Major League Baseball

Can Hall of Fame save voters from themselves?

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 10:20 p.m. ET

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As I’ve written a few times, Bob Ryan’s one of the better writers of his generation, and I just wish he’d covered more baseball in his career. Still, he’s a HUGE fan and has written many thousands of words worth reading about sports in his career. In his latest column, Ryan fires a preliminary shot across the bows of every Hall of Fame voter who doesn’t choose Pedro Martinez, presumably because it’s Pedro’s first time on the ballot ...

Uh, I think I can answer this one. Considering it was 20 in 1966, 23 in 1969, and 23 again in 1979, I think we might guess these were mostly the same voters, none of whom believed that anyone should be unanimous. Well, except a bunch of them seem to have made an exception for Henry Aaron.

What’s more, I have two quibbles with Ryan’s quibble.

One, why does it really matter if someone’s unanimous? Wait, I know the answer! It’s because if you didn’t vote for Willie Mays, you shouldn’t have been allowed to vote at all. It’s because if you don’t vote for Randy Johnson – or Pedro Martinez, I guess, although it’s not impossible to argue that Pedro doesn’t belong in Ryan’s group of “somewhere between 50 and 75 players” – you shouldn’t be allowed to vote at all.

But what is a vote for Randy Johnson, but a wasted vote? Going in, you know that Randy Johnson’s going to be elected. As I wrote last week, I have essentially no compunction at all about 11 candidates. You’re allowed to vote for only 10 candidates. If I don’t vote for Johnson – by the way, of course I’m speaking hypothetically, since the Hall of Fame and the BBWAA don’t consider me qualified to vote – then I can vote for Craig Biggio or Tim Raines or John Smoltz or whomever else winds up 11th on my list. I’m not saying this sort of thing has happened often ... but I suspect it happens now more than ever, with the glut of outstanding candidates on the ballot every year. And I’m not convinced that it’s wrong. And it’s possible that voters have been doing this all along. Although I think it was less excusable in the past, when there were rarely more than 10 truly outstanding candidates on the ballot.

Really, then, it comes down to cause. If you’re not voting for Randy Johnson because by golly he’s no Walter Johnson, you really shouldn’t be voting. But if you’re not voting for Randy Johnson because you believe that Randy Johnson doesn’t need your help while Alan Trammell does ... Well, I’m just not sure you’re doing anything wrong.

So there’s that. Then Ryan gets into the real problem with the Hall of Fame ballot:

Hey, look! Classic Straw Man! I’m not saying that nobody has ever criticized a voter for caring. For caring deeply. There are a lot of crazy people out there. But voters have been criticized, yes, for being self-righteous, as many of them have been. Voters have been criticized for failing to draw meaningful distinctions between steroids and amphetamines, because very few of the voters have even tried (let alone succeeded). Voters have been criticized for relying on innuendo rather than evidence.

Voters have very, very rarely been criticized for caring. And it’s really not helpful for Bob Ryan to try throwing everyone off the scent by suggesting otherwise.

Is his suggestion for the Hall of Fame helpful?

Maybe. I’m not sure if the “integrity clause” in the voting guidelines has done a single damn thing over the decades except for costing the steroid guys some votes. Would the voters have elected Shoeless Joe Jackson without the clause? I really doubt it. Carl Mays? I don’t think so.

By the same logic, though, I don’t think getting rid of the clause would change much. As things stand now, the integrity clause is more of an excuse than a cause. How many voters are sitting there saying, “Gee, I was about to vote for Barry Bonds but then I remembered that little bit about integrity and changed my mind.”

Not many, I’ll bet.

Would a few votes change? Sure. Maybe enough to get Piazza elected. Maybe someday enough to get Bagwell elected. But the big guys? Clemens and Bonds both fell around 230 votes short last year. There’s no way that removing a few words from the voting guidelines, and maybe adding a few about numbers and accomplishments only will gain 200-some votes for those guys. Not soon, anyway.

Which doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea. But for the process to regain some of its lost credibility, the Hall of Fame needs a bunch of good ideas. 

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