Expand The Baseball Hall Of Fame Vote - Now!

Why is it that everytime I hear a baseball writer on the radio they sound like a pompous smart-alec?

More than any other sport I get a sense of condescending attitude from these guys. A very 'we know the game better than you' attitude that oozes out of the TV screen and radio that slaps you with a French gaunlet.

And the contempt they have for fans to go along with that pomp is abnormal at times.

Heard Dave Perkins (Baseball Writers' Association of America) on Tim & Sid on Sportsnet yesterday. I couldn't believe the level of disconnect coming out of the Toronto Sun writer.

It's years we know that a good chunk of writers with a Hall of Fame vote are either not even in the game anymore or have displayed a level of shocking aloofness in defending their often retarded votes. But the fact that the 'process' which has become irrational and emotional as it is comical if not pathetic, eludes the 'gatekeepers.'

A process, it should be reminded that remarkably restricts votes to one group of people - writers. It's an aristocracy only the aristocrats aren't all that smart. How Managers, commentators, play-by-play people, players, and yes, new media including bloggers (those "irresponsible bloggers" as Costas ridiculously calls them who often blow mainstream writers out of the water. Costas, Wilbon and others in the aristocracy need to get over their haughty resistance to new media lest they whither. as if there aren't irresponsible sports writers. Please) perhaps even fans are excluded from the process is a tad absurd.

This is why I'm okay with Dan Lebatard handing his votes over to Deadspin. He's calling out baseball writers for their arrogance and outright ignorance in the steroid era. All these writers taking a pseudo-moral ground are empty suits especially considering they failed to report the story in the fricken first place. Singling out steroids given baseball has had a few checkered moments during its long illustrious past is poppycock.

He's absolutely right. There's NO JUSTIFICATION to keep Bonds, Clemens and I would add Pete Rose out of the Hall. None. That the writers can't separate their emotions from statistical facts (we all know they hate Bonds for example) points to their lack of professionalism.

So it's time to expand who gets to vote if they can't get out of their little, myopic cocoon. Flush them out of their comfort zones.

That said, getting back to Perkins, you will never convince me, given what we know about who has a vote, that this is a "qualified group" as he laughably asserted yesterday.

Define "qualified group" anyway? As determined by whom exactly? The guy who is not even in baseball anymore but has a vote? The guy reassigned to a desk job but still gets a vote? Lord me, Jack fricken Todd of the Montreal Gazette had a vote. He's no baseball expert and he certainly didn't 'watch every game.' Not only that, he statistical comprehension was sophomoric, lazy and unimaginative. Or the boob who insanely didn't vote for Greg Maddux because he 'wanted to exclude everyone from the steroid era' choosing instead to vote for Jack Morris?

Those guy is part of a qualified group? Take that brush and smear it all over the faces of that era!

Standards are low.

Perkins, in his let 'em eat cake moment, didn't stop there. In defending his caste, he seemed to take the position that there were no better or more worthy replacements to our intellectual sports superiors. What, the fans? Are you mad? Did you see what they did with the baseball All-Star game? Perhaps, but he could have been a little more constructive and, you know, offer ways to prevent such things from happening. You don't just exclude a group based on ONE incident. Oh, and heaven forbid they "only look at statistics."

Yeah. They should mostly look at statistics because it's an objective guard against any subjective prejudices a voter may have. For instance, you may hate Bonds but you can't use that as a reason to keep him out given his statistics which clearly should take precedence.

All I got from him were logical fallacies. Everyone knows the best defense is to attack your opponent, right? It's a stellar logical way to make your point.

Ugh.

That interview showed just how out of sync writers have become with fans.

As for Tim & Sid, my Lord, my criticism is they could have offered a challenge against those lame assertions could have brought some sanity back to the conversation.

Whatever.

Expand the voting lest the Baseball Hall of Fame become just a Hall of ball players who played the game.