As I was driving home the other night, I was listening to
Casey Stern and Jim Bowden on the MLB Network Radio channel on XM. They were discussing with Jill Painter, the L.A.
Daily News sports columnist, the Baseball Hall of Fame vote which took place
Wednesday. This is the same Jill Painter, member of the Baseball Writers Association of America who thought it
made perfect sense to cast one of her Hall of Fame votes for the former Blue
Jay, Dodger, Diamondback and Met, Shawn Green.
As she was engaging in verbal kabuki, explaining her vote, I could
almost feel the indignation boiling over from the two hosts. Big kudos goes out to both Bowden and Stern for
having the combined patience of a saint.
That interview alone should earn them a few Marconi votes in my view.
It’s a good thing I don’t do radio; I wouldn’t have been
nearly as diplomatic as they were. As if
there wasn’t enough preordained controversy with this year’s crop of
candidates, we get this nonsense and I’m not even going to enrage you with her supposed
rationale. I have too much respect for
you to even try. It’s almost as bad as
the one vote that someone gave Aaron Sele.
Again, not going to enrage you with the facts, you can look up Sele’s pathetic
career statistics here if you wish. Then
you have my permission to curse uncontrollably - - and yes you can practice reading
that line in your best Bane voice. Or
Darrell Hammond’s Sean Connery as I believe they’re one in the same.
Call me naïve but I was always under the impression that
those having been afforded the privilege of a Hall of Fame vote would show just
a modicum of respect towards it. I’m
not the only one who thinks this way as does the great Metstradamus. But this is unfortunately the year that common
sense, fairness and respect for the game clearly went over the edge of the
train tracks faster than a New York City subway commuter. Ouch.
Now I’ve been very sympathetic to the plight the writers
have when it comes to wading through the waters that PED’s have polluted in
Major League Baseball. But like
Metstradamus, when voters use their privilege to make some grand statement (i.e.
voting no one in), peppered with some who find it – I don’t know – comical, to
vote for the likes of Sele and Green, it simply demonstrates to me that
stupidity isn’t determined by who you write for or what and if you get paid for
writing it.
At least I didn't Nair for short shorts Marty. |
When the likes of Marty Noble, someone I’ve always had
tremendous respect for, thinks that because Mike Piazza had an abundance
of—wait for it—back hair, during his time as a Dodger and decides to connect
the follicles and assume that it meant Piazza used. It shows me just how far we’ve fallen as a
people more than anything. We’ll believe
the very worst of each other just to protect our own vanity because God forbid
a player is later found to have juiced.
We can’t have writers dealing with pangs of remorse now can
we? To top it off, Noble then ironically
said that as a Met, Piazza had a hairless back, which is ALSO a symptom of
steroid use. So if Piazza essentially played
with Robin William’s back he’s using yet if he’s smoother than an Abercrombie
model he’s also using? Absolutely pathetic,
especially that never, not once, has Piazza been accused or named in any report
or tested positive for any performance enhancing drugs.
I always believed that MLB needs to be far more proactive of
a guide for the BBWAA when it comes to Hall of Fame voting and steroids. I wrote a piece for Metsmerized in early 2011
calling for Bud Selig to commission a panel exploring the effects that PED’s
have on actual playing performance. Of
course Selig and MLB want absolutely nothing further to do with this issue—at least
not what happened in the past. One
bright spot happened a few days ago when the MLB Players Association and MLB
agreed to year round drug testing for Human Growth Hormone and
Testosterone.
I guess 3000 hits just ain't what they used to be huh? |
The BBWAA and their writers refused to vote for some players
and based it on innuendo and unproven allegations; and that is shameful itself. In part I can understand their fear of
enshrining someone who later is proven to have used PED’s as players elected cannot
be removed from the Hall of Fame. My
question is why is that? Hypothetically
if a Hall of Famer does something illegal, whether during or after their
playing career, why are they not immediately open to removal? That, in my opinion, would allow the writers
to choose players based on their careers and not on speculation.
George Orwell was quoted as saying:
“Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent.”
Now the real question remains, who was Orwell talking about;
the players or the writers?
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