Look me in the eye, tell me Ripken and Gwynn shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame.
When I saw this year’s vote tallies for the Baseball Hall of Fame, I couldn’t believe that there were any sportswriters that did not vote for Cal Ripken or Tony Gwynn for membership in the Hall.
As you’ll see in the upcoming season, I have a growing distaste for most sportswriters and baseball broadcasters: many of them don’t understand the game of baseball and how it’s played, few of them rarely offer any insight into the game or the players, and many of them just regurgitate the “topic of the moment” without any independent analysis or thought.
Now you can just say I’m a Yankee apologist (true) or that I have a Yankee bias (also true), but there is no reason that Derek Jeter should not have been the 2006 AL MVP. There is no reason that Jose Canseco should have gotten a single vote for the Hall of Fame (he got 6). And there is no reason that some players should not have been unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame.
Bob Ryan, a Boston Globe columnist, is the first writer I am aware of to call his sportswriter brethren to the carpet to explain why Cal Ripken wasn’t unanimously elected to the Hall. In his column on January 28th, he lists several other players who should have been unanimously elected. I have to say, I am in completement agreement with his list.
I also want to second his challenge: look me in the eye and tell me that Cal Ripken or Tony Gwynn shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame. Better yet, look me in the eye and tell me that Jose Canseco should be in the Hall of Fame.
