Mariano Rivera's the ultimate relief pitcher and, in some utopian voting process, he'd be a unanimous selection to the Baseball Hall of Fame in this, his first year on the ballot.
He won't be, of course. And I think that's just fine.
In 2016, Ken Griffey Jr. was named on 437 of 440 ballots. Which meant three voters, none of whom were identified or spoke up, failed to check the box of our generation's greatest talent. And predictably, the howls came from everywhere: Find these people! Strip them of their vote! Take the ballots from all the writers!
Yeah, rather than focusing on Junior getting an all-time record 99.3 percent of the vote, the baseball community went the route of a witch hunt.
Man, does that stuff tick me off.
First off, at the risk of touching on a political topic, the very foundation of the country in which we live -- and in which 29 of MLB's 30 teams are based -- is democracy.
Think about it: A voting process that pressures or excludes in any way isn't democratic. And because of that, our emphasis in a democracy is only on the outcome, whether or not the candidate got the most votes. Even in presidential elections, out of 300 million people, you'll have citizens casting write-in votes for Mickey Mouse, Spongebob Squarepants, Hitler, Stalin, their pets, you name it. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't impact the overall process.
Second, although baseball's process generates more complaints than all other halls of fame combined, it's still got by far the best process.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame assembles closed-door committees in which local beat writers are awkwardly asked to make arguments for players they covered. Never mind that it could fly in the face of journalistic principles -- wouldn't that player try to curry favor with that writer all through his playing career? -- but it's also not seen, read or heard by the fans, the people that care the most. Someone just emerges before the Super Bowl and reads off the list.
The Hockey Hall of Fame is even worse. It's made up of a 19-man selection committee that includes, for some insane reason, Brian Burke and Colin Campbell, the sport's longest-tenured dinosaurs, as well as NBC analyst Pierre McGuire, with only one Russian (Igor Larionov) and zero representatives from non-Scandinavian Europe. It's a whole lot of Canadians, basically. And here, like football, no one sees, reads or hears anything about the process.
By comparison, baseball's is as open as it gets. Because writers who have votes, like me and John Perrotto here at our site, almost always delve into great detail about why we chose the way we did. And the Baseball Writers Association of America, in search of even greater transparency, now publishes the results of all our votes, including those for annual individual honors, on our association's site.
So, a handful of voters are idiots or weirdos?
Big whoop.
The great Rivera deserves so much better than to have that be the distraction when he gets his due.
And candidly, I hope he doesn't go in unanimously, because then we'd have to come to grips with Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Nolan Ryan, Cal Ripken, Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth and Pittsburgh's own greatest player, Honus Wagner, having received lesser recognition. And for the record, 11 voters left Wagner off their ballots (215 of 226 votes) with the inaugural class in 1936, and 31 left Roberto Clemente off (393 of 424 votes) when the BBWAA called the special election in 1973 months after his death.
The system works. It's unsightly at times, but that's only because we can actually see it.
MY BALLOT
Before continuing on to further ranting, here are the selections I made for 2018 before the Hall's Dec. 31 deadline:
Mariano Rivera
Roy Halladay
Edgar Martinez
Mike Mussina
Curt Schilling
Rivera doesn't need my testimonial. No reliever touches his achievements, and never again should anyone debate the value of the superstar closer within the Cooperstown context.
Halladay, the only other first-year choice on my ballot, is more involved. Of his 16 seasons, he had only nine in which he pitched 150-plus innings. But he had a decade that ranked right up there in baseball history for dominance by a starter, finishing in the top five in Cy Young voting seven times with two outright victories. He pitched two no-hitters in a single season, one of five men ever to do so. His tragic death flying his own plane in November 2017 added emotion to the tale of a player already beloved in both Toronto and Philadelphia, as well as across baseball.
The best counter I can conceive for Halladay's entry is that this is his first year, except that I've never understood why that mattered. There's nothing in the voting guidelines about the first-time entry holding more weight than a second, third or even the maximum 10 years on which a player stays on our ballot. The plaque and presentation are all the same.
A voter can choose up to 10 players. Here again, I've no idea why there's urging in some quarters to go all the way to 10. If a voter feels there aren't 10 players worthy of the Hall, why would he or she vote for 10, right?
