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We always welcome guest posts from our readers, and today we feature the first from Michael Keedy. In light of the recently-uncovered sign-stealing scandal, he has an interesting take on Hall-of-Fame selection qualifications and wonders if significant change is needed. If I’m reading him correctly, he’s basically saying, “Lets once-and-for-all put aside all the ‘goody-two-shoes’ stuff and evaluate what the player did on the field.”
Even if you don’t agree with Michael, I think he raises some interesting points that merit consideration. Anyway, I think you’ll enjoy what Michael has to say, even if he is perhaps speaking a bit sarcastically. Feel free to leave comments below.
[Editor’s Followup: When Michael sent this to me, I wasn’t exactly sure if he was speaking “tongue-in-cheek,” or if we should take him a face value. I’m a little slow so he had to explain to me he was being totally cynical and the piece is dripping in sarcasm (What’s the old saying if you have to explain it…?). That also clarifies the reference to Johnathan Swift, which went over my head. So before you jump all over Michael, I encourage you to read his response to my question in the comments section below where he explains his real feelings about the Hall of Fame selections! -Gary]
Is It Time To Reevaluate Hall-of-Fame Selection Qualifications?
Now that the Houston Asterisks have been caught, tried, convicted and sentenced by The Lords of major league baseball (thank you Dr. Manfred), more and more writers seem to be softening up to the idea of rationalizing and eventually ignoring the alleged malfeasance of Hall-of-Fame wannabes such as Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and perhaps even the likes of Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.
Gee, the apparent thinking goes, if we’re going to cast our votes down the road to induct guys like Carlos Beltran, Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and so forth (and we clearly intend to), then how can we justify slamming the door to Cooperstown on the faces of supposed juicers who were never caught stealing the opposing teams’ signs?
The time may have come for The Baseball Writers Association of America simply to acknowledge that cheating in our National Pastime is now and shall forever remain perfectly acceptable—or at least tolerable—and hence a non-issue when it comes to evaluating the lives and careers of eligible inductees going forward. Bending and breaking the rules is so rampant in this so-called technological age that it’s really impossible to stop, and often too daunting a challenge even to detect.
Hall of Fame facade
In the featured photo, we see Babe Ruth delivering his Hall-of-Fame induction speech. Too bad we don’t have a transcript from that speech!
Worse, most writers probably don’t relish having to sift through and distinguish among multiple permutations of cheating, e.g., performance-enhancing pharmaceuticals vs. sign-stealing vs. the next new and sophisticated way to win at all costs. They would rather set aside nagging ethical considerations in favor of concentrating on the length and magnitude of a candidate’s playing history and call it good. After all! Who wants to be an arbiter of character and righteous conduct now that The Hall’s turnstiles are spinning at warp-speed anyway, and we’re all in the intoxicating business of voting guys in rather than calling them out?
It is against this rising tide of indifference to the spirit and significance of sportsmanship that I offer the following Modest Proposal, with apologies to Jonathan Swift: It is time for the movers and shakers at the Hall of Fame to grab the white-out and eliminate a few key, time-honored but increasingly inconvenient criteria for enshrinement, to wit: Integrity, character, sportsmanship, and contribution to the game. This will leave “record” and “playing ability” as the only legitimate measures of a guy’s entitlement to admission.
In other words, it will clear the way for writers to focus on stats, which is what most of them are doing as it is, and vastly prefer to be doing. As a practical matter, then, the gates to induction can finally swing open to worthies-in-wait such as Bonds, Clemens, Sosa and McGwire; Alex Rodriguez and everybody else who could hit the ball deep and often, play offense into his mid-40s while piling on the numbers perpetually, or light up a radar-gun years after his on-field career should have been over. Then too, maybe it will be time to dial up Pete Rose, Rafael Palmeiro, the long-suffering heirs of Joe Jackson, and hey – the sky is really the only limit here, and statistics are everything.
Let us all now break ground for a new and industrial-sized wing in Cooperstown. Those old halls may not be so hallowed, actually, in years to come, but let us remember what is most important: They will be grander, gaudier, more expansive and more-profitable than The Founders of our National Pastime ever imagined.
Just don’t save me a ticket. I’ll be devoting my precious remaining years to the World Wrestling Federation.
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Michale Needy
Photo Credits: All from Google search
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