MLB Hall of Fame Rant

SO the BWAA announced today the newest members of the Baseball hall of fame: Ricky Henderson and Jim Rice. I have no feelings one way or another towards Rice - he was before my time, but a lot of analysts I trust call him the "most feared hitter in the AL in the late 70s/early 80s - but Ricky is probably my all time favorite player, and something about his election bugs me. He received 94.8% of the vote, appearing on 511 of 539 ballots. Easily winning entry. But here's my beef: who the hell are the 28 writers who don't think Ricky Henderson belongs in the hall of fame?

This is not really unusual. Did you know that in entire the history of the Baseball HOF no player has ever been elected unanimously? Not Babe Ruth. Not Tom Seaver. Not Johnny Bench. Not Ted Williams. Not Mike Schmidt. No one. For some reason there's always a few holdouts among the writers. Although it's pretty stupid if you ask me. Can anyone make a reasonable argument against the inclusion of Ruth or Seaver in the hall? The real reason? Publicity. The writers who don't vote for guys like Rickey (almost always older guys from small publications) will do the interview circuit and give their "reason". Which usually falls into one of three categories:

1) "I don't think they're a 'first ballot' hall of famer"
2) "I'm the only one with enough super scary smarts to see that they're really not all that great"
3) "They couldn't have held the jock of the guy I idolized growing up.

First off #1 is just stupid. You're voting for Hall of Fame, not super secret Hall of Fame. They're either a hall of famer, or they're not. The second is simple ego mania. They come up with some absurd justification (but Tony Gwynn didn't hit for power!) and will refer to anyone who disagrees as either a moron or a sheep. But the third reason, the 'Rose-Colored Glasses of Youth', is the real problem.

Almost all of us regard our childhoods as the good old days. TV was entertaining, food tasted better and the athletes we looked up to as kids had no equal. I understand that feeling, but at some point when you're a 10 year veteran of the Baseball Writers of America you have to be able to look at things objectively. There are writers out there who insist that A-Rod, Pujols, Manny, Santana and Halliday wouldn't start on the teams of their youth. That's just stupid. There are always players out there who blip up for a year or two about whom you can say that. But an all time great is an all time great. I don't care what era you plunked him down in, Tony Gwynn would hit, Johan Santan would get people out and Ricky Henderson would score runs.

I'm not saying that the 28 guys who didn't vote for Rickey should have their ballots taken away (a measure I do advocate for writers who refuse to follow the rules for MVP, ROY and Cy Young voting), but they should be held up for scorn. Because how can someone whose job is writing on Baseball get something so easy that wrong.