Stathead: HOF Spotlight

 

Once again, not sure what the voters are looking for. I think Kent checks all the boxes and yet he is on his next to last year on the ballot. 

They made Ortiz's case on the same day. Why not, keeping Bonds out is good enough for most of the electors because they care more about how players treated the media than almost anything else. 

HOF Candidate Spotlight

Jeff Kent 2B/3B/1B | 1992 - 2008 | NYM, TOR, CLE, SFG, HOU, LAD

 MVP   5x All-Star   4x Silver Slugger 

WAR: 55.5 Better than 36.4% of HOFers Black Ink: 0 Better than 0.0% of HOFers Gray Ink: 71 Better than 11.7% of HOFers HOF Monitor: 122.5 Better than 40.5% of HOFers JAWS: 45.62 Better than 35.0% of HOFers at 2B

Jeff Kent enters his 9th year on the ballot. After hovering in the teens for most of his eligibility, he has made a jump in the last two cycles and peaked at 32.4% of the vote last year. Kent was an average starter for most of the 1990s, not finding his peak performance until joining the San Francisco Giants in 1997. During his 6-year Giants tenure he finished in the top 10 of MVP voting 4 times, including winning the NL MVP in 2000 over his teammate Barry Bonds.

Kent provided a lot of offensive value from a traditionally weaker position of second base. Kent hit 351 of his home runs as a second baseman, the record holder by a decent amount. Kent was not a top defender at the position, only surpassing 1.0 defensive WAR in his 1997 season. That being said, his total value was the best among 2nd basemen for a time. From 1997-2005, Kent recorded 42 WAR, with the next closest 2nd baseman being Craig Biggio with 32 WAR in that time span.

Reporters should stop caricaturing conservatives on race | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute

This is probably good advice, however it's not likely to be taken. Liberals gain too much from their lap-dogs in the media by cultivating division. Those in academia have made their names and reputations on developing future pseudo-Social Justice Warriors and oxy-moronic "community organizers".

Thanks for the advice though, it's just a case of (way) too little, (way) too late.

from edexcellence.net
https://edexcellence.net/articles/reporters-should-stop-caricaturing-conservatives-on-race

Reporters should stop caricaturing conservatives on race | The Thomas B. Fordham Institute 

Editor's note: Last week, at the University of Southern California, the annual Education Writers Association conference kicked off with a speech by USC professor Shaun Harper on "Big Ideas on Equity, Race, and Inclusion in Education." That was followed by a panel on the same topic featuring Dr. Harper, Estela Bensimon, Pedro Noguera, and the Fordham Institute's Michael J. Petrilli, moderated by Inside Higher Ed's Greg Toppo. These were Petrilli's comments as prepared. 

Shaun's comments were well said, though you won't be surprised to know that I disagree with many of his arguments. I'm happy to get into that, as Greg sees fit. 

But first I want to focus my comments on you, the reporters.
We all know that this is a difficult time to talk about issues of race and class in this country, thanks to the extreme polarization and division, including on this issue. Of course, President Trump doesn't make it any easier, as he shows no interest in bringing us together or bridging divides. In fact, he seems intent on making the divides even larger, with his awful race-mongering at his rallies and in social media, and with many of the actions his administration is taking. This is why I was a Never Trumper, and why I left the Republican Party after Charlottesville. 

But the rest of us shouldn't play his game. And especially when discussing these highly fraught issues around race, we should work extra hard to find common ground, and find solutions.
It's my belief that the overwhelming majority of Americans, and the overwhelming majority of educators, are sympathetic to the concerns Shaun discussed. It disturbs us that so many kids of color continue to face unfair barriers in their educations and in their lives, and we want to do something about it.
But we can't have productive conversations if those conversations are quickly shut down. And that's what I see too often: conversations on race shut down if those of us on the right express disagreement with the views of folks on the left. If we say, for example, that we agree that racism and racial bias are real, and are factors in the gaps and disparities we see, but we don't think they are the only factor, that other factors matter, too, including families, and personal responsibility, and student behavior—if we say these things that are perfectly reasonable, too many times we are called racists. We are thrown in with the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.  

