Perhaps not caring about the Hall of Fame is a rash decision for the author of a daily newsletter. Sure, it would be a continuing source of personal aggravation. But it's also no doubt a reliable continuing source of newsletter content.
Eh, no worries I guess. Craig always finds something else to discuss, and be his daily source of personal aggravation. He doesn't need the Hall of Fame for that.
I won't argue with you about the Hall, Craig, but I am having too much of a good time enjoying Joe Posanski's 100 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame series and therefore want to keep arguing about who belongs and who doesn't. It doesn't matter much, but it's fun. Usually.
And here is a great article from ESPN's Steve Wulf about Clyde Sukeforth, who no one would argue was a great ballplayer, but whose impact on the game was far bigger than you might guess.
Columbo's first name is probably actually Francesco and not Frank. I kind of see him growing up in a proudly Italian home where some relative, if not his parents, insisted that he would have a proper Italian first name. And he probably kept it till he was drafted, and shifted to Frank. But we all know his REAL first name is Lieutenant.
Completely agree about the Hall of Fame. Here are some words from Bill James in 1994. These don't necessarily reflect his current views because he doesn't tie himself to his old beliefs, but anyway...
"The Hall of Fame selection process was an afterthought to an accident. Cleland had not set out to create a Hall of Fame: he had set out to create a museum, and this had turned into a Hall of Fame...
...For sixty years the Hall of Fame has wandered this way and that, its border becoming more of a splatter than a map. The Hall teases its suitors with inconsistent favors and uncertain standards: yesterday I did, today I won't; I did for him, I won't for you.
The fundamental questions of how many players you want to honor and how you identify the best players in baseball history are questions that the Hall of Fame has never faced directly, and probably never will....
....My own opinion is that the people who want to put Joe Jackson in the Hall are baseball's answer to those women who show up at murder trials wanting to marry the cute murderer."
That's all from the book which was called "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?" because the publisher thought it would sell more that way.
Well, Hall of Fame journalism has always provided a rich seam of amusing nonsense, and I look forward to Craig continuing to ridicule it while pointing out that it doesn't matter anyway.
The Baseball Hall of Fame says more about baseball writers than it does about the sport and its history. It’s a members-only club that also unsurprisingly canonizes writers and broadcasters. It’s a fantastic museum to visit for any fan, but not worthy of more gravitas than that. While reading this morning, I realized that I’ve agreed with Craig’s take for a number of years but he articulated it much better.
Spicy Brown, Dijon, and Stadium should be absolute first ballot Hall of Famers. I would vote for Horseradish but I don’t expect the MWAA to get to 75% agreement before its ten years on the ballot run out. And there’s no way I’d ever vote for Yellow - it’s career WARM is way too low, and is way too much of a compiler.
One player whom I often wonder about whether or not he would still be voted into the Hall of Fame by today’s baseball writers is Rod Carew. His family is really interesting, with him being a member of MLB’s 3,000 hit club and a Hall of Famer, his older brother, Jay, founding a modern-day clothing empire, and his younger brother, Rae, reaching the NFL for the Carolina Panthers before being arrested for plotting a murder.
Would today’s old, cranky baseball writers have held Rae’s illegal acts against Rod’s case for the Hall? Additionally, the head fashion designer at Jay’s clothing company took a lot of heat from conservatives in 2011 for painting her son’s toenails pink in an advertisement. You’d have to think that many of today’s troglodyte-level baseball writers, like Rod “Chinese Virus” Beer Temple, would have no problem keeping Carew out of the Hall for that alone.
In reading the part about the Hall of Fame today, it occurs to me that I cannot think of one guy in the other major sports where people say "Yeah, he's a Hall of Famer based on his accomplishments on the field/court/ice, BUT..."
There's no equivalent of a Barry Bonds, or Roger Clemens, or even Pete Rose; Paul Hornung, to cite a direct comparison, is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite his being suspended for a year for betting on NFL games.
