The Baseball Hall of Fame remains a great place to visit, even if the annual enshrinement of players has become a traveshamockery for multiple reasons. Still, it’s terrific that someone like Keith Law now has a ballot. It’s behind a paywall but the link takes you to his initial HOF ballot, complete with his voting rationale. Here’s his entry for the first player:
Barry Bonds: I have seen the greatest players of my generation destroyed by sanctimony. We can put in inferior players because their friends are on the various veterans committees. We can put in Bud Selig, who oversaw a work stoppage that nearly killed the industry, then happily looked the other way while performance-enhancing drugs appeared in the game and owners counted their money. We can certainly put in Bonds, who hit more home runs and drew more walks than any other player in history, who retired with the fourth-highest OBP and fifth-highest slugging percentage in history, who won seven MVP awards (and deserved at least two more), who utterly defined the game, for better and perhaps for a bit worse, for a decade. You simply cannot tell the story of Major League Baseball from 1990 to 2010 without discussing the exploits of Barry Bonds. His exclusion to this point is pearl-clutching of the highest order.
Source: Keith Law, ESPN Insider
I wholeheartedly agree and lets put Pete Rose in as well. He had more hits than any other major leaguer in history including Ty Cob who by all biographers was not a nice guy to put it mildly. The HOF should be about the history of the game and Bonds and Rose both played major roles in the formation of MLB history. Thanks for bringing this point up.
I had a conversation about Pete Rose last week, and said that I understand why baseball wants to make him a strong example to make sure everyone knows not to take a bribe. However, I was disappointed in seeing that Shoeless Joe Jackson, who was cleared from participating in the Black Sox scandal, is still being kept out of the Hall of Fame.
As for Bonds, I understand Law’s point, but I really think those steroids had the biggest impact on his recognition of pitches that was amazing clear into his 40’s. Can’t tell me that was normal. If the Hall of Fame had a top-50 wing, where Ruth, DiMaggio, Mays, Spahn, etc., went to, then fine, let all these “bubble guys” in. But, Baines has made every single bubble guy worthy. Those voters shouldn’t be invited back.
You know, LaRussa went to the Front Office of Arizona and ruined that team. Now this vote. Why exactly is he considered some kind of genius, and why am I not seeing it? Is he merely looney?
It’s the baseball hall of fame, not the baseball archives.