The Hall of Fame needs adjustment. There will always be arguments as to who should be in and who should be out. Plenty of hitters are elected in while the all-time hits leader, Pete Rose, is kept out. That aspect will never change and it is part of the appeal of the Hall. Not one player has ever been unanimously elected and that shows agreements can never be made, even if the player is an obvious choice, like Hank Aaron, Ricky Henderson, Nolan Ryan.
Pause for a second and let the soak in. No baseball player has EVER been unanimously elected.
It is that fact, and the amount of years a player is eligible. The players' stats don't change after they retire. Burt Blyleven retired with 287 wins. That number hasn't gone up or down, only the flip-flopping sportswriters' votes have. Blyleven, in my opinion, should have been elected immediately but had to be patient while the writers wavered. Jim Rice was elected last year, which I disagreed with, but also probably should have been elected immediately.
I'm being distracted though. I came here to discuss to plan to revamp the Hall, not argue who should be in or out, though that is fun. I want the Hall to have tiers, and the eligibility to be cut down to three years. That is all. No big deal.
The tiers can be broken down into three. The top tier would include the upper echelon of talent. Babe Ruth, Nolan Ryan, Hank Aaron. Guys who completely dominated their generation and any baseball fan knows instantly. The second level includes the guys that are still first ballot Hall of Famers. Joe DiMaggio, Willie Stargell, Tom Seaver. The bottom tier includes players who excelled in their career, but don't have the flashy numbers, or might not be worthy of a 1st ballot induction under the current format. Andre Dawson, Burt Blyleven, Robin Yount.
And secondly, as I said earlier, reduce the years of eligibility to three. Sportswriters get power hungry when given a chance to decide where to put a player. Roberto Alomar was the best second baseman of the 1990s. He should not have had to wait a year for the writers to teach him a lesson. If a player has to wait more than three years, I don't think they should be in. Sorry Donny Baseball, that means you.
I want this revamping because you can't compare Babe Ruth to Dave Winfield to Kirby Puckett. You can't compare Bob Feller to Burt Blyleven. While Kirby and Blyleven deserve praise, they don't deserve the same honor as Hank Aaron or Sandy Koufax.
The players above are examples I would use for my tiers. Who would you put in your three tiers? Are there players in the Hall that you would remove if given the chance? Would you elect Pete Rose? (I would).
Oh, and congratulations Burt Blyleven and Roberto Alomar Jr. for being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Credit @si_vault on twitter for these photos. Follow them if you want to see classic photos such as these.
No comments:
Post a Comment