Scholarship table
Tom Hardricourt, who has been with the MJS as a Brewers and baseball writer since 1986, announced his retirement today. That's a shame. Good writer with good information.
New class of Hall of Fame inductees to be announced later today.
Will it be another year with no new members?
MLB HOF voting is one of the dumbest things in sports.
Ortiz is the only inductee, and even that was close.Ortiz 77.9%Bonds 66.0%Clemens 65.2%Schilling 58.6%ARod 34.3%Sosa 18.5%Schilling, who wanted off the ballot ... I guess the electorate effectively said, "OK, you're off." He actually finished behind Rolen (63.2%), who is slowing moving up toward enshrinement.https://bbwaa.com/22-hof/#votingtable
What a freakin' joke. Ortiz is definitely a hall of famer, but if you're a voter for Ortiz who actually tested positive for steroids, you better vote for Bonds and Clemens who never did test positive and you better vote for A-Rod too who was better than Ortiz. Schilling is a d-bag but a hall of famer too.This from a Yankee fan
Until Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, Curt Schilling and the the steroid bunch are in the Hall of Fame, it's a joke. Period.How can you have a Hall of Fame without the all-time hits leader, all-time home runs leader and one of the best pitchers of all time?Think about it.... Barry Bonds isn't in but Ted Freakin' Simmons is?Pete Rose isn't in but Harmon Killebrew is? I loved the Killer but geez, you're suggesting he's a better baseball player than the consummate baseball player of his time?Rose was one of the greatest ballplayers of all time. Deal with his gambling problems in is Hall presentation, but enshrine him.Keeping Bonds, Schilling and the steroid bunch out is pretending it didn't happen. It's like pretending that Mark McGwire's and Sammy Sosa's steroid fueled home run race in the late 1990s didn't save baseball.Idiots.
A fair argument. Perhaps a room specifically for those with asterisks?
Somehow the Baseball Hall of Fame has survived for decades without Rose, the juicers and, for that matter, Shoeless Joe.It will continue to do just fine. There will be those who think it's a "joke," and those who can't whip up the outrage about this stuff.I agree that these ballplayers are an important part of baseball history, and if you visit the Hall you can see that their achievements are chronicled there. And the record book is the record book; their achievements are in there, too.Now, whether or not they should be given the game's highest individual honor and enshrined in the Hall, that's a whole 'nother argument. First, Rose wasn't on the ballot; voting for him simply wasn't an option. In every single MLB clubhouse, including the Reds clubhouse he ran, there hangs a sign stating that what he did was strictly forbidden and that the consequences would be severe. And he did it anyway. I have absolutely no problem with him not being given the game's greatest honor.As for the juicers ... neither the Hall of Fame nor the BBWAA gives voters any guidelines about dealing with them. They leave the interpretation of Rule #5 up to each voter. Rule #5 reads: 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. So although about 2/3 of voters believed Bonds and Clemens should be enshrined, it wasn't really a very big leap for many voters to invoke the "integrity, sportsmanship, character" part of that and deny guys like Bonds and Clemens.For the record, when I was a voter I did vote for them. Not on the first ballot because I wasn't gonna give them that, but I did vote for them. I'd put them in, but I'm not outraged that they're not in. The Hall's still a cool place to visit, and baseball history is baseball history whether they're enshrined or not.
Thanks for the discussion, dg. We could go on and on, and round and round on this, so I won't.I guess I am curious as to why you think some old-times committee would enshrine McGwire and Palmeiro but probably not Sosa, whose stats are easily better than McGwire's and on a par with Palmeiro's.
Corked bat incident, atop his steroid use.