I suppose the BBWAA would point to this fact with pride, proof that baseball is special, but it seems arbitrary to me.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a place every baseball fan should visit. The emphasis of the building is on the latter with the former being an end of tour brief stop in the most dull part of the exhibit.
I treat the plaque room, and membership in it, as a sorta tiered place. For players who were stars when I was young, it is a little bit of nostalgia towards my time of hero worship long since gone. Remembering how 10 year old me felt about Reggie hitting 3 homers or seeing Tom Terrific's drop and drive or Brock's daring on the base paths. Childhood's stars are something special.
For players who were stars when I was an adult, it is pretty dull. I've learned that players are people with, far too often, feet of clay just like the rest of us and no longer come even close to worshiping them for their exploits. I also have formed my own ability to ascertain value without as much reliance on outside voices. I don't want or need the BBWAA or Vets' Comm to tell me about Puckett vs. Mattingly or Morris vs. Steib. My opinion on Barry Bonds or Harold Baines won't budge an inch because of any discussion around Lake Glimmerglass.
But for players who played long before I was alive, induction and the debates around it are a great way to organize history. I would know nothing about Jack Glasscock but for the discussion about whether he should be included. My knowledge of the ABCs - Anson, Brouthers, Connor - is because they were selected. And that is true of players of much more recent vintage too like Robin Roberts or Richie Ashburn.
What I guess I'm saying is that I don't follow the BBWAA choices at all or the modern era VCs either. But I do continue to use the induction debates and history to help guide my study of those from prior years. So (a) the Museum is - by far - the best part of the NBHoFaM and (b) HoF part is still interesting to me as a way to organize my thinking about older generations.
From a pure "performance enhancing" standpoint, why are PEDs bad and LASIK acceptable? What about Tommy John surgery? I think there is a good case to be made that if you can't make it to the Hall with the body parts God gave you, in their original locations, then you don't belong in the HOF at all.
One thing I should delve into -- did Hall of Fames exist before Baseball's Hall? Had the concept been around for a while?
Anyway, Craig's comments are pretty consistent with my view of the HoF, and I've felt that way for a number of years. A Hall of Fame is inherently a self-defining institution, and that definition usually changes over time to the point where the honor, from an outsider's perspective, is irrelevant. But that doesn't mean that it can't be a decent time waster to discuss a player's HoF merits.
I've had similar conversations regarding the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Talk about a messed up institution -- Bon Jovi and Journey, who are kind of the rock equivalent of Omar Moreno or Steve Garvey are in, while Kraftwerk and The Fall (to give just two examples of really influential rock bands, the former nominated umpteen times, the latter never) aren't. Of course, music is less finite and self-contained than Major League Baseball, so the whole notion of inducted six or seven acts a year might be good for a TV special, but is ludicrous if you're really trying to tell a story about popular music (which I guess they aren't).
And the parallel to the moral indignation over steroids (which I'm surprisingly old school in my feeling about) and abuse and such with ballplayers certainly carries over to music in the Me Too era. Which gets into the whole "separating the art from the artist" argument, where I tend to fall on the side of "yes, I can separate them" while knowing that there are artists that I can't play on the radio show I do every weekend at a local community station, whether it be because of my discomfort with the artist or the perception it might make listeners uncomfortable.
While I don't agree with the end result of ignoring the hall, I agree with most parts of your argument against it. One positive argument about the proceedings (maybe the one that causes me to still care) is that they are a rare actual, tangible display of progress. Yes, it is stupid that obvious HOFers like Tim Raines are made to languish on the ballot for a decade, but at the same time it is very cool to see a bunch of predominantly old, white guys slowly realize they were wrong and change their ways.
Now that they've finally voted in Derek Jeter, the Hall of Fame is complete and nobody else needs to be added. We have reached the platonic ideal of a Hall of Famer, and all future inductions will seem comical in comparison.
Perhaps not caring about the Hall of Fame is a rash decision for the author of a daily newsletter. Sure, it would be a continuing source of personal aggravation. But it's also no doubt a reliable continuing source of newsletter content.
