Jaffe: The possible upcoming Cooperstown ballot apocalypse
From SABR member Chris Jaffe at The Hardball Times on January 16, 2012:
Uh-oh. Here it comes.
Here comes the mess, and it’s heading straight for Cooperstown.
This January, the Baseball Writers Association of America held its annual Hall of Fame election, this time voting Barry Larkin into Cooperstown. It was a standard election—something no one will say about the upcoming ones.
The 2013-15 elections promise to be the messiest ones the BBWAA has contended with in over a half-century. We’re about to have two things happen at once: 1) An exceptionally and perhaps unprecedented number of terrific candidates will reach the ballot all at once, and 2) the steroids controversy will reach a new degree of fervor.
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Okay, so steroids will cause candidates like [Barry] Bonds and [Roger] Clemens to suffer. But it shouldn’t hurt guys like [Craig] Biggio or [Frank] Thomas. So why is there a fear no one will get in?
To understand that, you need to look back at the history of BBWAA voting, specifically what went on in the 1940s. This was the trickiest time for BBWAA voting. Hardly anyone had been put into Cooperstown by that point, and a half-century backlog existed.
Read the full article here: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-possible-upcoming-cooperstown-ballot-apocalypse/
Originally published: January 20, 2012. Last Updated: January 20, 2012.