Nothing like Hall of Fame baseball talk to stir things up during the break between the NFL’s conference championship games and the Super Bowl.
Unless you’re into this weird college basketball season, with COVID-19 still standing as the biggest opponent, or the rather meaningless January regular-season games in the NBA and NHL, the major sports world is on a bit of a hiatus until next week when we ramp it up for Super Bowl 55 in Tom, er Tampa Bay. That left baseball in the spotlight this past week, when the annual ballots came and went and the Hall of Fame failed to put together a Class of 2021.
Once again, Hall of Fame-worthy names such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jeff Kent, Curt Schilling, and Sammy Sosa are missing the cut. And we still have to hold our noses from past inductions of a Luis Aparicio or a Harold Baines (not picking on ex-Orioles, just saying).
Baseball needs to get its Hall of Fame act together. Yesterday.
It’s become the Hall of Very Good these days, and now we’re going overboard in keeping out top-caliber players from the turn of the last century. I’ve been mad enough about the HOVG over the years, but I could live with it more if the Hall would just wake up and climb down from its high horse.
Of course it should be reserved for the best of the best. That’s a given. But, at its core the Hall of Fame is a museum to baseball’s history. Cooperstown houses a shrine to the best players of all-time, along with memorabilia, moments, and mementos from the game’s greats.
When I go to a museum, I expect to now and then see some things I might not agree with that still have historical importance. I learn about wartime atrocities and extinct animals and segregation and generational failures of human beings around the world.
The same rules should apply to baseball’s Hall of Fame. Parts of it might not pass the sniff test, but history is better understood that way. And enough with this “let’s pretend that didn’t happen,” or as Judge Smails from “Caddyshack” liked to say, “don’t count that.”
Barry Bonds hit 762 home runs. They all took place in my lifetime. It’s the most anyone has ever hit in baseball history. They really did happen. Bonds also won seven Most Valuable Player Awards. Pretty sure they happened too.
He’s a Hall of Famer. You want to explain on his plaque that he played during the Steroid Era, and later admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs? Fine. In fact, I endorse it. Make a separate wing for players such as Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, Alex Rodriguez (when he’s eligible next year).
Clemens has 354 wins (ninth most ever), 4,672 strikeouts (third most), and seven Cy Young awards (the most). What are we doing here?
Pete Rose bet on baseball, we know. He also has more hits than anyone else in history. Get him in there, and adjust his plaque accordingly. If it’s OK for baseball to profit off Rose’s memorabilia, and use him to promote an All-Century Team, it’s borderline insane to keep him out of Cooperstown.
As for Schilling, it seems to be understood that he’s a first-ballot Knucklehead Hall of Famer. OK, there are plenty of them in baseball’s Hall. His near-pristine postseason record (11-2, 2.23 ERA, 19 starts) is a positive, and look no further than his 2001 run with Arizona. Schilling went 4-0 with three complete games along the way.
Impressive, three years before the bloody sock all but enshrined him among the all-time Boston Red Sox greats.
Those moments are etched in baseball lore, and at times that’s enough to bolster one’s Hall of Fame resume. You can’t tell me Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series isn’t the biggest reason he’s in the Hall (Pittsburgh once had pretty good baseball teams).
Again, that’s just fine. Maybe Joe Carter or Bobby Thomson should be considered one day. It’s just sad to think those guys may actually have a better case than Bonds, Clemens, or Schilling.