Eh, no worries I guess. Craig always finds something else to discuss, and be his daily source of personal aggravation. He doesn't need the Hall of Fame for that.
I won't argue with you about the Hall, Craig, but I am having too much of a good time enjoying Joe Posanski's 100 Best Players Not in the Hall of Fame series and therefore want to keep arguing about who belongs and who doesn't. It doesn't matter much, but it's fun. Usually.
And here is a great article from ESPN's Steve Wulf about Clyde Sukeforth, who no one would argue was a great ballplayer, but whose impact on the game was far bigger than you might guess.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30555113/the-enduring-bond-jackie-robinson-man-guided-majors
Columbo's first name is probably actually Francesco and not Frank. I kind of see him growing up in a proudly Italian home where some relative, if not his parents, insisted that he would have a proper Italian first name. And he probably kept it till he was drafted, and shifted to Frank. But we all know his REAL first name is Lieutenant.
Bill Mazerosky (36 WAR in 17 seasons) is in the HOF, enough said about "The Hall".
But the museum is great and Cooperstown is beautiful when it's not HOF week!
Completely agree about the Hall of Fame. Here are some words from Bill James in 1994. These don't necessarily reflect his current views because he doesn't tie himself to his old beliefs, but anyway...
"The Hall of Fame selection process was an afterthought to an accident. Cleland had not set out to create a Hall of Fame: he had set out to create a museum, and this had turned into a Hall of Fame...
...For sixty years the Hall of Fame has wandered this way and that, its border becoming more of a splatter than a map. The Hall teases its suitors with inconsistent favors and uncertain standards: yesterday I did, today I won't; I did for him, I won't for you.
The fundamental questions of how many players you want to honor and how you identify the best players in baseball history are questions that the Hall of Fame has never faced directly, and probably never will....
....My own opinion is that the people who want to put Joe Jackson in the Hall are baseball's answer to those women who show up at murder trials wanting to marry the cute murderer."
That's all from the book which was called "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?" because the publisher thought it would sell more that way.
Well, Hall of Fame journalism has always provided a rich seam of amusing nonsense, and I look forward to Craig continuing to ridicule it while pointing out that it doesn't matter anyway.
The Baseball Hall of Fame says more about baseball writers than it does about the sport and its history. It’s a members-only club that also unsurprisingly canonizes writers and broadcasters. It’s a fantastic museum to visit for any fan, but not worthy of more gravitas than that. While reading this morning, I realized that I’ve agreed with Craig’s take for a number of years but he articulated it much better.
Spicy Brown, Dijon, and Stadium should be absolute first ballot Hall of Famers. I would vote for Horseradish but I don’t expect the MWAA to get to 75% agreement before its ten years on the ballot run out. And there’s no way I’d ever vote for Yellow - it’s career WARM is way too low, and is way too much of a compiler.
I had no idea COLUMBO had such a nice run.
One player whom I often wonder about whether or not he would still be voted into the Hall of Fame by today’s baseball writers is Rod Carew. His family is really interesting, with him being a member of MLB’s 3,000 hit club and a Hall of Famer, his older brother, Jay, founding a modern-day clothing empire, and his younger brother, Rae, reaching the NFL for the Carolina Panthers before being arrested for plotting a murder.
Would today’s old, cranky baseball writers have held Rae’s illegal acts against Rod’s case for the Hall? Additionally, the head fashion designer at Jay’s clothing company took a lot of heat from conservatives in 2011 for painting her son’s toenails pink in an advertisement. You’d have to think that many of today’s troglodyte-level baseball writers, like Rod “Chinese Virus” Beer Temple, would have no problem keeping Carew out of the Hall for that alone.
In reading the part about the Hall of Fame today, it occurs to me that I cannot think of one guy in the other major sports where people say "Yeah, he's a Hall of Famer based on his accomplishments on the field/court/ice, BUT..."
