Hall Of Fame Vote

One thing I've noticed about anti-PED crusaders who have no problem with amphetamine (greenie) users and pre-integration players is they never quantify, or prove, how much of an edge PED's gave to the users, or establish that the PED-edge was greater than that provided to amphetamine or pre-integration (or substitute other form of edge) players. In fact you can't really find a single systematic study that quantifies in an uncontrovertible way the particular edge that PED-users received. We can speculate rationally that home run power increases, but we can't quantify the "marginal" advantage that users received if other pitchers and hitters were also using PEDs at the time. One interesting anecdote from the Game of Shadows book about Bonds is that he tore a muscle during the first season of PED use related to the increased weightlifting. Twas a case where PED's took away massive playing time (I think it was 1999, the first year he started, the year after Sosa/McGwire broke Maris' record). We have a large quantity of outrage but very little quantification of the nature of the edge itself.

I also don't get the "its called the Hall of FAME" defense for inducting the likes of Jeter instead of Trammell. It should be about identifying the greatest, not the most well known players. And if its the latter, you might as well put the extremely famous Bonds and Clemens and McGwire and Sosa in too. The more "character" is imported into the decision making the less accurate the HOF becomes as a museum of history, warts and all. It becomes a revisionist, whitewashing endeavor that is far less interesting.

Call it the "Hall of the pretty much always excellent , widely popular guys who didn't piss off the sportswriter crowd over the course of their careers".

I suppose there could be room for leaving the HOF alone exactly as it is and starting up a separate Hall that focused on identifying objectively the greatest players of all time. Wins and losses on the field, that's it, that's all that matters.

Strether I think the argument is weak, but I honestly wasn't intending for that to come off as rude on a personal level. I'm trying to be "nice". Seriously.

Have a good day.

I appreciate that, TN, and I believe you. However, for future's sake, calling someone's argument "weak" or anything derogatory is impolite. If you think anything I say is weak, you shouldn't have to say it is. You should just be able to show it is.

Again, I appreciate the effort and will make the same on my part.

One thing I've noticed about anti-PED crusaders who have no problem with amphetamine (greenie) users and pre-integration players is they never quantify, or prove, how much of an edge PED's gave to the users, or establish that the PED-edge was greater than that provided to amphetamine or pre-integration (or substitute other form of edge) players. In fact you can't really find a single systematic study that quantifies in an uncontrovertible way the particular edge that PED-users received. We can speculate rationally that home run power increases, but we can't quantify the "marginal" advantage that users received if other pitchers and hitters were also using PEDs at the time. One interesting anecdote from the Game of Shadows book about Bonds is that he tore a muscle during the first season of PED use related to the increased weightlifting. Twas a case where PED's took away massive playing time (I think it was 1999, the first year he started, the year after Sosa/McGwire broke Maris' record). We have a large quantity of outrage but very little quantification of the nature of the edge itself.

I'm not a crusader. I believe in fair play, and I don't believe cheaters should be honored. In a HOF for our national pastime so important to our youth, I believe that moreso.

I don't know the studies well, and I would never claim to. However, they have shown that PED's did increase an athlete's ability to work out, as well as the time he could work out. So, it did show that players benefited from use of PED's. One only needed to look at the staggering body shifts in players like Bonds, Giambi, and Brady Anderson. Just because no study can exactly quantify an effect, doesn't mean it can't successfully assert that effect exists. Any meteorologist relying on chaos theory or Physicist relying on quantum physics will say the same thing.

So, there's no outrage here, just cool equanimity. And the absence of pure quantification does not negate the authenticity of studies on PED's and their effects on baseball players.

Yes, it really is.

You didn't counter what I said, Niners. I said all decent beat writers stay abreast of the rest of baseball and they do. With all due respect to your anecdotal experience, most (if not all) baseball markets do have newspapers with writers covering their local team. They also mostly stay abreast of what other teams are doing as well. With the internet, they certainly don't have to see the competition up close to do so, and it costs their newspapers nothing.

As I've said before, I have no problem with the makeup of the panel of voters changing to meet the times. However, sportswriters are (and would be) particularly and specially knowledged voters vital to a successful voting process.


