Nah, there’s nothing wrong with the Hall of Fame voting process

Jan 4, 2013, 11:01 AM EDT

Except for the fact that three writers — not one, not two but three writers — from something called “GolfersWest.com” have Hall of Fame votes. And justify votes for some guys by saying things like “[a]dmitted bias here, as I covered [player] for his entire career …”

But fine, the GolfersWest.com did cover baseball for a long time and their ballots are not awful or anything. But gee whiz this is a bit much:

As for bias, that part is correct. We have the responsibility as to who gets in, so that gives us a natural bias toward doing it correctly. We stand by the door like a nightclub bouncer behind the velvet rope. We check IDs. We check authenticity. We compare those already in to those standing on the doorstep. For better or worse, we are to ones who approve the credentials. Yea or nay. That job has been entrusted to us and our bias tends to bend toward merit, not whim.

Today Joe Sheehan — whose newsletter is fabulous and to which you should subscribe — said the following:

This is the year, I would say, that the Hall of Fame voting ceased to be about the players and became, wholly, about the writers.

I’ve seen nothing to dissuade me of that notion.

There are probably a dozen dudes on the ballot this year who far exceed historical precedent for induction. If the patterns shown among publicly-released ballots so far, absolutely none are getting in. All because a bunch of writers who, once upon a time, covered baseball for a living have decided that they are neither reporters nor historians nor analysts, but bouncers at Studio 54. Just fabulous.

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