And reporters are sometimes complicit. I see this in the debate around discipline disparities. We are all alarmed by the fact that African American students are three times as likely to be suspended as their white peers. We are open to finding solutions to that problem. 

But in the press we are caricatured. Civil rights groups and other progressives think the disparities are being driven by racism and racial bias. The conservative view is not that racism or racial bias aren't factors, or don't exist. Anyone who has studied American history, slavery, Jim Crow, understands the racist history of this country. And anyone who understands human nature and cognition knows that implicit bias is a real thing, and something we all have to be on guard against in our own lives. Of course racism and racial bias are part of the story. 

The conservative position, though, is that it's not the entire story. When you go and look at the best evidence—the most rigorous studies and surveys of students themselves—it is undeniable that the other big part of the story is student behavior. Some groups of students misbehave in school more frequently than others: African Americans more than white students, white students more than Asian American students, and so forth. This is not because of their race, but almost surely because of various risk factors that are connected to student misbehavior, all of them related to poverty. 

African American kids are three times as likely as white students to grow up in poverty, even more likely to grow up in deep poverty, three times more likely to grow up without a dad in the home, much more likely to be exposed to lead poisoning, more likely to be in the child welfare system, and on and on and on. This is a tragic state of affairs, and much of it is the legacy of racism. But we can't wish it away. 

And it matters for discipline policy because, if you expect to reach perfect parity in suspensions, but student behavior varies, you are telling educators to stop holding certain kids to high expectations. And that's not good for the kids, and it's certainly not good for their peers, or for a positive school climate. And it also paints educators as the problem, when the truth is much more complicated. 

And yet when I've argued that student behavior is part of the issue, that it varies by race, not because of race, but because of these other factors, people in this room have called me a racist. 

Can we stop doing that? 

So again, to the reporters, my plea is this: On issues of race, but really all issues, please check your own biases, including ideological and political biases. When your editors tell you to include the conservative point of view, please work hard to really understand it. Don't caricature it. Don't make it sound like conservatives are denying racism and racial bias in the same way some deny climate change. These issues are complicated and complex—and your readers deserve to see them portrayed that way.

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Tony Boselli puts Chris Simms on blast for being awful at football

The Jaguars are going to the Championship game with the #70 ranked QB, according to both Chris Simms, who should be ashamed of himself, and that chortling, ESPN-moron, Dan LeBeRetard, who is a perma-fool. 

Simms is worse than an idiot. I still hope Boselli punches him in the face, it might raise his IQ.

After what his Dad went through in NY with ignorant fans and media, Chris Simms should know better. Phil Simms was known as Simms Sucks right up until the first Super Bowl, from which he emerged as the MVP. 

The New York Post had letters from fans in the week leading up to that first Super Bowl saying "It's nice that the Giants got this far, but Simms will blow it." The Broncos logo, John Elway was destined to roll over the vaunted Giants D and win easily. Didn't happen. The quotes below, attributed to the junior Simms, are of the same tone and tenor as those leveled at the senior Simms back in the day. 

For that, I would excuse Phil Simms from the charge of child abuse if he beat Boselli to the punch, both literally and figuratively. 

Fan-boys, media pseudo-experts and amateur pseudo-analysts were stupid back then and they remain stupid today. 

Chris Simms is a horses ass. He's still the same guy that rode up to the University of Texas in a limo and lost the team to the unheralded Major Applewhite. Stupid then, stupid now.

from blackandteal.com
https://blackandteal.com/2018/01/10/tony-boselli-puts-chris-simms-blast-awful-elevator-quarterbacks/

Tony Boselli puts Chris Simms on blast for being awful at evaluating quarterbacks

by Daniel Lago8 hours agoFollow @dlago89Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles has taken plenty of undue flack and Tony Boselli had enough when he heard Chris Simms trashing him.