P.s. What exactly did you do in TV? It sounds interesting.

Here's the crux of where we see things differently. I disagree that they don't need to see the other teams in person. Catching highlights on the internet or ESPN, should not be the primary source that these guys use as the basis for their votes, and yet many of them are doing just that. Do I expect that every writer is going to have seen every guy eligible in person? aAtually I'd hope that yeah they would, but given that they don't, I really feel the voting panel should be expanded.


As for my television experience, I started in production as a camera and teleprompter operator, worked into audio and video tape as well as station master control. After I got my 4 year degree, I became a TV director/technical director(switcher operator). I did local news mostly, in Syracuse NY, Providence RI and Buffalo NY. I've been a stay at home dad for the last 7 years as my wife was smart enough to go into the money end of the business, TV advertising sales.

I have friends in the business from the network level on down. ( ABC Anchor DaviD Muir was a freshman whom I directed as a senior in college for our weekly newscasts). My college room mate is a multi emmy award winning video editor for ESPN. I know Directors and production folks that have worked Olympics and Super Bowls. It's a small incestious business and it gets smaller everyday. That said I hope to be back at it within the next calendar year now that my kids are almost old enough to start driving themselves hither and yon.

I think baseball players thoughout all baseball history have sought "edges" on a daily basis that equal, or exceed greatly, that unquantifiable edge that PED's supposedly provide. Moreover the line between what is "cheating" and what is simply trying to win gets pretty blurry the closer you examine things, and I'm not saying that as some nihilist or moral relativist.

Some examples. Does it violate baseball's rules to steal signs that the catcher sends to the pitcher? Absolutely not, and yet attempts to do that are met with intense moral opprobrium, including violence in the form of fastballs thrown at the head, risking death, and outright brawls. Did the Bobby Thompson-Giants "cheat" by stealing signs through the outfield-relay system in their incredible come-from-behind pennant run? Well not in the sense of violating actual baseball rules, and yet many modern observers think it did cheapen completely their efforts.

More examples. It's widely accepted that Maddux and Glavine were given anywhere from a half foot to a foot outside of the strike zone by most major league umpires who didn't provide the same advantage to other pitchers. Eric Gregg gave Livan Hernandez a couple feet outside the strike zone during the Marlins 2003 championship postseason. Did Maddux and Glavine "cheat" by knowingly exploiting the "outside" strike over and over again? Well, nothing they did violated the baseball rules. And yet they were knowingly engaged in conduct that provided them with a clearly unfair advantage of receiving non-rulebook strikes that weren't provided to other pitchers.

On the other hand pre-2004 roid users violated rarely-enforced criminal laws of society by taking those drugs, yet they didn't violate baseball's rules by doing so, and it's utterly apparent that baseball's authorities allowed them to do it until Congressional pressure forced the issue by 2004. If Professors never enforce a university rule against using calculators during final exam math tests, isn't it absolute folly not to use one if you're graded on a curve and others are using them? Does that really make you a "cheater" under those circumstances?

Here's another example where "cheating" is a more complicated concept that most are willing to admit. Bonds brought personal health risks upon himself by taking roids, but didn't endanger anybody else physically. He is roundly condemned by most baseball "pundits" as being the worst of the worst. Yet many of those same old-time pundits bemoan that pitchers aren't allowed to "pitch inside" or "brushback hitters" anymore (i.e, they are bemoaning the social stigma that prevents pitchers from literally endangering batter lives by throwing at their heads, as Bob Gibson and Drysdale and Marichal routinely did in the 1960's). It's not always easy to prove a "brushback" intent when a balls heads towards someone's head, and absent such proven intent there is no rule violation. And yet we know that pitchers still to this day throw brushback pitches that won't be considered rule-violations yet which endanger health.

Was the first middle infielder who engaged in the "phantom tag" of second base "playing by the rules" since umpires let him get away with it? Well it violated the rules to miss the bag, so to intentionally do that over and over seems to be "cheating" yet if never enforced is it "cheating" any more to do so. De jure cheating versus de facto cheating.

