anything to do with the fact he spent his entire career in Minneapolis, Anaheim and Cleveland, do you?), I might poke my eyes out. Talk about double jeopardy. Since when is past media perception a legitimate factor in determining real life quality?
Also, Tim Raines, probably the second-best leadoff hitter of the late 20th century, got like 20%.
What a crock.
10 Comments:
Real quick thoughts off the top of my head. The case I hear most for Bert being in the Hall is comparing him to Don Sutton, if Sutton is in Bert should be as well. What seperates them is Sutton got to 300 wins and Bert did not (I think he is 13 short). If Bert spent his career with the Dodgers, he would have easily gone over 300. The second thing, Bert did win two rings. That should count for something.
It is interesting how some guys get left out because they never had that super dominant year but had the longevity but other guys get left out because they only dominated a couple of years (Murphy, Dawson). Or it least that is how it all is justified.
January 10, 2008 at 8:30 AM
Precisely, dude. It's the shifting and inconsistent criteria that drives me up the wall. Why shouldn't just being one of the 10 best pitchers in the league for 15 straight years be enough? Why do some guys have to peak higher than others?
One other thing I should mention: I think Bert hurts his cause talking about how he thinks he should be in. The BBWAA is a bunch of sourpusses who love the limited sense of power they have over athletes who are way up the food chain from them because of their ink space. They think of Hall of Fame induction as the ultimate opportunity to display that power. So they want players to display a sense of trepidation and awe around them, signaling that they hope they make it, but it's really up to the voters. Bert's going around telling them they're holding him hostage and they're idiots for doing so. He's right, but it's bad politics.
January 10, 2008 at 10:22 AM
MCA - for once you and Sid agree on something. He was on the radio bashing the whole BBWAA and HOF selection process because the guys voting are mostly morons. That Rick Telander article you mentioned is proof positive.
Here is a good article from Steve Aschburner (Strib guy) on the case for Bert (http://www.minnpost.com/steveaschburner/2008/01/08/527/blyleven_falls_short_again_but_hall_of_fame_credentials_gain_strength); he was on Barreiro the other day saying that Bert basically gets punished for having played so long and being so consistent. Those who vote see him as a "accumulator" of his numbers and that he didn't earn them which is totally retarded. I won't regurgitate the article but worth a read.
Back to people making the case for dudes like Concepcion. I think what happens is that little kids who watch baseball and have their favorite player grow up to be baseball writers and when their favorite player is eligible for the HOF they make the case not based on facts but based on how much they looked up to them once upon a time. For example, if it was me then both rosters from 1991 and 1987 would be in the HOF (love to see the name "Lombardozzi" and "Berenguer" next to "Mantle" and "Ruth." And for that very reason is exactly why I don't have a vote.
January 10, 2008 at 10:34 AM
From Art Somebody I have never heard of on page 2:
Bert Blyleven: Let me ask you this question: How many people do you think bought a ticket to a baseball game because Bert Blyleven was one of the pitchers? I'm guessing that number is something like 17 over the course of his career. Nobody gave a s---, least of all me. Memo to Bert: Where's the 300 wins, buddy? Couldn't get in the club? I'm voting against him. That's right, I'm not only not voting for him, I'm voting against him. This way, if anyone is stupid enough to vote for him, my "against" vote will cancel it out.
So if Bert hung on 1 maybe 2 more years, he gets 300. So two crappy sub-par years (assumption) would get him in? Also, I would say by his tone, that he definitely does not like Bert speaking out. Idiotic.
Here is the link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=halloffame/080108
Oh and the douche bag would vote for Sutton (see the pic) and Concepcion. Serenity now. I would like nothing ,more than to Concepcion get in, just so the 1000s of baseball card si have of him would be worth a nickel more than the nothing they are worth now. That does not mean he deserves to be in.
January 10, 2008 at 11:11 AM
You think that Bert played his career because he's worried about the damn Hall of Fame? If you have a vote and it's turned because of his self-promoting, you keep your vote. He doesn't need the Hall of Fame to justify that he put his butt on the line and he worked his tail off. And I defy anybody to say he did it by cheating or taking any shortcuts. OK?
January 10, 2008 at 11:59 AM
Can I take a drink of water? Is that OK?
January 10, 2008 at 12:38 PM
This press conference (that I called) is over.
January 10, 2008 at 12:55 PM
Luke just gets a little excited when people bash his boyhood hero (I became him manhood hero in B-school.)
Chuck, I read that article to be a little tounge and cheek. I think the guy was goofin' around but still didn't put Bert in the HOF.
What is amazing is the lack of starting pitchers put in the HOF. This is from Jim Caple "In fact, only 12 starters have been elected in the past 32 years and only four in the past 15. The last starter elected was Nolan Ryan in 1999. Since Ryan, we have elected 12 position players and three closers. And looking at the upcoming classes, no starter joining the ballot in the next four years will likely get voted in, either. That means unless voters have a change of heart on Bert Blyleven or Jack Morris, we'll go 14 years without the writers electing a starting pitcher."
January 10, 2008 at 1:01 PM
Actually my boyhood hero was Shazam, and my current manhood hero is no longer Per, but Cash Warren... sorry Per, nothing you did in B-school (such as skip class, or quote TV/movies, can compare with Cash has been able to do... that bastard)
January 10, 2008 at 8:34 PM
1. Jessica Alba - I just don't get it. She's talentless and has been handed the keys to the city because she's puppy dog cute? Jessica Biel is much more my style.
2. I'm pretty sure that Page 2 article was a spoof. 'Aint no such person.
3. It's way too hard to get into the Hall as a pitcher. There are so many more starting pitchers in the history of the game than anything else, there should be more of them than anything else in the Hall. Probably goes back to the axiom that fans just don't appreciate pitching the same way they do offense.
January 11, 2008 at 4:50 PM
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