As a member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, every year we cast our Hall of Fame ballot to compare our results with those of the Baseball Writers Association of America. I’m pretty sure my ballot is a lot different from many in the BBWAA who enjoy going on witch hunts rather doing real honest to goodness research on the candidates. Without further ado here is the ballot I just cast:
Mike Piazza
Only someone seeking attention would NOT cast a vote for Piazza, and this is coming from someone who is not overly found of the former Mets catcher. But I won’t let that cloud my view that Piazza was not only the best hitting catcher of his era but he was one of the best right handed hitters as well. The majority of BBWAA members who vow not to vote for Piazza because the suspect he was a PED user, even though they have no proof whatsoever except for their short attention minds, the same short attention minds that feel playing Words with Friends in a big league press box is more fun than actually watching the game they are being paid to cover, are just making ass’ of themselves. Piazza is a without a doubt first ballot Hall of Famer.
Jeff Bagwell
Again no proof of being a juicer but the voters of the BBWAA get their rocks off snubbing him on the ballot. His lifetime slashes of .297/.408/.540/.948 is certainly Hall worthy and when you add in the power (449 HR), speed (202 SB and only 78 CS) and defense, Bagwell was the total package as a ballplayer.
Craig Biggio
The other half of the Astros Killer B’s his 3,060 hits makes him an automatic
Barry Bonds
All of the main streamers hate Bonds and will hold off voting for him due to PED’s even without proof (remember Bonds was guilty of perjury the only charge the government could get to stick and made sure the tax payers of California paid a lot of money that could have went to building schools or hospitals to convict Bonds) but they voted him the MVP 7 times including 4 times during the Era of Taint.
Roger Clemens
I’ve come from not giving a shit about who took PED’s to today where I feel the game is much better and more enjoyable than it was during the Steroid Era. I still don’t feel the players who took PED’s were cheaters since my definition of a cheater is someone who breaks the rules and at the time there were no rules in MLB or in the CBA that said use of PED’s by players were against the rules. Players have taken narcotics and stimulants since the beginning of baseball time to get an advantage same as when players corked bats or went for Lasik surgery to better their eye sight, every athlete looks for an edge. Add in that the Steroid Era followed the cancelling of the second half of the 1994 season along with playoffs and World Series due to labor strife, the game needed something to bring back disgruntled paying customers and I’m still not convinced it wasn’t a juiced ball as much as juiced players . Even before the Era of Taint, Clemens was a Hall of Famer and with 354 Wins, 4,672 K and 7 Cy Young Awards, even though I hate ya’ Roger I gotta respect ya!
Tim Raines
One of the most exciting and better players of his era Raines was right there with Andre Dawson and Gary Carter as the cog that ran the Montreal Expos of the 1980’s. Raines stole an amazing 808 bases and was caught just 146 times in his 23 year career and was an on base machine.
Allan Trammell
Trammell could always find a way to get on base or hit you a Home Run or steal a base while playing a stellar shortstop.
Jack Morris
Hey Bill Madden I saw Jack Morris play and he was damn good. If Morris were a Highlander for most of his career, Madden would have pleaded with his fellow BBWAA members to get him Hall of Fame enshrinement.
TRACKING DOWN HATERS AND THE JOHN T. BRUSH STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
There has been a lot of chatter over a piece that Jeff Pearlman wrote for CNN about tracking down a couple of guys who sent him some hate e-mail over a blog post he made about Jeff Bagwell not being Hall of Fame worthy. One of the e-mails was cloaked in deception as a civil response to Pealrman’s anti- Bagwell post but when Peralman opened the link he was struck with a pornographic image instead. What made it worse was he was sitting with his 7 year old daughter when he opened it.
Pearlman’ naiveté of opening a link sent by a stranger can be debated but what can’t be denied is that Pearlman went all George Costanza on his ass. Remember when George was driving Danny Tartabull to a PBS fund raiser when he thought another driver had given him and Tartabull the finger and chased the guy all the way upstate NY only to find the guys’ finger was in a cast? Well, that sort of what Pearlman did.
Pearlman doesn’t reveal how he tracked these vile critics down but he did and when he confronted them on the phone, they were shocked and I guess a bit scared that their cloak of anonymity was lifted.
When you write a blog you have to expect nasty and vile comments. On this site, I’ve had commentators who have left some awful comments about me personally and some of my posts. If they are funny or creative I let them stand, but if they are about someone else either a subject I’ve written about or another commentator I delete them. I can’t tell you how many racists and homophobic comments I’ve had to delete over the last few years. I won’t ever allow that here.
Now I wouldn’t go to the extreme that Pearlman did unless someone made a personal threat against me, if that happened I’d probably got to the police with it as my ass kicking days are over. By the way Pearlman is all wrong about Bagwell, the guys belongs in the Hall of Fame. If Jeff or anyone else thinks I’m wrong you know where to find me. I ain’t hiding.
The San Francisco Giants brought the 2010 World Series trophy to NYC this weekend. Greg Prince and Caryn Rose both got to lay eyes on the great baseball prize. As many long time readers here know, my dad was a huge NY Giants fan and even when they left town he still rooted for them until 1962 when the Mets were born. Not only because it was a new NL team (There was never ever a thought of my dad becoming a Highlanders fan. You had a better chance of him saying the Queen of England was a pretty good gal than have him say anything nice about the Bronx Bastards)but by playing in the Polo Grounds, he could now get back to his old stomping grounds. So for all sons and daughters of old NY Giants fans I’d like to tip my Mets cap to Bill Neukom for not forgetting the franchises roots.