The Voters…Are They Knuckleheads?
Former Met closer Billy Wagner’s last year of Hall of Fame eligibility.
2025. Next year.
In 2024, he needed 75% to get in. He got 73.8%. Fell a few votes short.
Are those who didn’t vote for him prudent?
Sadists (we’ll make him sweat because…well, because we enjoy torture)?
Knuckleheads?
Does he REALLY have to wait until year 10 to get in?
His career?
47-40, 2.31, 903 innings, 1,198 Ks, 0.998 WHIP, 422 saves.
Seems great. Seems clearly Hall-worthy.
What say you?
8 comments:
Great
Knucleheads
My vote is yes, the voters are knuckleheads. That said, Billy is in next year. Way overdue.
There are a holes everywhere.
Losers, Knuckleheads, A-holes, Clowns… pick a word. Too many have done it for too long that they feel the ring on their finger needs to be kissed. While there are players like Harold Baines and Phil Rizzutto that will forever be punch lines and knee slappers when talking about the game, the problem starts by first identifying exactly what the Hall of Fame is.
1. A museum that has NO affiliation with MLB other than touting its history. MLB likes that, so they keep pushing it.
2. This place is located in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York, so they need the consistent publicity to keep it relevant or at least in the public’s thinking.
3. Like the playoff system in the NCAA, the controversy gives the outcome more meaning. In other league Hall of Fames, there is never controversy as to who goes in. The board of directors of each one make decisions and keep their respective museums elite.
The MLB Hall of Fame strives for attention more than it strives to be elite. Yes, there are many players that deserve the recognition and there are others that are just as good if not better than some in there. Keith Hernandez is wayyyyyyyy better than Harold Baines. Is Phil Rizzutto better than Rafael Santana or Buddy Harrelson? Not saying Keith was better than Ken Griffey Jr, but you need to understand that the affect of not presenting the museum properly hurts it.
A possible thought is to divide it into decades. How good was this player versus his peers? That way, at least we can have a realistic understanding or comparison of how good a player was rather than some idiots giving us their biased opinions and having them pushed in every media outlet on the earth and moon.
Gus, good points and something for the powers-that-be should think about.
All I know is if am Billy Wagner, after the career I had, which was comparable to Mariano's but innings-wise 25% shorter, for Mariano to waltz into the Hall at almost 100% in year one (deserved), but Billy to be dangling at the whims of a bunch of weird reporters who decide in their own minds, "well, maybe year 10, depending on how I wake up that day", sucks, frankly.
Give guys their due while they are relatively young and alive.
And I agree - Cooperstown to me was very unimpressive when I visited there 20 years ago, and was in the middle of nowhere. I was leaving there on a dreary, damp pre-GPS summer evening and asked a local if I was reading the map correctly and taking a certain route would save time. He said yeah, but you'll hit a deer. So I drove back the way I came in, even though it took me an extra hour.
Politicians would squeal if they tried to move it...tourist attractions mean jobs, jobs, jobs. And why else would anyone go to Cooperstown?
Posthumous election to the Hall, too, is a joke. Elect and "enshrine" guys in the Hall while they are alive. Keith should be in it. Why? He was a greater impact than wins above replacement.
Wager also saved 422 of 476, a % (88.7%) almost as good as Rivera's.
Rivera had a big benefit - he played for many elite Yankee offensive teams, which meant he never had to face them.
Last Billy post from me: he could have kept pitching, as he had a fine 2010 season, but on April 30, 2010, Wagner revealed that he would retire at the end of the 2010 season to spend more time with his family. That alone should HELP his HOF status.
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