Baseball Writers strike out.

Well, I’ve taken a few days, to sit back, and relax. I’ve digested the reason the baseball writers opted not to elect anyone to the major league baseball hall of fame. And as I read their reasons, I have come to the following realization:

One, every current voting members for the major league baseball hall of fame needs to be let go. That’s right, they all need to have their privilege of voting for the hall of fame revoked.

The reason is very simple. Instead of giving votes to players like Craig Biggio, who was on for the first time, or legendary pitcher Jack Morris, who is running out of chances to be elected, some voters actually submitted blank ballots. That’s right, they opted to not vote for anyone.

It’s because they have judge all players from the 1980-2000’s guilty. Doesn’t matter if they have ever taken a PED, been accused, or anything. They have judged them guilty, hence they won’t vote for anyone. And if that is going to be their stance, its simple, revoke their right to vote.  Why should former players like Tim Raines and Morris suffer, and watch their chances to get in the hall be toyed with because of a vendetta by a bunch of baseball writers? It’s not fair to them. But hey, why should the writers care? They are seeking press by making fans think they are taking a stance, when they are nothing more than cowards. Any writer who submitted a blank ballot is a coward. Anyone who won’t vote to elect a player like Barry Bonds or Roger Clemmons just doesn’t understand the hall of fame.

Now, this misguided notion that a player elected to the hall of fame has to be a moral, nearly perfect citizen. Not sure where this idea even came from, but it somehow has seeped into the thought process. Now before you clamor with the thought that “These steroid players cheated, electing them would ruin the purity of the baseball hall of fame.” Well, let’s look at some current members, and ask yourself, despite what they’ve done on the field, should we really honor these folks with immortality?

Charles Comiskey. Here is the man that helped fuel his players to take a dive in the 1919 World Series. Comiskey was an owner who liked players, and liked money, but hated to see the two mixed. A noted tightwad, Comiskey would do anything, for ordering manager Kid Gleason to sit players, or order them to be taken out of games so they would not reach certain plateaus, which in return, would assure they would not get a promised bonus for reaching that benchmark. A complete inability  to relate to his players, or pry open his wallet, lead to a revolt, and his players, some of them top stars, deciding that they needed money more than World Series rings, so they took a dive.

Tom Yawkey. Famous owner of the Boston Red Sox, even has a street named after him. He was also a bigot. Tom Yawkey fought against intergrating the Boston Red Sox. Despite having talented black ball players in the minor league system, these players never played for the Red Sox. In fact, after one player hit .325 and 37 home runs in the minors for Boston, Yawkey ordered his release from his contract, instead of calling him up to the big league roster. The Red Sox had Ben Oglivie, a talented Outfield who became a star for the Milwaulkee Brewers. Yawkey ordered Oglivie traded for a fading starter, instead of making him a starter for the Red Sox. It wasn’t until years after his death, the Red Sox began to change their ways, and groom talented players like Jim Rice, who’d had never been given a chance uner Yawkey.

Kenesaw Landis. Let’s not kid ourselves here. There was only one reason that the baseball owners elected him as czar, and that’s because the owners owed him one. In 1915, the AL and NL were challenged by a third league seeking to be a major, the Federal league. The league was filled with talented players, and could have been a contender.  The league filed suit because of the reserve clauses that AL and NL players had, which meant that a players’ career was 100% under the control of the teams’ owner. Release, trade, the player had no say on where he went. The owners of the Federal League, eyeing several ML talents, thought this was, in effect, a monopoly. Landis was the judge that was slated to rule on this case. Instead, he did nothing, and this action forced the hand of the Federal League, and thus earned him a favor by the AL and NL owners, and that was paid back after the Black Sox Scandal.

But Landis was also a raging bigot. One of the criticism that he was given during his time as a judge was the notion that white men who stood before him, and black men who stood before him in court were treated different, with black men being sentenced harsher than white men. Landis also steadfast refused to allow baseball to be integrated. He famously told a reporter “They have their league, we have ours, that’s the way it should always be.”  After a group of ML all stars were defeated three games in a roll by Negro League standout team the Kansas City Monarchs, Landis ordered the series canceled, as many felt that Landis was angered that a team of all white ball players could lose to a team of black ball players.

Which is going to bring us to Cap Anson. Perhaps there is no more vile person in the hall of fame. That’s partly because Marty Bergen was never elected, and despite having worthy number, Bergen murdered his wife and two small children because he was depressed over his performance the previous season.

Cap Anson was a proud member of the KKK, thought that lynchings were the public’s way of controlling those the federal government could not, and is the man behind major league baseball being a white’s only game for 50 years. In 1884, Anson’s team was slated to play the American Association’s Toledo Blue Stockings. The AA was the second major league,  and the first to allow women to attend games, serve beer at the game, and allow blacks and whites to play on the same squad. Seeing that Moses Fleetwood Walker was the starting catcher, Anson was enraged. He called Walker the N-word several times, and pulled his entire team off the field, refusing to play unless Walker rode the bench. Toledo’s manager refused, and told Anson to “Go to hell”. This was followed by telling Anson that he would not be paid, nor would any of his players. Only after the notion of losing money, did Anson allow the game to go on. Anson would, ten years later, stage the infamous “White Players Revolt” in which Anson conned other top stars into thinking they would all lose their jobs if black ball players were allowed to compete with them for a job. Anson stated they would start their own league, which frightened the owners. Thus was born the rule that black men could not play in the major leagues.

There you have it. A tightwad who nearly ruined the game, and three racist, one with direct ties to the KKK, are immortalized in the hall. Is this the message that we want to send? That it’s okay to nearly ruin the game, or be a racist. To deny the chance to play major leagues to men simply because of the color of their skin, is that the message, really?

So, before you say that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemmons, etc ruined the game by taking steroids, and thus shouldn’t be in the hall. Before you say that “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and Pete Rose don’t belong because they gambled, think about this. Can you sleep well at night, keeping these men out, yet keeping in racist? There is the question. That is the question that needs to be answered.

If the PED tainted players are going to be kept out, then some that are already in, including those mentioned in this blog, Must be removed from the baseball hall of fame. If that doesn’t happen, then the message if that if you took drugs to enhance your performance, that was wrong.  But the same message also gives a free pass to those who’s crime was much more vile. Dismissing another human being, simply based on the color of their skin.