 "Because, you know, that was a subpar quarterback.""He trash." "As long as Bortles is back there, if the ball game is in his hands, he's going to choke.""I'm trying to go out there and win the game. I want to make him look like Blake Bortles"

Blake Bortles has been a national whipping boy since his disappointing 2016 campaign, but it's been taken to another level in 2017.

Bortles has improved significantly this year, but instead of gaining the respect of his peers he's been the subject of undeserved insults.

The latest came at the hands of the completely unremarkable former quarterback Chris Simms, who said Bortles was the 70th best quarterback in the NFL.

Simms was on the Dan Le Batard show, discussing the quarterbacks left in the playoffs, and openly discussed guys like Mark Sanchez, Chad Henne, T.J. Yates, Cardale Jones, and Nathan Peterman being better than quarterbacks than Blake Bortles.

Obviously blinded by confirmation bias and presumably some level of jealously since he flamed out of the NFL spectacularly while Bortles just won a playoff game, Simms stayed on the show long enough for Tony Boselli to call in and rip him a new one.

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When the Giants were known as the "God Squad" | RELIGION BECOMES AN IMPORTANT PART OF BASEBALL SCENE - NYTimes.com

https://jewsforjesus.org/blog/god-squad-ii/

A blast from the past, the late 1970's early 80's version and the more recent vintage (link above).

Amazing how it's never an issue when the team is winning, only when things head south. What do you expect from the media? 

from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/10/sports/religion-becomes-an-important-part-of-baseball-scene.html?pagewanted=all

RELIGION BECOMES AN IMPORTANT PART OF BASEBALL SCENE

By GEORGE VECSEY

Published: May 10, 1981

THE God Squad. That nickname has followed the San Francisco Giants since 1978, eventually giving them a reputation of a team somehow weakened by the presence of several ''born-again'' Christians.

The basis for this reputation seems to be a quote attributed to Bob Knepper, now with the Houston Astros, that it was ''God's will'' when he gave up a game-losing home run. Although Knepper and his friends deny he made the statement, it continues to follow him and the Giants, and popped up in several baseball previews this spring.

''The tone of the article makes us sound pacified, but God does not expect us to be goody-two-shoes,'' says Gary Lavelle, a 32-yearold relief pitcher who once pitched in an All-Star Game and is the leader of the spiritual movement in the Giant clubhouse.

As a result of the quote, a few Giants have worried whether their ''born-again'' teammates are intense enough, even though many Giants praise the witnessing players as among the most dedicated of players. The confusion points out the problems in mixing religious beliefs with the simplified perceptions of sports.

Religious witnessing has become more common in all sports in the last decade, particularly in baseball, where chapel meetings are held in the clubhouse every Sunday with the endorsement of Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

The ''God Squad'' label began in 1978 when the Giants contended for first place until late in the season, but ultimately finished third. Many of the Giants were active in the Baseball Chapel, a Sunday-morning prayer service run by Watson Spoelstra of St. Petersburg, Fla., a retired sportswriter. Several Giants also became deeply involved in Bible study groups on their own time.

The ''born-again'' movement was hardly confined to a few locker rooms in the 1970's, but was a growing religious force in America, based on Biblical evangelical tradition. Evangelicals accept the full authority of the Bible, have made a personal spiritual commitment to Christ, and also accept the responsibility of witnessing their faith to others.

The basis for this commitment is taken from John 3:3, in which Jesus tells Nicodemus: ''I tell you the truth: no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.''

Just as President Carter and many other public figures spoke openly of their faith, so did athletes when given the opportunity. ''A lot of neat things were happening in 1978,'' says Rob Andrews, an infielder on that squad, now a youth pastor and teacher in Concord, Calif. ''A lot of us were having success on the field and finding Christ in our personal lives. As long as we were winning, the Christians were given credit for being a driving force on that team.'' Example of a Teammate

Andrews recalls that he had been traded from Baltimore and Houston with a reputation as a hothead. In the minor leagues he once asked his manager, Joe Altobelli, to install a punching bag behind the dugout so he could punch away his frustrations. He still had personal problems when Altobelli, then managing the Giants, brought him to San Francisco in 1977 and his locker was next to Lavelle's.

