Now we all know that there are distressing things happening in the world of baseball, and sometimes we treat them like the elephant in the punch bowl that nobody will talk about.
Well I'm here to talk about it. I'm here to talk about the controversy regarding today's baseball hall of fame vote. It's there and we have to get through it.
My feeling is that baseball had a chance to make a significant statement today and failed miserably. The results show that the process needs to be blown up and started all over again. Baseball needs to revisit the criteria for deciding who gets to vote for the most hallowed ground that baseball has to offer. It's obvious to me that certain people need to have their votes taken away.
Namely, the two writers who voted for Bobby Bonilla.
Were these voters raised by wolves?
I mean, you want to hand in blank ballots and make a statement about steroids? Fine by me. This was a season in which Tom Seaver's record percentage of "YES" vote percentage was truly in jeopardy considering the players up for election. But there were dopes back then who handed in blank ballots so why shouldn't there be dopes now? I for one am glad that Seaver's record lives for another year.
You want to vote for Mark McGwire? No skin off my nose. Hey, there's no real evidence that McGwire cheated anyway...just circumstantial evidence and a stonewalling of congress. And what's a few denials among friends, right?
But you know what there is evidence of? There's evidence that Bobby Bonilla wore earplugs to drown out boos. There's evidence that Bobby Bonilla threatened to show a reporter...a reporter that's about twenty years older than him..."The Bronx". There's evidence that Bobby Bonilla played cards with Rickey Henderson while the rest of the team was fighting for their lives during the 1999 playoffs. And you know what other evidence is out there? There's evidence that in between all of this, Bonilla hit a home run during Game 7 of a World Series...for somebody else!
A vote for Bobby Bonilla is a vote for earplugs.
A vote for Bobby Bonilla is a vote for bullying.
A vote for Bobby Bonilla is a vote for card playing during the playoffs.
A vote for Bobby Bonilla is a vote for signing one of the richest contracts in the history of baseball, earning that money by arguing error calls with official scorers, then waiting until leaving the team that paid him eleven dollars a minute to shed his extra pounds and become a postseason hero for someone else!
I can't wait until the 2017 Hall of Fame ballot when two similarly oxygen deprived baseball writers decide that they're going to make a statement and vote for a guy that assaulted a Fenway Park groundskeeper, urinated on the wall of a pizza place before assaulting a delivery boy, and waited until leaving the Mets to get into shape, hit 34 home runs for some team called the Orix Buffaloes, and then sign with the Phillies for the express purpose of getting a key hit to knock the Mets out of the 2007 playoffs.
Damn you in advance, Karim Garcia.
6 comments:
I'm glad somebody else wondered who the Bonilla and Canseco voters were.
I'm kinda surprised about McGwire and not really sure how I feel about it.
On the one hand it seems clear that the Hall isn't gonna be sullied by the likes of Sammy Sosa, "Viagra" Palmero, and their steroid era ilk no matter what their number. That's a good thing
On the other hand I can understand the argument that McGwire dominated the league and was at the top of his class whenever he was on the field. If we're gonna have anybody from the "steroid era" elected it has to be based on their dominance of the league... not on conjecture as to the source of said dominance and certainly on (clearly) irrelevant career totals.
However.
The best justification for not voting McGwire is the fact that, although he was undeniably dominant from the moment he arrived, he was also wracked with injuries. It's pretty clear that his sudden magical ability to stay in the lineup as he "matured" wasn't exactly natural.
The saddest thing about Big Mac is that if the lanky rookie with the scary talent that he was had been able to stay healthy, he wouldn't have needed the juice to do what he did.
p.s. Congrats to Tony Gwynn... my all time favorite non Met of the since-I-was-old-enough-to-watch era.
My question is who DIDN'T vote for Ripken or Gwynn? Or Seaver or Ryan for that matter? Shouldn't these guys be getting 100% of the vote? Did some reporter say to himself "Gwynn . . . .338 career batting average . . . nope, gotta hit .340 to make the cut in my book."
Bobby Bonilla Oh, sorry - I thought that "Bobby Bo" was "Bobby Bonds".
Please join in speaking up about the serious political problems in baseball awards voting. I've studied and written about the problem extensively. I can only assume people accept a bad system because that's the mindset socialism brings.ie What's the use in caring.
One small correction to your excellent rant -- it's the Orix Blue Wave (the Buffaloes are sponsored by Kintetsu). I don't precisely know what Blue Wave the Orix people are referring to, or perhaps it's the ORix Blue company with the Wave being the equivalent of the name "Mets", or maybe someone in the front office of Orix thought their ballclub should be the five-syllable line of a haiku (yes, it's five - in Japanese, "wave" is pronounced "way-voo").
You know that makes sense...I knew Orix was the Blue Wave but I know that I read Orix Buffaloes in reference to Karim so I just thought they changed their name or something. My bad.
It's just easier to blame Karim Garcia.
Thank you!
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