Anyway, entire books have been written on this subject and I think that what constitutes cheating and what doesn't is a sufficiently complicated subject that HOF voters should be constrained from simply shouting "cheater" and voting according to whatever trendy sentiment about character is prevailing at their time. It should be harder than that, much harder, to keep the monstrous talents of Bonds, Clemens, etc out of a museum of history's greatest baseball players.

Kids aren't dumb, either. One can include "cheaters" and ped USERS and wife beaters and assorted reprobates in the Hall of Fame, yet include exhibits which educate about the risk of PED's and explain the phenomenon. Induction into the Hall of Fame isn't canonization into moral Sainthood, and affirmative steps can be taken to ensure that is made eminently clear to young observers.

Call it the "Hall of the pretty much always excellent , widely popular guys who didn't piss off the sportswriter crowd over the course of their careers".

Not nearly as catchy.

On the HOF being a museum of history. Good point but as a museum of history does it even need members? As a visitor walks through this museum and sees a plaque commemorating Ruth for his long holding of the HR record, then one for Aaron for breaking it, then one for Bonds for breaking that is not the history side fulfulled? I bet there is some display or plaque showing Rose as the all time hits leader. What does membership actually add to the history function of the museum? Really nothing in my view. The membership thing is just for ego and status and something for us to talk about. And through that talking free advertising that leads to more visitors. Other than that does it really matter who is in and who is not?

Quite the manifesto, teamnasty.

Moreover the line between what is "cheating" and what is simply trying to win gets pretty blurry the closer you examine things, and I'm not saying that as some nihilist or moral relativist.

I'm sure you're not a moral relativist, but that is moral relativism. By effectively erasing the moral difference, you make nothing cheating. As to brushback pitches, phantom tags, and stealing signs, they are and have been an accepted ancillary part of the game. Nobody in MLB considers phantom taggers or sign-stealers cheaters. As to Maddux and Glavine, whatever advantages given to them by umpires were not of their own doing, therefore their taking advantage of them is not cheating. Umpires give latitude to many star players; that shouldn't disqualify them either.

On the other hand pre-2004 roid users violated rarely-enforced criminal laws of society by taking those drugs, yet they didn't violate baseball's rules by doing so, and it's utterly apparent that baseball's authorities allowed them to do it until Congressional pressure forced the issue by 2004.

I will repeat again, the roiders did damage the game by taking illegall PEDs. They did so in three ways:

1. Their roid-assisted accomplishments on the field stole wins from opposing teams--with no or fewer roided players--and their fans.

2. Their roid-assisted accomplishments stole records from honest, diligent players like Maris and Aaron.

3. Their roid-assisted statistics cost non-roided players--with uninflated statistics--money in contract and arbitration negotiations

That is cheating causing significant harm to the game, its players, and its fans. Such harmful cheating does not deserve the reward of the HOF.

Kids aren't dumb, either. One can include "cheaters" and ped USERS and wife beaters and assorted reprobates in the Hall of Fame, yet include exhibits which educate about the risk of PED's and explain the phenomenon. Induction into the Hall of Fame isn't canonization into moral Sainthood, and affirmative steps can be taken to ensure that is made eminently clear to young observers.

You're right. Kids aren't dumb. They are particularly smart about recognizing hypocrisy in grown-ups. If they see a display preaching about the risks of PED's in the HOF and then see PED users celebrated in the HOF, they'll know the preaching is hollow and hypocritical. We don't want that. The HOF may not be a shrine for sainthood. However, it is a temple honoring Baseball, its virtues, and ideals. Honoring cheaters and PED users while preaching against such activities doesn't fit that end.

Niners,

Thanks for sharing about your career. It sounds like you had an interesting one and have an equally interesting one now.

We can just agree to disagree on the sportswriters. Our views on the voting panel are pretty close.

Niners,

Thanks for sharing about your career. It sounds like you had an interesting one and have an equally interesting one now.

We can just agree to disagree on the sportswriters. Our views on the voting panel are pretty close.

No problem and yeah it had it's moments but sure beat flipping burgers for a living or spinning pizzas. (Both of which I've also done)

And sure, not so much a huge disagreement, I think we both agree the process should change, just don't see eye to eye on the veracity of writers being the sole gatekeepers to the hall.