Baseball

[OttoVonBismarck]

The leagues have also changed in how they manage PR though, it is broadly understood that embarrassing the league is grounds for having your career diminished and even in some cases terminated. Less so in MLB than in NFL, but that's still an element of the modern PR landscape for all professional sports. It isn't totally crazy to me that the HOF (or I guess the voters) choose to utilize a similar rubric in excluding Curt.

Fair has never quite had anything to do with the Hall of Fame, whether I agree/disagree on PR reasons for keeping someone out, it's hard for me to see them as inconsistent with the nature of professional sports in America in 2022.

I have a little more trouble with letting in a PED guy while excluding other people for the same reason who were actually higher performers on the field.

[The Minsky Moment]

Here's an all-star team of guys not in the Hall of Fame  (excluding people who are active or not yet eligible).

C Thurman Munson
1B Rafael Palmeiro/Mark McGwire
2B Bobby Grich
SS ARod
3B Scott Rolen
LF Barry Bonds
CF Kenny Loften/Andruw Jones
RF Joe Jackson
UT Pete Rose
SP Roger Clemens
RP Billy Wagner

I think that if you pulled a team at random from a cup from the current people IN the Hallo of Fame, balanced by position, the No Hall team would probably beat the Hall team.  Even if you took out the ineligible list guys and replaced Jackson with someone like Sheffield or Dwight Evans, and Rose with say Dick Allen, they would still hold up very well.

That's a fundamental problem of credibility for the Hall IMO.  You shouldn't be able to field a full team of out guys that could walk over a typical team of in guys.

[Syt]

RIP Vin Scully. So many celebrity deaths in recent weeks. Feels like the passing of an era.

[jimmy olsen]

Here's an all-star team of guys not in the Hall of Fame  (excluding people who are active or not yet eligible).

C Thurman Munson
1B Rafael Palmeiro/Mark McGwire
2B Bobby Grich
SS ARod
3B Scott Rolen
LF Barry Bonds
CF Kenny Loften/Andruw Jones
RF Joe Jackson
UT Pete Rose
SP Roger Clemens
RP Billy Wagner

I think that if you pulled a team at random from a cup from the current people IN the Hallo of Fame, balanced by position, the No Hall team would probably beat the Hall team.  Even if you took out the ineligible list guys and replaced Jackson with someone like Sheffield or Dwight Evans, and Rose with say Dick Allen, they would still hold up very well.

That's a fundamental problem of credibility for the Hall IMO.  You shouldn't be able to field a full team of out guys that could walk over a typical team of in guys.

Wow, that team is stacked!

[alfred russel]

That's a fundamental problem of credibility for the Hall IMO.  You shouldn't be able to field a full team of out guys that could walk over a typical team of in guys.

Well it depends what you mean about not being in the Hall. Guys like Barry Bonds are definitely in the Hall of Fame including the cooperstown museum where they tell the story of baseball. I think most if not all the players you mention are as well.

what they aren't is in the section of the museum that has plaques honoring players...i don't think it is problematic or detracts from the credibility of the hall to say that really good players that on the net brought dishonor to the game will be in the portion of the museum that tells the story of baseball but won't be specifically honored.

[The Minsky Moment]

That's a fundamental problem of credibility for the Hall IMO.  You shouldn't be able to field a full team of out guys that could walk over a typical team of in guys.

Well it depends what you mean about not being in the Hall. Guys like Barry Bonds are definitely in the Hall of Fame including the cooperstown museum where they tell the story of baseball. I think most if not all the players you mention are as well.

what they aren't is in the section of the museum that has plaques honoring players...i don't think it is problematic or detracts from the credibility of the hall to say that really good players that on the net brought dishonor to the game will be in the portion of the museum that tells the story of baseball but won't be specifically honored.

So to be clear by "Hall of Fame" I mean the players elected to be Hall of Famers, not the players who happen to have their names, photos, or artifacts in the museum which opened several years after the initial Hall elections, which include people like platoon outfielder Alejandro de Aza, the stalwarts of the Peddie Institute high school team,  and the immortal Admiral Schlei, the beloved backstop for the 6th place 1906 Reds, among many others.

