What type of Baseball Hall of Fame is it going to be in the future?

For a number of reasons, maybe it is time for MLB to re-examine how the vote for membership into the baseball Hall of Fame is handled.

Aside from the inherent conflict of interest, there is increasing evidence of overt and covert biases among the writers that may allow "undeserving" players to get in anyway where "undeserving" is simply defined as merit.
(see the Beyondtheboxscore story featured below - great work!!)

So now where do you go if you are the Hall of Fame relying on baseball writers to be the final arbiters of what the Hall of Fame represents?

It's certainly not a Hall of Merit as much as a Hall of Paybacks in some areas.

It's clearly not a Hall of Saints in many areas, cited here and elsewhere on numerous occasions.

So which is it going to be going forward?

It seems to me that the Baseball Museum which tells the History of Baseball Warts and All should be the approach taken going forward.

The other two approaches leave you appearing like Madonna defending her virtue.

A big, fat joke.


from Baseball America:
BaseballAmerica.com: Majors: Tracy Ringolsby: Hall Vote Hurts Everyone:

Steroids have become such a lightning rod for members of the media. Could it be, in part, because there is a guilty feeling on the part of so many of the writers for ignoring the impact of steroid usage at the time, and then having the problem exposed publicly, including in Congressional hearings?

 Think about it. For all the complaints about steroids, the BBWAA voters never seemed to have any concerns about segregation. They elected players who have been arrested on drug charges and some who were implicated in the cocaine scandal of 30 years ago. They didn't bat an eye about supporting pitchers who doctored baseballs.

 With steroids, however, the masses seem to have suddenly found religion.

The fact that Clemens and Bonds did receive support from more than a third of the voters bodes well for them long-term, and it underscores that voters are more willing to recognize their accomplishments than others also stained by steroids.

Sammy Sosa, also a first-time candidate, was on only 12.5 percent of the ballots. Mark McGwire was on 16.9 percent of the ballots, his weakest support in his seven years on the ballot, and Rafael Palmeiro only 8.8 percent, his lowest total in three years on the ballot.

The question that only time will answer is whether those who wanted to make a statement about suspected steroid users this year will ease their stance over time, and eventually reward the likes of Clemens and Bonds for what they accomplished on the field.

'via Blog this'

from beyondtheboxscore.com
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2013/1/10/3857368/2013-baseball-hall-of-fame-vote-how-much-do-bbwaas-secret-ballots

Two years ago, as I was was looking through some Hall of Fame vote trackers, I stumbled upon something curious: the totals from the publicly released ballots didn't match up with the final results. I thought this warranted further investigation, so I crunched some numbers and found that there were indeed some major discrepancies in the voting—specifically, that public voters were more likely to check the boxes for better Cooperstown candidates and less likely to support questionable picks than their more secretive peers.

.......

We've now established two facts about the 2013 BBWAA Hall of Fame vote:

1. Several candidates for Cooperstown were judged differently by those who kept their ballots secret than by those who made their votes public.
2. A significant amount (perhaps more than half) of a player's vote discrepancy between the two groups can be explained by how worthy he is of the Hall of Fame.

Let me pause for a moment to say that what follows is not a blanket statement that applies to every Hall of Fame voter. At the time of this study were 467 writers who did not allow the BBWAA to release their ballots, and for any individual voter I do not assume to know why he or she did not release his ballot (I should again mention that the BBWAA's list does not seem to be complete), or why he or she voted for whomever he or she voted for, or how responsibly he or she takes his or her duty. This is not targeted at any specific person and I would like to apologize in advance to any BBWAA voter to whom the following statement does not apply.

That being said, there is a third fact staring us in the face that is the logical conclusion of the first two:

• The BBWAA's use of secret ballots leads writers to vote for undeserving players and to snub worthy candidates when they would not be able to defend such selections publicly.