The Baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, New York. I’ve never been there. It is on my bucket list of places to visit. I have visited the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) in Kansas City, Missouri and this museum was worth the admission. I feel Major League Baseball should financially sponsor the NLBM in the best interests of baseball, but that is not my dissent today. My dissent is on the election criteria for the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the failure of this process to honor the best players despite their all to human weaknesses, and behaviors.

Currently the only ways to be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame is by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BWAA) and the Veteran’s Committee (VC.) The process used by the BWAA is quite involved. To be considered eligible for the Hall a player must have 10 years of MLB experience and have been retired from the game a minimum of five years. Players with less than Hall of Fame worthy performance statistics are eliminated by a selection committee. Those that pass this first stage (25-40 players) are placed on a ballot for the BWAA members to vote on. BWAA members can vote up to 10 eligible players for the Hall. Those players that appear on 75% of the cast ballots are then placed in the Hall. Players with less than 5% of the ballots are dropped from all future ballots, but may be considered for election by the VC. Players with 5-74% of the ballots cast may continue to appear on future ballots for another 10 years. Exceptions have been made for players like Roberto Clemente, Lou Gehrig, and Addie Joss. This information was extracted from Wikipedia as it was the most concise source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Baseball_Hall_of_Fame_and_Museum

The Veteran’s Committee consists of living Hall of Famers and they select players, managers, umpires, executives, or media personnel for appointment into the Hall of Fame depending on the year. Each year they are allowed to appoint a specific service category for baseball. Even numbered years are used to elect builders, executives, managers, and umpires. Every five years players from the Negro Leagues or earlier than 1943 may be considered for appointment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Baseball_Hall_of_Fame_and_Museum

Both processes end up with all kinds of arguments or speculation as to what qualifies someone for Hall of Fame consideration. Arguments abound regarding players or managers who gambled on baseball. Then there are arguments about those players that may have or did use steroids/drugs to enhance performance prior to the drug testing regime adopted by MLB and the Player’s Association in 2006. Then there are the subjective arguments regarding Addie Joss and numerous other players who may have marginal qualifications to be in the Hall statistically. I have never had an opinion on the matter, but as I have gotten older and I learn more and weigh the evidence, election processes, and study the history of the game this Hall of Fame process feels arbitrary and contrived.

My first grievance is the use of the BWAA as the sole proprietor of election. Why does a group of writers get the choice? Is their narrative the be all end all of the bible of baseball? Then we have the VC as the second chance committee made up of living Hall members. Why do they get to be the bridesmaid and not the bride? I feel there needs to be some performance benchmarks that need to be set and then an election by the BWAA and the VC together. There also needs to be separation between persons who may have served as a player and then manager, executive, umpire, or agent of the press. Each position in baseball is a separate entity.

My second grievance with the entire process is how the owners of the MLB franchises and the Commissioners of baseball have been complicit in the creation of certain issues that have affected Hall of Fame selection. This includes the culture of allowing performance enhancing drugs to permeate baseball until the general publics and congressional outcry leading to the 2006 drug agreement. It also includes the culture of gambling that has entered MLB advertising and reporting. It seems gambling is great for MLB, but don’t violate Rule 21 if your the workforce that makes this monetary monster possible. Both reek of a double standard that when it comes to making money off the product (the players) the ownership are all in, but no responsibility for the players they choose to punish for failing an ethical panel of their own making.

*The first sentences here on Pete Rose, are not entirely accurate. Pete was a player/manager his first two years managing the Reds. He was found to have gambled during this tenure. My apologies for this factual mistake. I do feel he still belongs in the hall. I leave the log unedited despite this error. Noted on 4-January-2025.

I dissent with banishment of Pete Rose from the Hall of Fame. The statistical excellence of his playing days was not overshadowed by gambling. His management career was damaged by gambling. Why punish the player for his mistakes as a manager? The player who holds the MLB record for career hits deserves his place in the Hall of Fame. Go ahead and include an asterisk or a footnote of his faux pas during his managing career. Just stop pretending he was a pariah to the game when you earn millions in marketing gambling through the sport today. We may as well do the same with Shoeless Joe Jackson. His association or knowledge of his teammates throwing the World Series in 1919 is inconsequential with gambling present in the game. Maybe if Charles Comiskey payed his players better this Black Sox scandal would have been avoided entirely. Where is the other side of this story? Ahhh, that’s right the arbitrary keepers of the bible of baseball are loyal to the club of owners that make them possible. Again, what’s good for the billionaires isn’t supposed to be shared with everyone else.

Secondarily, I dissent with the exclusion of the players who used performance enhancing drugs from the Hall of Fame. This includes Barry Bonds, Garry Sheffield, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Kevin Brown, Mike Piazza, Ivan Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and Alex Rodriguez amongst other possibles. Each player in my list hit 500 or more homers, won more than 200 games as a pitcher, or was a catcher with 10+ all star appearances. This crew listed saved baseball after the 1994 strike. A strike caused by the owners that left me and many others dismissing baseball until this crew of players changed our minds. I enjoyed the home run chase for Roger Maris’ record between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire!!! I know many did too. The owners just let it slide, collecting the cash from this awesome resurgence in interest. Why should they get excluded from the biblical halls? Same argument as Shoeless Joe. In the end it is the owners that control this league and they need to be responsible for their part. This includes recognizing these outstanding players, and accepting responsibility for their complicity in creating these cultures in the game.

I know I am not alone in these sentiments, but we do not have any authority in these matters. We love the game and we want to see all of the stars of this game get their long lost recognition for playing excellence. Yes, they made errors in judgment, but was the drug use illegal within baseball during their time? No. Did Pete Rose gamble during his playing career? No, but he has admitted to doing so in his managerial career. The two careers need to be separated. Shoeless Joe Jackson’s life in limbo needs to come to an end. When will we hold Comiskey responsible for his greed? How about the MLB at that time? Why make the 1903, 1919, 1920, and 1921 Series’ nine game series if it wasn’t for money? Why continue to punish the past when gambling is just fine to include in the game today with Fan Duel and other sports betting agencies? It is hypocritical, and like our political culture in the United States we trust the billionaires more than the millionaires, or even the players making league minimum. I’m sorry, the players make the league. The owners just provide the means. The means needs to be held accountable for a change… so it goes…