Focusing on the first group, if the intent indeed is to exclude those who bring "dishonor" on the game, then the concept of dishonor should be properly defined and established as a criterion, so that baseball fans and others can understand why a racist like Cap Anson who heled establish the color bar or a former confessed KKK member like Tris Speaker (according to Fred Lieb) or a Mitchell Report identified steroid user like David Ortiz are in, while Roger Clemens (accused but not proven of anything untoward) or Curt Schilling (guilty of nothing more than being a loudmouthed ass) are out.  Otherwise, it looks like a lot of hypocrisy, playing favorites, and personal politics.

[crazy canuck]

That's a fundamental problem of credibility for the Hall IMO.  You shouldn't be able to field a full team of out guys that could walk over a typical team of in guys.

Well it depends what you mean about not being in the Hall. Guys like Barry Bonds are definitely in the Hall of Fame including the cooperstown museum where they tell the story of baseball. I think most if not all the players you mention are as well.

what they aren't is in the section of the museum that has plaques honoring players...i don't think it is problematic or detracts from the credibility of the hall to say that really good players that on the net brought dishonor to the game will be in the portion of the museum that tells the story of baseball but won't be specifically honored.

So to be clear by "Hall of Fame" I mean the players elected to be Hall of Famers, not the players who happen to have their names, photos, or artifacts in the museum which opened several years after the initial Hall elections, which include people like platoon outfielder Alejandro de Aza, the stalwarts of the Peddie Institute high school team,  and the immortal Admiral Schlei, the beloved backstop for the 6th place 1906 Reds, among many others.

Focusing on the first group, if the intent indeed is to exclude those who bring "dishonor" on the game, then the concept of dishonor should be properly defined and established as a criterion, so that baseball fans and others can understand why a racist like Cap Anson who heled establish the color bar or a former confessed KKK member like Tris Speaker (according to Fred Lieb) or a Mitchell Report identified steroid user like David Ortiz are in, while Roger Clemens (accused but not proven of anything untoward) or Curt Schilling (guilty of nothing more than being a loudmouthed ass) are out.  Otherwise, it looks like a lot of hypocrisy, playing favorites, and personal politics.

Its a vote, of course there is a lot of hypocrisy, playing favourites, and personal politics.

[The Minsky Moment]

The MVP awards and Cy Young awards in baseball are also votes and thus prone to similar problems.  And yet although the voting for these awards is not free from criticism, in recent decades the results have tended to make sense based on performance.  Including the fact that Bonds, Clemens, and ARod all won MVPs after the steroid story broke and Schilling (fairly) finished 2nd in Cy Young balloting three times despite his jackassery being well known.

[HVC]

Petey might be an asshole, but he has the best signature

[Admiral Yi]

Is Charles Hustle admitting now that he bet on baseball?  That's news to me.

It would really help his case if he were just a pinch less fugly.

[OttoVonBismarck]

He admitted he bet on baseball years ago, there was a time when he was making one final push to get reinstated, and he wasn't. Since then he has been pretty unapologetic about his various misdeeds, I guess figuring "they can't ban me twice."

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcDgiCn-Azc

Epic 11 inning game between Nicaragua and Japan in the Little League World Series (LL games only go six innings normally).

I learned that in LL starting with the 8th inning the batting team starts with a man on 2nd base, to speed up the scoring.

I think the LLWS is supercool, but the age of players is such that teams have 80 pounders and 150 pounders.  Kinda makes it look like all the teams are loading up with 18 year old ringers.

[Grey Fox]

My son hit is first, well, hit against a pitcher tonight. A triple.

His level doesn't normally have pitchers. It is also his first ever triple.

And I missed it because I had to go the parent-teacher conference.

[Valmy]

Watching the Dutch and the Cubans in the opening game of the World Baseball Classic. Sir Didi Gregorious, of the Order of Orange-Nassau, just knocked in the tying run in the 3rd Inning. I know the whole of the Netherlands erupted in celebration 

[The Minsky Moment]

I'd watch if they put in Blyleven.  Even now, I bet half the field couldn't touch his curve.