The HOF voters obviously take their vote pretty seriously, even when they're making laughable entries (or non-entries) on the dotted lines. It's not the sort of problem you have with the coaches poll in college, for instance, where coaches don't have the time or interest to watch those other teams play and have an assistant fill out the ballot.
Or in Gold Glove voting, where a guy who doesn't play first base can win an award there (Palmeiro).
They consider it, many write a bunch of words about it, they agonize over it to their peers and the public at large... and then the proceed to screw the pooch to the ballot box and back.
Why is this happening? Why are more executives and umpires being voted in than modern players (10 of the former compared to 7 players born after 1947 on the last six ballots)? Maybe there just aren't HOF-worthy players in the recent classes, and better to vote in no one than to let the lesser lights into the Hall, right?
And here's where the writers go insane: too many view themselves as the only arbiters of truth when it comes to the Hall. The HOF will not provide them with voting guidelines, so each splinter view of what the Hall "should be" rips votes away from players.
Should it be a small Hall? Players lose votes.
Should the first-ballot vote be reserved for the elite? More votes lost.
Should steroids be a disqualifier? Goodbye votes.
Ditto player attitude, playoff performance, teammates... whatever dividing line a voter can find, they will use to chop away at votes. Like you said, many of them like saying no, and feel they are encouraged to say no by the Hall. The excuses can get absurd, but the REASON is that they like to be able to tell you why so-and-so is not deserving. They like being the sword of justice, even if that justice is a travesty.
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When the football HOF votes, you don't hear about the reasons some guys don't make it. Playoff performance matters in football voting (Super Bowl winners get players in) but local reporter coverage also matters: teams in the interior or the corners can suffer compared to teams on the coastal population centers. The Seahawks have 2 players in the Hall who played significant time for them, right? The Broncos have 4, but John Elway was the first in their history. The Chiefs have 8. The Raiders have 13.
Football is a lobbying system. You need an advocate, and hopefully somebody who can sway large chunks of voters from the major population centers.
But football doesn't compare across eras, just within your era. If you were a great in the 70s then your stats, especially on offense, are unlikely to measure up against players from the 2000s. Getting more catches than Biletnikoff is not gonna get you in the hall alone, however.
Baseball prides itself on being able to measure across eras. The game isn't supposed to change much. Of course it has: more homeruns, lower batting averages, pitchers throwing fewer games, changing mound heights, increased usage of the bullpen, the DH rule...
But the voters don't like to ADMIT change, and they talk far more than the voters of other halls of fame. Things should always work as they have before, and for the players turning eligible they will not. Barry Bonds cannot be compared to anyone who came before him. Natural talent combined with training and pharmaceuticals turned him into a singularity. The era is going to make it hard to judge anyone in it by any who came before. More weight training, better nutrition, PEDs, changing ballpark design, all of it made the era something unique.
Voters don't want to change their habits. Most want magic numbers: 500 HRs, 3,000 hits. A baseline for an obvious, easy choice, and they don't have it with this era. And so they're looking for reasons to disqualify. You'd think this would make it easier for players like Jim Rice to get in, since they were not using steroids (just greenies) but nope. Voters seem mad at the 80s players for not being good enough to achieve automatic entry and mad at the 90s players for being too good.
And since the hall won't give them advice they're lashing out the only way they know how: with the ballot.
Voters are throwing tantrums. It's not pretty.
Problem is, I don't expect the tantrums to stop next year. The 90s happened, but as far as Hall voting is concerned it looks like it will be hard to tell that on the hitting side for a while.
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There's a tremendous book called "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt, and it talks about how the brain makes decisions. It includes politics and religion and is a fascinating look at how people come to the decisions they do, and how that affects the world around them. One of the chapters in the book deals with how people make conclusions first, and then backfill the decision-making process with rationales that make them feel comfortable with those decisions. (If I could recommend one book, Doc, this would be it. Tremendously interesting)
Voters have decided they dislike opening the doors and are simply searching for any argument that will allow them to keep the doors closed. The fun part is that you can't argue with someone who has made up their mind in that fashion. Even if their arguments are countered, they will still decide that they were right, and just don't have a good way to express WHY they are right.
It's likely to be a long and frustrating journey on this era's HOFers. Writers who are too close to the situation and too biased are going to be making emotional decisions, and there are so many splinter opinions that can steal away votes that they are likely to pass on many decisions to the veterans committee just to be able to wash their hands of their responsibilities.
Not the way I'd like to see it done, at all.
~G
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