My Not-at-all Researched, Half-assed, and Probably Completely Lame Opinion on the Hall of Fame Voting

Congratulations to former Reds great Barry Larkin on his election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, a well-deserved honor to be sure. I'm sincerely happy for him.

Former Twin Jack Morris fell short of the needed votes for election. I love Jack Morris. I love what he did for the Twins, and I love what he did in the World Series. He was a very good pitcher who had some great games. But I don't think he's a hall of famer. I could look up all his numbers and research his performances to support my opinion (and trust me, if I had a vote, I'd do that for all my choices), but right now my gut tells me he's not great enough to be in. However, he's pretty close and I bet he'll get in next year.

My all-time favorite Twin, Brad Radke, received only two votes for the Hall of Fame, which isn't enough to be on the ballot again. This is ok with me. In fact, I'm a bit surprised he got any votes. As much as I loved watching him pitch, I'm perfectly satisfied keeping him within the realm of Twins Favorites.

So, that's about it for the stuff I agree with. Now for the grumbling.

I've mentioned before that I'm not happy with the Hall of Fame voting process. I'm even less happy with it now than I was then, which isn't surprising now that the "cloud of suspicion" class of players are beginning to be eligible.

Which leads me to this: why the hell isn't Jeff Bagwell in the Hall of Fame yet? I mean, he was certainly good enough. Oh yeah, because he happened to play at the same time some other players who used PEDs did and he had big arms. Never mind that there was no reason to suspect him for doing anything other than play good baseball.

Now if some writers simply don't feel in their guts that he belongs in the Hall, that's fine. However, I have issues with those who proudly strut their intentional snubbing of him simply because they don't like the way he looked.

And all this nauseating righteousness is going to get worse next year because Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will be eligible.

I can understand the difficulty in voting for someone who has been accused of doping. Players have been trying to find a competitive edge for all of time, and this particular edge is more problematic than others. But since we can't know who really did what or what, if any, effect any suspected substances may have had, voters really ought to stick to making their determinations based on players' performance.

But many won't, and that'll be a shame.