There's no equivalent of a Barry Bonds, or Roger Clemens, or even Pete Rose; Paul Hornung, to cite a direct comparison, is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame despite his being suspended for a year for betting on NFL games.
I suppose the BBWAA would point to this fact with pride, proof that baseball is special, but it seems arbitrary to me.
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a place every baseball fan should visit. The emphasis of the building is on the latter with the former being an end of tour brief stop in the most dull part of the exhibit.
I treat the plaque room, and membership in it, as a sorta tiered place. For players who were stars when I was young, it is a little bit of nostalgia towards my time of hero worship long since gone. Remembering how 10 year old me felt about Reggie hitting 3 homers or seeing Tom Terrific's drop and drive or Brock's daring on the base paths. Childhood's stars are something special.
For players who were stars when I was an adult, it is pretty dull. I've learned that players are people with, far too often, feet of clay just like the rest of us and no longer come even close to worshiping them for their exploits. I also have formed my own ability to ascertain value without as much reliance on outside voices. I don't want or need the BBWAA or Vets' Comm to tell me about Puckett vs. Mattingly or Morris vs. Steib. My opinion on Barry Bonds or Harold Baines won't budge an inch because of any discussion around Lake Glimmerglass.
But for players who played long before I was alive, induction and the debates around it are a great way to organize history. I would know nothing about Jack Glasscock but for the discussion about whether he should be included. My knowledge of the ABCs - Anson, Brouthers, Connor - is because they were selected. And that is true of players of much more recent vintage too like Robin Roberts or Richie Ashburn.
What I guess I'm saying is that I don't follow the BBWAA choices at all or the modern era VCs either. But I do continue to use the induction debates and history to help guide my study of those from prior years. So (a) the Museum is - by far - the best part of the NBHoFaM and (b) HoF part is still interesting to me as a way to organize my thinking about older generations.
From a pure "performance enhancing" standpoint, why are PEDs bad and LASIK acceptable? What about Tommy John surgery? I think there is a good case to be made that if you can't make it to the Hall with the body parts God gave you, in their original locations, then you don't belong in the HOF at all.
One thing I should delve into -- did Hall of Fames exist before Baseball's Hall? Had the concept been around for a while?
Anyway, Craig's comments are pretty consistent with my view of the HoF, and I've felt that way for a number of years. A Hall of Fame is inherently a self-defining institution, and that definition usually changes over time to the point where the honor, from an outsider's perspective, is irrelevant. But that doesn't mean that it can't be a decent time waster to discuss a player's HoF merits.
I've had similar conversations regarding the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Talk about a messed up institution -- Bon Jovi and Journey, who are kind of the rock equivalent of Omar Moreno or Steve Garvey are in, while Kraftwerk and The Fall (to give just two examples of really influential rock bands, the former nominated umpteen times, the latter never) aren't. Of course, music is less finite and self-contained than Major League Baseball, so the whole notion of inducted six or seven acts a year might be good for a TV special, but is ludicrous if you're really trying to tell a story about popular music (which I guess they aren't).
And the parallel to the moral indignation over steroids (which I'm surprisingly old school in my feeling about) and abuse and such with ballplayers certainly carries over to music in the Me Too era. Which gets into the whole "separating the art from the artist" argument, where I tend to fall on the side of "yes, I can separate them" while knowing that there are artists that I can't play on the radio show I do every weekend at a local community station, whether it be because of my discomfort with the artist or the perception it might make listeners uncomfortable.
While I don't agree with the end result of ignoring the hall, I agree with most parts of your argument against it. One positive argument about the proceedings (maybe the one that causes me to still care) is that they are a rare actual, tangible display of progress. Yes, it is stupid that obvious HOFers like Tim Raines are made to languish on the ballot for a decade, but at the same time it is very cool to see a bunch of predominantly old, white guys slowly realize they were wrong and change their ways.
Now that they've finally voted in Derek Jeter, the Hall of Fame is complete and nobody else needs to be added. We have reached the platonic ideal of a Hall of Famer, and all future inductions will seem comical in comparison.