Going to Cooperstown

Today the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) announced its 2009 Hall of Fame inductees. The ceremony to introduce the new members will take place in Cooperstown, NY at the end of July. This year the honour was bestowed on two players - Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice. Several big names were once again left on the outside looking in, the closest to entering the hall but just shy this year were slugger Andre Dawson and pitcher Bert Blyleven.

Rickey Henderson is a no brainer as a HOF inductee. Some of the accolades that Henderson received over his career included the 1990 AL MVP, 10 time all-star, career leader in steals, single season leader in steals (130), career leader in lead off home runs and did it all over 25 seasons. Some might not consider him the modest player to ever grace the field, but whatever he bragged about he backed up.

Jim Rice gets into the HOF on his very last try. The BBWAA gives players 15 years to try and get into the HOF and Rice used them all. He is the third player to get into the all on the last ballot, for those trivia buffs the other two are Red Ruffing (1967) and Ralph Kiner (1975). Rice accolades include being the 1978 AL MVP, 8 time all-star and finished his career with .298 average, 382 HR and 1451 RBIs.

Now some may argue that Rice's numbers merit being in the HOF and I am not here to dispute that. The boys over at Baseball Prospectus have that market cornered - check out their article on ESPN.com today. I am of the opinion that players should have only one opportunity to enter the Hall. Give writers a ballot with all the eligible names and two boxes, yes and no. If a player receives 75% of yes votes, than he gets a plaque. This would eliminate alot of the writers letting players hang around until their is a "soft" class and allowing a star player, but not a super star player to receive the honour when they probably shouldn't. The hall of fame should be for the elite, not the very good.

This type of ballot would also ensure that writers make decisions on players closer to end of said players careers when they can be better judged. I watched Rickey, Mark McGwire, Harold Baines, David Cone all play, but I never saw Jim Rice play in his prime so how can I really judge if he is hall worthy. I can tell you that Baines in my mind is not a HOFer, but he got votes this year and will probably get votes until his 15 years runs out. Is he probably the grand father of the DH and a very good major leaguer in his day, yes, does that mean he should be on the wall next to Willie Mays, no. So then why do we put his name on the ballot every year when the only guy voting for him is the Chicago sports writer who is being nostalgic and was too close to the situation.

This year we got a Blue Jay into the HOF, next year hopefully an Expo in Andre Dawson and probably Blyleven even though for the last 5 years, he didn't seem worthy.