How Much Does Hall of Fame Voting Matter?

L'Affaire Saxon has raised some questions

Mark Saxon blocked me yesterday.

If you are following along at the main blog, you know that Top Cards on Twitter is going on. For those uninformed, in October I put out a ballot of Twitter folks that are active in the Cardinal community, people vote on them, I accumulate the data and write the posts. The first few posts are mainly just a list of names, but the Top 25 get a little more attention.

It would seem the post that caused this issue was this one, where we looked at the people that finished 16th through 20th. As with all in the Top 25, we give some statistics, print what they put in their Twitter bio, and embed a tweet of theirs. I try to get a tweet that is 1) recent, 2) related to baseball, and 3) indictive of what kind of account they are. I don’t always succeed but that’s my intent. The way that Wordpress feeds a link to my Twitter account, it takes the first image listed. Which, in this case, was the avatar of the user known as CigarMike.

Before we get farther into what happened, let’s put the background out there, not because anyone reading this doesn’t know it but for future reference. Mr. Saxon released his Hall of Fame ballot two weeks ago. I think a key point here is that he released it. It didn’t show up in the Hall of Fame tracker run by Ryan Thibodaux at @NotMrTibbs with Thibodaux posting it. It wasn’t released anonymously. Mr. Saxon himself released it and, seemingly realizing it would be controversial, asked that people “be kind”.

Mr. Saxon had voted for, if I recall correctly because obviously I can’t check it anymore, all of those tainted by the steroid brush. That’s going to cause a reaction but there are some that would agree with his reasoning there. He then voted for Omar Vizquel, whose on the field case is questionable and his off the field issues should be disqualifying, while leaving off Scott Rolen, whom he voted for last year. All the while only using eight of his 10 allotted slots, so the Rolen drop was not required because of space limitations.

Given that he dropped this ballot on his timeline with a follower base that was overwhelmingly obtained because he was a Cardinals beat writer and St. Louis radio guy, it’s not surprising that leaving off a guy many fans feel passionately about caused an uproar. While perhaps the vitriol was unexpected (and it was definitely uncalled for), Mr. Saxon seemed unprepared for the logical and reasonable arguments that some fans threw at him as well.

Anyway, back to our story. I sincerely doubt that Mr. Saxon had been reading all of the posts. (For what it’s worth, he finished 26th, a spot that will likely be much higher than his 2022 finish if I were to guess.) I would imagine he saw the avatar of someone that had been harsh in his assessment of Mr. Saxon’s Hall of Fame ballot and wanted to see why he was ranking so high on this list.

Unfortunately, the tweet I used for CigarMike’s entry was one that was blasting Saxon’s ballot in fairly choice language. I remember as I put the post together not really wanting to use it, but there weren’t many other baseball options in his recent feed and, for good or ill, was a representation of CigarMike’s account.

Mr. Saxon then had some choice words for me in a private message before blocking my account. I reached out to him with an apology and concern for his well-being given his actions over the last couple of weeks. He said he was fine, shot some more pointed comments my way (apparently he thinks I have a higher opinion of my ramblings than I actually do as he said something to the effect that this is why I’m not taken seriously for doing meaningful work, two things—being taken seriously and meaningful work—I’ve never ever aspired to or believed, since I’m a guy writing opinions and Star Wars crossovers, not a journalist), and blocked that account as well.

It feels like Mr. Saxon may have been infected with some of the defensiveness that permeates any discussion these days, since some of his responses to the criticism of his ballot invoke “the Twitter mob” and “the right opinions”. As a society, so often these days we double down when people come after us. “If everyone is against me, I must be right.” Sometimes, maybe. However, if 90% of your response is negative, maybe it’s time to at least re-evaluate and try to understand where the criticism is coming from instead of dismissing it as people virtue signaling.

That’s a lot of words to get to what I wanted to talk about, something that Allen and I discussed briefly on the last Meet Me at Musial. Does all of this even matter?

We put a lot on these Hall of Fame ballots. We get worked up when one guy gets in and one guy doesn’t. For the players, I truly do believe it makes a difference. Scott Rolen wants to get into the Hall of Fame because it’s a huge honor. I am sure that, in a career full of highlights, one of Ozzie Smith’s proudest days was standing in front of Cooperstown giving his induction speech. It’s the top of the mountain for these guys and, for that, it should be taken seriously.

For the rest of us, though, should we really get worked up about who gets in and who doesn’t?

It’s been said of Pete Rose or Barry Bonds or anyone else that has a baseball scandal around them that “how do you tell the story of baseball without Player X”. However, that gives the Hall of Fame a lot more weight in how the story of baseball is told than I believe it is due.

Besides the fact that the Hall of Fame has memorabilia from and exhibits about these guys that aren’t in the Hall anyway, the story of baseball isn’t limited to who is enshrined in the Hall. For instance, I probably know more about Dick Allen, who played before my time, because he’s not in the Hall. The stories, the books, the articles written around this time exist whether or not the player gets inducted.

And now, with the advent of video and the technology that allows us to quickly sort and find things, people can see these players for themselves. If Scott Rolen never gets into the Hall (I hope he does and believe he will, but hypothetically), there are plenty of highlight reels and video clips that future generations will be able to see to understand just how good he was. Rolen is still going to show up on lists of great third basemen. True students of baseball will always know him.

As for casual fans, the Hall doesn’t guarantee immortality with them. Just for an example, Dave Bancroft. Do you know him? He played from 1915 to 1930 and was inducted in 1971. I may have run across the name at some point in reading about the early days of baseball, but I couldn’t have told you he was a Hall of Famer. I don’t know that his induction does any more to keep his name alive than books or documentaries about that time period would.

The Hall of Fame is important and we want the voters to take their responsibility seriously. The idea that there were a couple of writers who turned in blank ballots for two years in a row is ridiculous. Those are not serious voters and there should be a mechanism that punishes such behavior.

However, it’s not so important that we should get the knives out for these people. I do wonder if Hall of Fame voting was done, say, in June if people would get so worked up about it. The fact that it happens in the dead period of December, when there is nothing else baseball to really talk about (especially this year, with the lockout) brings heightened scrutiny and inflates the import of all of this. Once January rolls around and the names are announced, we’ll grumble for a day or so then move on to new things such as the CBA negotiations. Then we’ll do it all again next December.

I hope Scott Rolen gets inducted into the Hall, if not this year then soon. Even if he doesn’t, though, he’s part of the story of baseball and that doesn’t get taken away by a few ballots.