Belated HOF Ranting
Earlier this week over at SI.com, Steve Hoffstetter came out with a right-on-the-money screed about the Hall of Fame voting. Not the Mark McGwire boondoggle—the Dante Bichette shocker.
The real story of last week’s National Baseball Hall of Fame voting is not that Mark McGwire only got 128 votes — it’s that Dante Bichette received three. I didn’t realize that the Bichettes were voting this year.
Bichette has always been vocal about his belief in both God and Jesus. Even if the two of them voted, that still doesn’t explain the third ballot.
Indeed, did Dante Bichette even deserve to be on the ballot at all? This brings me to something that irked me when the ballots were first released, but which I never got around to formulating into complete sentences here on UmpBump: Scott Brosius. He was on the ballot this year, too. He didn’t get any votes (thank God) but what was he doing on the ballot in the first place? If he hadn’t played for the Yankees (and during the Yankees’ glory years), he never would have even made the ballot. His mere presence there is an insult to me. And also an insult to every other run-of-the-mill 90s third baseman who didn’t make the HOF ballot.
Plus I’d like to know who the six people are who voted for Jose Canseco. The walking syringe?! Mr. Sleazy-Memoir-Writer? And who are the two people who voted for Ken Caminiti, who also admitted to juicing and who even spent time in the slammer (yes, kids, actual JAIL) for cocaine posession. And the one person who voted for Jay Buhner. Jay Buhner is like that kid from high school you completely forget about until your five-year reunion, and then you see them and you’re like, “Oh yeah….that kid.” I don’t even remember anything about Jay Buhner’s actual career. All I remember is that he looked like a pirate. See? A pirate!
For the full tally of rando position players, druggies, and brigands who got votes, click here.
As for who does belong in Cooperstown, let me go on the record as saying that I hope that Goose Gossage and Jim Rice make it in next year. Unlike Barry Bonds, who just went on the record arguing—surprise!— for the induction of McGwire and Pete Rose, adding, in typical douchey fashion, “I’m sure I’m going to break the [home run] record this year. But right now, I’m just thinking about golf.”
As for me, I’m trying to decide what is more bogus: the fact that people actually think Bichette, Buhner, and Caminiti belong in the Hall, or the fact that they’re now part of our tag cloud.
January 18th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the Braves made this LaRoache-Gonzalez trade. How can you trade a player who OPS’d over 1.000 for a relief pitcher? They must have really been fed up with his ADD or something. What a terrible trade.
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January 18th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
The Braves just signed Craig Wilson, so I guess that means the won’t necessarily be betting the entire farm on Scott Thorman now.
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January 19th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
well there goes the cloud!
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January 19th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Sarah, I think a few voters sometimes use their ballot to make some kind of statement. Like the guy who handed in a blank ballot this year. I’m not sure what kind of a statement they were making by voting for Ken Caminiti, but it got people’s attention.
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January 19th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Canseco is a hall of famer. Youre an idiot!!
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January 20th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Jeremy is laboring here under not one, but two false assumptions. I am demonstrably not an idiot, just as Jose Canseco is demonstrably not a Hall-of-Famer. While he was a six-time All Star and a one-time MVP who won the 1986 ROY, he ended his career as a perennially injured jackass/DH. In 16 years in the majors, his best year was far and away 1988, the year he won the MVP, when he became the first player to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases. However, one season does not an HOF plaque make, no matter how impressive that season is. Also working against his selection is the fact that after starting with 7.5 seasons in Oakland, he bounced from team to team for the rest of his career. HOF voters prefer candidates who play at least the majority, if not the entirety, of their careers with the same team.
Finally, children, there was a little book called “Juiced,” in which Canseco not only admits to using steroids with abandon, he also names other players who (he claims) used with him. I’m not sure if the baseball world considers this is merely tacky or downright traitorous, but either way it means he has approximately zero chance of ever getting into Cooperstown.
Which, of course, is not more or less than the man deserves.
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January 22nd, 2007 at 1:09 am
At least the Bravos finally figured out that without Leo Mazzone, they can no longer just run out to the mound whichever AAAA pitchers they can scrounge from the independent leagues and have the best bullpen in the league anymore.
But what’s with all the mainstream sportswriter adulation for John Scheurholz over these latest bullpen moves? Scheurholz has consistently been one of the least creative GMs in the game, and now that Leo is gone he is getting exposed for the fraud that he is.
People keep writing how the Braves “underachieved” last year and these moves will put them back on track, but the truth is, last year’s squad was terrible, and this year’s looks even worse.
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January 22nd, 2007 at 1:10 am
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