It's Good to Live in a Two-Daily Town

Interesting split decision in today’s Boston Globe sports pages over Baseball Hall of Fame balloting, which is currently underway.

Commissioner Emeritus Bob Ryan makes his position clear from the get-go.

I’m not voting for Bonds, Clemens, or Sosa

I am in possession of the toxic ballot.

It is the Hall of Fame ballot voting members of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) have dreaded for the last five years. Our feet are finally being held to the bonfire. How will we as a body judge the candidacy of the all-time home run leader, the only man to win seven Cy Young Awards, and a man with 609 career home runs who is the only person to homer 60 times or more in three seasons?

Absent, shall we say, a complicating factor, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Sammy Sosa would be ultra-mortal locks. Based on the numbers, there wouldn’t be the slightest hesitation in checking the box next to their names.

But what sports fan doesn’t know there is a complicating factor?

The rest of the piece has Ryan wrestling with/explaining his choices. The final score:

Summing it up: Yes to [Jeff] Bagwell, [Craig] Biggio, [Edgar] Martinez, [Jack] Morris, [Mike] Piazza, [Tim] Raines, and [Curt] Schilling. Sorry to anyone else not named Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire , and Palmeiro.

By contrast, Globe baseball scribe Nick Cafardo skipped the Hamlet stuff and just included this in his Sunday Baseball Notes column:

Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza, Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Alan Trammell, Tim Raines, and Jack Morris were all checked on my Hall of Fame ballot.

Reasoning, we hope, to come.

Crosstown at the Boston Herald, meanwhile, no mention whatsoever of the Hall. It’s not like there are no BBWAA voting members at the feisty local tabloid – Steve Buckley, Jeff Horrigan, and Michael Silverman are listed on Wikipedia‘s BBWAA roster.

We’ll let you know if they let us know.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 16th, 2012 at 9:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.