Jaffe: Cleaning up Cooperstown

From SABR member Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times on January 14, 2013:

Well, that could’ve gone better.

As I’m sure everyone out there in reader-land already knows, last week the Baseball Hall of Fame announced the results of their annual BBWAA vote for admission, an in a massive embarrassment, for the first time in 17 years, no one got the needed 75 percent marker for induction.

Mind you, this happened on the strongest ballot in many a-moon. Okay, some clearly qualified candidates—Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa—had their names smeared in the steroids whirligig. Beyond them were Craig Biggio, and Mike Piazza, and Tim Raines, and Jack Morris, and Jeff Bagwell, and Lee Smith, and Alan Trammell, and Curt Schilling, and—I could go on, but you get the idea. (A few of those guys have also been implied to use ‘roids, but with no proof beyond innuendo).

By the Hall’s own standards for induction, there was an absurd number of qualified candidates, yet no one got in. Yeah, that’s bad.

Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cleaning-up-cooperstown/



Originally published: January 14, 2013. Last Updated: January 14, 2013.