Baseball HOF Voters are Petty As FUCK!
I’m pretty sure I have mentioned this on the 108 podcast a million billion times, but I enjoy a good old grudge. Simply can’t get enough of people being petty to each other. It’s something I just can’t shake from my system. Meaningless gripes against one and other are what makes us human. I took to twitter recently to express such sentiment.
It’s 100% true. Some of yous that know me better than others know that one of my best friends in the world is Polish w Extra Onions. This man is one of the pettiest humans on earth. There’s nothing like the calculated excess he’ll undertake to properly execute his pettiness on a deserving party. It’s beautiful.
I recently had a long twitter DM discussion with someone that I felt wronged me in the past. To their credit they fessed up to the infraction and we buried the hatchet, however, at the close of the discussion, I vowed NOT to do one thing they requested of me (which started the exchange). The reason? Pettiness.
What’s wild is how much this type of behavior surrounds us right out in the public and we don’t even recognize it as such. I gave you a sports example above, but there is a much larger one that is going on RIGHT. DAMN. NOW! The Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot.
Every year, we look at the process of Baseball Hall of Fame voting to critique it and it gets weirder and weirder. My friend and newly minted #108ing HOF Member Aloha Mr Hand wrote a recent scathing analysis of this year’s specific ballot including a particularly strong contender. You can read that HERE.
I’m not even getting into all that shit. No, I’m more specifically looking at the psyche of the average Baseball Writer Ballot Holder Person. I delved into this a little bit on the most recent 108 podcast, which was actually just Panel #1 from our great #108Day show at Reggie’s this past Saturday.
Before we start thinking through this, let’s take a look at who will be voting for these Baseball People to become immortalized (and run rough-shot on the signing game on the memorabilia circuit) in Cooperstown.
Let’s focus on just one point.
Only baseball writers who have been active for at least 10 years…..10 YEARS!!!
That’s a long time. Long damn time. As I noted in the podcast above, about our twitter accounts, but really any relationship in life. In it’s infancy, everything is great, you are willing to work past any rough patches, but soon enough you get a few years in and everyone is fucking annoying you. With Twitter, you go from no people blocked or muted, to double figures and eventually hundreds in just a few short years.
Think about your 4 year (for most of yous) high school career and how many grudges and how much pettiness you developed over that term. Yea, exactly. I’m sure there are still a few teachers, if they are alive, that think you are a real jagoff, even today. I bet you still hate that bitch that beat you out for the starting spot on the volleyball team. We’ve all been there….now imagine, this is 10 years, MINIMUM for our Baseball Hall of Fame Balloters. Plenty of time to develop pettiness with most, if not all of the league.
Like this ballot by Dan Shaughnessy…
Allegedly, once again, Shaughnessy votes for ONLY Jeff Kent. Just Jeff Kent. Weirdest shit evar. Now he’s in Boston, and theres a couple tree high profile Red Sox (SAWX) on the ballot. You gotta assume that Roger Clemens wouldn’t sign a baseball for his Uncle Clancy or some shit. Maybe Curt Schilling disagreed with him that Cliff Clavin was the best character on Cheers. And Big Papi probably turned up the latin infused locker room music too loud for his liking.
I know all of these voters supposedly don’t vote for players under the guise of “STEROIDS” but gimme a break, they had to be seeing these giant monsters on a daily basis, they knew these guys were roided to the gills. What the fuck they think, they were transported into a WWF locker room? I’ll have Clay Davis help me here.
What about this ballot by Steve Goldman?
Another odd arrangement. This is a real statement. Most definitely the best ballplayers you have seen. It smells like a pettiness ballot. What person who watched that era of baseball could confidently say this is definitely the group most deserving to be put in the museum. I have to wonder if Ryan Howard is his cousin or something. Strange ballot.
And then we have my all-time favorite kinda ballot. The blank ballot…here is Nick Canepa, but he ain’t the only one.
This shit reminds me of in grammar school when I would do one side of a worksheet and forget to do the other side because I never turned it over. In a way, it’s pretty ballsy to turn in a blank ballot. In reality though, it’s fucking stupid. You think you are taking a stand and then the Hall of Fame just creates committee after committee to correct your mistakes and get deserving players in the hall of fame. PETTINESS ALWAYS WINS!
What makes it most hilarious is that in an industry that has never had more competition and where it’s harder to gain headway and attract readers these folks are doing their best to get automated out of an important process in their chosen vocation. Pretty soon we’ll just have a computer pick these things and won’t need the goofy writers. Bloggers boxing them out on one side and computers banging them in the rear. What’s more American than that?
This got me thinking though….would even our own, home grown White Sox beat guys succumb to this in the future?
What about James Fegan?
I’m a fan of James’ work, even if he isn’t much of a fan of mines.
Anyways, I wonder if he’d succumb to the pettiness that is hall of fame voting? He seems to be pretty level headed, but it would be hilarious if he had a long-standing beef with Shohei Ohtani because he made fun of James’ favorite LaCroix flavor or if he didn’t vote for Max Scherzer because Scherzer farted on him in the locker room. Could you imagine James’ ballot in 2032 with only Buster Posey checked? I can’t wait.
In closing, I truly don’t care about the Hall of Fame, which is why making a mockery of the voting for your own personal squabbles is just such good internet entertainment. I hope it continues at least for the next few years that Baseball Writers are still allowed to be involved in the process.
–BeefLoaf
About The Author
beefloaf108
Low information White Sox Fan. Big Feet Energy ORIGINAL 108er Like Whore 2019 Opening Day #SoxMath WINNAR Mediocrity Personified