No one gets into the Hall of Fame, no one should care

 

If the hold an election for the Hall of Fame and nobody wins, does it still count?

For the ninth time in its history the Baseball Hall of Fame held their annual selection vote and no one received the 75% necessary to enter the hallowed halls of the Hall.  Despite what you may have heard, the reason isn’t steroids.

First of all, I don’t see the failure to select someone as a negative.  It proves the Hall has some standards for admission, and won’t admit some mediocre player like Harold Baines just to avoid having no entrants (I hate to harp on the selection of Baines, who by all accounts was a nice guy, but his selection in 2019 was the worst choice for induction since the selection of Jesse Haines).  Some years there will be multiple no-brainers eligible five years after retirement; in other years the choices will be more . . . subtle.  But no entrant this year means they have some standards.

Also, it isn’t like they can’t hold an induction ceremony, since they cancelled last year’s due to COVID.   So people can still gather in Cooperstown in July and watch Derek Jeter and Larry Walker give their speeches, a long as they maintain social distance.

The main thrust among the talking heads on ESPN is that the reason for the failure to elect anyone in 2021 is the hypocrisy of keeping out Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens for alleged steroids use.  The flaw in that argument is that, if not for the steroids allegations, they would have been elected on their first ballot nine years ago.  So leave the debate over steroid users for another day.

The other elephant in the room is Curt Schilling, who support hovers just below the 75% threshold.  Some call Schilling an obvious first ballot Hall of Famer, which I think is overselling it a bit.  He won 216 games, while Jim Kaat won 283 games and won 16 Gold Gloves, yet he isn’t in the Hall.  If Schilling wanted to be a first ballot no-brainer, he should have won some more games.

But he did have a Hall of Fame type career, and his post-season heroics elevate his candidacy above those of players who made no impression at all in the playoffs or World Series.  The problem is that Schilling himself has publicized his bigoted and homophobic views; when Schilling complains that “they” have ruined his reputation, he should really look in a mirror.  But should that keep him out of the Hall?

Lots of players are in the Hall despite being racists, bigots, and what not.  The had the name of the man who enforced the segregation of African Americans, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, on the MVP trophies until last year.  As troubling as Schilling’s beliefs are, the Hall is supposed to reflect the history of baseball, and that history includes Schilling’s bloody sock. 

There is a “character” clause in the Hall of Fame voting rules, but what counts as character?  Should it only apply to the game, and not what people do in their private lives?  Was it cheating to use amphetamines in the 1960’s and 70’s, as many players did?  Are all the members of the 2019 Huston Astros ineligible for the Hall of Fame because the team won a World Series because they cheated?  If it applies to activities outside the realm of baseball, what is over the line?  One accusation of spousal abuse, or does there have to be a long running pattern?  Is one DUI enough to keep Todd Helton out, or must there be repeat offenses?

If the Hall starts keeping out players because of a single incidence or allegation of wrongdoing, then the Hall will become like the San Francisco commission on school names that decided that Abraham Lincoln was evil and didn’t deserve to have a school named after him because he didn’t treat Indigenous-Americans nicely. 

I enjoy Hall of Fame debates, because they can be so multi-faceted.  How much do we discount stats from players who played in Colorado?  How much weight do we give to Gold Glove winners (Jim Kaat won 16 Gold Gloves in addition to 283 games, so they must not count for much)?  How much does post-season heroics add to a resume?  But when you start wading in to whether someone is worthy of being in the Hall of Fame, I am not sure there are clear standards.

In the movie 61*, Billy Crystal’s recreation of the Maris/Mantle duel for the home run title in 1961, there is a depiction of Yankee fans being asked who “deserved” to break Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season.  This is a stupid question; the person who “deserves” to break it is the man who does. 

As Clint Eastwood’s character in Unforgiven said, “Deserves got nothin’ to do with it.”