As you can see up there, I chose five. The two newcomers, two holdovers in Martinez and Mussina, and Schilling returning after I left him off in 2017.
Martinez and Mussina are eminently deserving. Edgar, in particular, is in his final year on the ballot, and he'll probably achieve the necessary 75 percent of the vote after cresting last year at 70.4 percent. Mussina was right behind him on the fringe at 63.5 percent. Given that the first-year class isn't all that great beyond Rivera and Halladay, and given that a lot of voters do fill up the maximum selections, I'll be stunned if both Martinez and Mussina aren't in.
Schilling ... is a strange case.
I voted for him in 2016, as his baseball credentials clearly warrant that. But he went so far beyond the pale with some remarks and actions after that -- look them up, this guy isn't worth my time -- that I felt he crossed into foul territory of the character section of the qualifications. That's obviously subjective. Someone else might see it differently. But again, that's why there are a lot of us doing this voting, so various voices and views are heard.
At any rate, Schilling hasn't caused any stir since then, certainly nothing of a similar scale. As such, and since his conduct didn't impact, directly or indirectly, his baseball career, I've put him back. I'm holding my nose in doing so, but I've put him back.
I'm allowed to still hope he gets a flat tire on the way to the ceremony, right?
In closing here: I generally avoid getting too deep in discussing players I leave off, as it can come across as unwittingly disrespectful. But I'll add here that the most consideration of the other first-timers went to Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettitte and Todd Helton. Oh, and that it was at least fun to see Jason Bay's name pop up, as it was a good time covering his entire career in Pittsburgh. Wonderful guy, made the most of everything he had, and did it all with a smile.
THE BACKGROUND
For anyone who’s new to this site, here are the three standards for voting I’ve set for myself that I share on each of my three ballots to date:
1. The research I’ve committed to this was my own. I studied my own finalists’ histories in as many forms as I could find, from old stats to new, from major achievements to memorable impact.
2. The approaches to difficult decisions were based on a combined goal of careful thought, consistent applications of my own precedents, but also an open mind to conceding when I might have been wrong. In other words, I didn’t care what anyone else thought before casting this vote, and I sure as Harvey Haddix won’t care now that it’s cast.
3. The guidelines I’ve followed are those outlined for us by the BBWAA, which also happen to be the very same guidelines the Hall wrote for the very first class in 1936. And again, that includes the character clause, which hasn’t changed over all these years. (If you want to yell at someone about Cobb having been one very bad dude, they’re probably no longer around to hear it.)
Here’s the official clause, by the way, verbatim:
“5. Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
THE CHEATERS
A few thoughts on those who used illegal substances to cheat, since that tends to consume only about three-quarters of all Hall debates:
• When the Hall and/or MLB decides it wants the voters to stop weighing “integrity, sportsmanship, character,” they can and must remove that clause. They’re the only ones empowered to do that. Not the writers. Only them.
• It’s become the cool thing in some circles to dismiss PEDs as if they shouldn’t matter to the Hall. Which is insane. Cheating is cheating. It runs counter to the very fabric of sportsmanship, and thus, sport.
• It’s become equally cool to bash the BBWAA for acting as holier-than-thou or judge, jury and executioner. This is, of course, nonsense, for the reason I just outlined and for the fact the Hall and MLB are all too happy to pass the buck to the writers. They keep out the players they don’t want in the Hall, and we get the grief.
Which, to be totally honest, is fine by me. I’ll follow the guidelines precisely as written and weigh “integrity, sportsmanship, character,” with an inclusion of those connected to PEDs, because cheating the public, your peers and the game doesn’t exactly fit any of those three traits.
In other words, I’ll vote for Barry Bonds or his ilk only when the guideline is changed by the Hall and/or MLB. But I’m not holding my breath. To repeat, they don’t want Bonds in the Hall. Unless, of course, they can explain why the former commissioner essentially refused to acknowledge Bonds breaking the most hallowed record in our nation’s long sporting history.
Anyway, no need to end this on a down note. The Hall itself and America’s pastime as a whole should be celebrated, and I extend best wishes to all five of the gentlemen above. The results will be announced Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, at 6 p.m. on MLB Network.
