The Voting is Over: Goose is In!

Despite the mass Orgybama going on around the country, there is another election this week. The Hall of Fame voters have cast their ballots, they’ve been counted and Goose Gossage is going to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
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Jim Rice, Andre Dawson and Bert Blyleven all came within shouting distance and each has their own cabal of vocal supporters and detractors. Tim Raines was the first year guy with the most “Hall worthy” career and he didn’t even get a quarter of the vote. If you want to see the total results they’re here.

The results tell you what they tell you every year: The Baseball Hall of Fame is retarded. Oh let me count the ways.

What exactly is the purpose of the HOF?

Is it a glad-handing, back-slapping, good old boys club for a bunch of guys who won the genetic lottery that gave them the opportunity to run around in the dirt, booze and whore around, play Towel Snappy with each other and get paid more than winning the real lottery? (Current generation only for that last part. The guys who played earlier did it for the love of the Towel Snappy game.)

Is it a monument to the game, so that fans, young and old, can relive the history of the game?

Is it nothing but an amorphous, nebulous concept that gives fans and media members something else to gnash their teeth and waste their keystrokes on?

It’s probably all of that, plus a dozen other things that escape me at the moment, but even considering these few things, it pretty much sucks.

For starters, it’s in butt fuck, upstate New York. You have to ride a caribou pulled by sled dogs, or take an old see-saw, mine cart thinger to even get there. And it’s the only reason to go there. Totally fan friendly.

It’s supposedly a collection of the greatest to ever play the game as voted on by…… fat fuck writers who washed out on their high school JV squad. In other words, guys whose livings depended on the cooperation and access given to them by players during their careers. And there’s no way I could ever see a writer stiffing a perfectly deserving player because said player was a dick to them in the locker room. Just like there’s no way I could see a player having a reason to treat a guy crappy who’s paid to call you out every time you fuck up so his paper can move copies or get clicks.

You could always call for former players to do the voting, because they’d never have an axe to grind either. Though that might be cool, because then the 750 guys who hung a curve 4 inches inside that Craig Biggio leaned into might be able to keep his pussy ass out of the Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame has tried to accommodate some of these issues with their managers section, broadcasting wing and general museum featuring notable memorabilia from inductees and non-inductees, but the general fascination seems to be about who gets in to the Uber Hall, who doesn’t, who should, who shouldn’t and why.

I don’t get a ballot (web-based writers only got considered for the Baseball Writers version of the Towel Snappy Club this year. I’m hoping in another ten, they take their membership requirements all the way down to “volunteer, sporadic, profane, crappy blog writers.” Then I can start lobbying for Olmedo Saenz.), so is there even any criteria?

Do you have to be better than the 10th best guy at your position who’s already in? Better than the 5th best or 15th best? How do you define ‘better?’ For that matter, how do define ‘best?’ Should you look at counting stats? Should you look at rate stats? If you look at counting stats, do you consider how a guy did in his peak if he didn’t hang on a few years too long and pad his numbers to get to a nice round four, five or six hundred home runs? What if a guy was a great defender and a light hitter? How great a defender do you have to be to make up for being a shitty hitter? Do you take Ozzie Smith or Bill Mazeroski’s word for it and let them make the call? What if a guy’s numbers (whichever ones you choose to cherry pick) say he’s a Hall of Famer, but he doesn’t “feel” like a Hall of Famer? What if a guy “feels” like a Hall of Famer but his numbers don’t say he is? What if only the cherry picked numbers do? What if you think a guy is a Hall of Famer, but just not a First Ballot Hall of Famer?

What if a guy was a ball scuffer? What if he was so methed up on greenies he’d hold up the game while the umpire wanted to clean home plate so he could remove each piece of dirt individually? What if he like to snort blow or smoke doobs? What if he liked guys to shoot him in the ass with something? What if that last question had nothing to do with steroids or medicine? What if he had towel welts that made it look like he had a baseball in his back pocket? What if some kid came out and said a docter had to carve off half his throat and his bottom jaw because Joe Ballplayer was his hero and he never saw him without a Dykstra-sized cheek full of chew? What if a dude like to bet?

What if you didn’t know any of those things for sure? What if you just had a gut feeling it was true? What if you saw some circumstantial evidence that it was true?

I could probably think of a few more questions, but do you get the point?




So I’m gonna start my own Baseball Hall of Fame. And the writers don’t get a vote. If you want to know why, ask the 2 guys who voted for Rod Beck this year (because he died?). Or the guy who voted for Chuck Finley (because he got his ass kicked by The Piece of Ass Formerly Known as Tawny Kitaen.) Or the two guys who voted for Travis Fryman (seriously you dumb motherfuckers, you voted for Travis Fryman).

Players don’t get a vote either. They’re too busy spending my money luxury cars, spacious mansions, Victoria’s Secret models, and towels of the finest Egyptian cotton with which to snap dudes in the ass to give a fuck about the game, its history, or what it means to guys like me who weren’t good enough to play but have a personality disorder creating a void so big that in lieu of prescription drugs, they choose to spend three-quarters of a year following a sport daily where they hate most of the moves their favorite team makes, yet they continue to follow them because they’re not a sports whore and where the year’s champion, in many cases, isn’t even the best team, just lucky, which is good because they’re favorite team isn’t ever gonna be in the goddamned discussion about who the best team is because they’re too busy paying fucking Juan Pierre ten billion dollars over 75 years.

So who’s gonna vote? I don’t care. Anyone who wants to. Anyone can nominate someone. Everyone can vote. How about specific incidents? I’d love to commission a statue of Steve Lyons depantsing himself in the middle of a game. The only reason the game is still around is because of dumbasses like me who, despite repeated evidence that the people who play and control the game don’t give a fuck what I think about their product, care enough to keep following it. So that’s the only qualification for my voters. If you’re a fan, you’re in.

If you want to vote for Craig Biggio even though he’s a giant pussy? Fine. I’ll just lobby a bunch of people to vote that Jenna Jameson squats on a mound of bronze for his bust. If what Jim Rice did is good enough for you, fine by me. If it isn’t? Fine by me. If you think the San Diego Chicken has done more for the game than Bill James, fuck it, let’s vote and see who wins.

But I’ll create a memorial to the game that preserves the memories and the players that people care about. That puts the burden of judgment not on the people that have made a living, but on those who made that living possible.

And if enough of you actually give a shit, hell, I’ll start a separate blog about it.

Leave suggestions in the comments or email me at daniellarussopaintedmyfence@gmail.com