rusty staub wrote:

I'm with you on this one powersackers.

As for Powersackers reference to power/speed numbers, i think it was a fair attempt to support The Hawk within the reasoning (Sabremetrics) being used against him.

I haven't read much about The Hawk. But I know when Rice was getting bashed like this last year, Jim Palmer & Mike Flanagan disagreed with the doubters. But what do Palmer & Flanagan know about Jim Rice and baseball right?

Maybe former players should vote for the Hall.
They're the veteran's committee and they're just as bad and probably more prone to favoritism, putting in ex-teammates before players who really deserved it. There was a period where with a bunch of ex-Giant and Cardinal players and front office personel on the veteran's committee, they pretty much put in the entire starting lineups. Former players are probably even less reliable than the sportswriters.

The problem is that there is no set guidelines for the Hall of Fame, nor has there ever been. By putting in one single player who probably doesn't belong there, it continued to lower the standards every year. Baseball has also evolved, and someone hitting 30 homers in 1990 is not the same as someone hitting 30 homers in 1970 and that also further muddies the waters. Not having accountabililty also does no favors. I mean really, does ANYONE thing Eric Karros belongs in the Hall of Fame? Yet someone voted for him. Not only that, but I bet the person who voted for him didn't believe he belongs there either, but it got him one HOF vote.

I think Bill James had the best idea, when he said it should be an open process, and the votes would be from the media, ex-players, fans, front office types and the like. It's better explained in The Politics of Glory, but it makes some sense, so it'll never happen!