What If They Held an Induction and No One Came? | Seamheads.com

Or what if they had a Hall of Fame and nobody cared?

I have been writing for some time about how the Baseball Hall of Fame seems bound and determined to take a "death march" into becoming the Hall of Irrelevancy or even worse the Hall of the Ignored. It doesn't do my heart good for the sport that others have taken notice that which I feared would inevitably happen.

from Seamheads.com
What If They Held an Induction and No One Came? | Seamheads.com:

Back in January, when Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson announced that the BBWAA had resisted the temptation to elect the all-time home run champ, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, two guys with more than 3,000 hits, and other significant ballplayers to the Hall of Fame, I sent him an e-mail. It read: “For the first time since you’ve been at the Hall, you’ll be able to give an accurate count of the attendance at the induction ceremony. All you have to do is count the legs and divide by two.” To Jeff’s credit, within an hour of facing the national cameras with his no-news-is-bad-news, he responded with this witty note: “Not if Bill Veeck shows up,” since Veeck’s wooden leg would screw up the arithmetic. I replied, “If you can get Bill Veeck here, you’ll have a record crowd.”

With only 34 living Hall of Famers returning for this year’s ceremony–the lowest number in many, many years, after a peak of more than 60 a few years ago–the ceremony was already going to be significantly shorter because of fewer introductions. With film tributes to the 12 overdue honorees, plus a current Hall of Famer reading the text of each of their plaques, the ceremony lasted about an hour and 45 minutes. It was a fine little ceremony, and we enjoyed it.

But it was not without some strange moments, some odd, discordant notes. My favorite involved the choice of current Hall of Famers to read the plaques. As much as possible, the Hall matched them up very well by position and/or team. Cal Ripken ended the afternoon by reading Gehrig’s plaque; Tommy Lasorda read the plaque of earlier Dodgers manager Wilbert Robinson; Wade Boggs read third baseman Jimmy Collins’ text, and so on. Then came the Hornsby plaque, the last before Gehrig’s. That “honor” went to Hall of Fame Vice Chairman Joe Morgan, presumably because both players were second basemen. But I couldn’t help flinching when I learned that the Hall was asking an African American to honor an avowed member of the Ku Klux Klan. I’m guessing that Morgan has no idea that Hornsby was in the Klan, or that anybody bothered to tell him. Maybe Jeff Idelson didn’t know it either. One of the Hall’s three missions is to “preserve history,” but that doesn’t mean its president has to preserve history in his own head. Suppose someone had told Morgan that Hornsby was in the KKK; would he still have read the plaque? Well, he did read it.

'via Blog this'

by contrast for football:
http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2013/08/04/seven-inducted-into-pro-football-hall-fame/?intcmp=trending

More than 120 hall members, a record, and a crowd of 11,500 was on hand at Fawcett Stadium for the golden anniversary celebration of the shrine.

The baseball voters seem to feel they are voting for the Hall of Saints. They will continue to suffer from fan apathy as long as they continue down this path. Once again, the Football Hall of Fame outshines as the current class of inductees was robust in both quantity and quality.

It is both striking and amazing to me that for some reason football -- a sport which seems to be a weekly celebration of self-glorification within the game itself -- standing in direct contradiction to the game of baseball -- which values humility and humbleness on a game to game basis.

However, when each sport elects its Hall of Fame members, the football players appear more humble ( see Cris Carter reduced to tears yesterday ) and full of gratitude whereas the baseball inductees almost enter the Hall as if they were always entitled to the honor, the rest of the world was simply late to notice. Like they were royalty or they deity or something.

It may have something to do with the grind of the voting process, but it seems like the other sports have a much better handle on the process than baseball does. Again, it may just be me, but the football players seem more grateful for the honor, the baseball guys more feel like they are entitled now to be worshiped. As if being honored throughout their career was not enough.