''I saw Gary Lavelle go through hard times that would have killed me,'' Andrews recalls. ''But he was always calm. He never preached to me but one day I asked him, 'Gary, what is it?' He said it was Christ.''

In 1979 the Giants never regained the winning touch, and Altobelli lost his job. Rumors began circulating that the Giants had been divided between carousers and born-againers, as if they were two extremes surrounding some kind of competitive ideal.

''Some guys fight like tigers but they always seem calm,'' says Altobelli, now the third-base coach with the Yankees. ''Other guys, Italian guys maybe, talk with their hands, get more physical. It takes all kinds. I had no complaint about those guys. Our problem in 1979 was pitching, not our chapel guys.''

The chief criticism from that year was the ''God's will'' quote attributed to Knepper after he gave up a home run. He says he can neither recall the game nor the quote. Knepper, who has pitched three shutouts this season with Houston, says he originally said, ''A lot of people believe we pray to God for victory and that we say it is God's will if we lose, but we never say that.

''We say God lets you perform. I do believe that as long as I give my best, I can't determine the outcome, but a Christian still has to go out and bust his fanny every day. I believe Christ died on the cross so I would give my best in life. For me to give up a home run and say God made me hang a curve ball is ridiculous. He doesn't play favorites. He gave me a certain amount of talent for me to use the right way.''

Fritz Peterson, a former major-league player now a chapel representative in the Chicago area, says, ''The religion was something that could be used against players, just like when I was pitching and my weight was fine as long as I was winning but I became overweight when I started to lose. Yet I never changed a pound. Some people said these guys were pacifists but they always played tough within the rules. I firmly believe that if Jesus Christ was sliding into second base, he would knock the second baseman into left field to break up the double play. Christ might not throw a spitball but he would play hard within the rules.''

Criticism From the Press

The born-again Giants claim that most reporters who cover the club regularly were fairer than some columnists. Lavelle recalls: ''One columnist wrote we were not getting anywhere by praying to Jesus and that maybe we should try praying to Satan. I remember that column well. I was not really surprised. The Bay Area is the center of devil worship, radical groups and homosexuality in this country. It is a satanic region.''

The evangelical players insist most of the criticism came from the press, but several suggest that Altobelli's replacement, Dave Bristol, was a little less tolerant than Altobelli. Now raising horses in the dogwood spring of North Carolina, Bristol said: ''I saw Rob Andrews turn his life around, and that was great.

''I do think there has to be a line drawn somewhere. The Lord is watching over all of us once the game starts. I don't like to think anybody uses religion as a crutch. It's supposed to make you a stronger person, not a better player.

''But I never said anything about those guys and nobody said anything to me. I didn't always understand Bob Knepper but I liked him a lot. I don't think religion was his problem - it was mechanics - dropping to a side-arm delivery. Bobby is a battler. I never thought he was complaisant.''

Frank Robinson, the new manager of the Giants, says he knows nothing about the issue. Joe Torre, manager of the Mets, says he has seen Pete Falcone become a more controlled adult since his spiritual conversion.

Chuck Tanner of the Pirates points to his intense born-again shortstop, Tim Foli - once known as ''Chief Crazy Horse,'' fighter of teammates, opponents, managers and umpires alike -and says, ''Nobody is more of a battler than Foli. I think religion has a place everywhere. I go to the chapel meetings myself whenever I can.''

Both the Mets and the Yankees hold chapel meetings every Sunday, with Tom Skinner, a former street-gang member-turned-evangelist, coordinating the services for the Yankees. Dave Swanson is the Baseball Chapel representative to the Mets, whose attendance is not as high as some other teams, according to Falcone. Roman Catholic priests occasionally visit both the Met and Yankee clubhouses. Although Torre praised Falcone for his growth since his spiritual experience, the manager said he did not want to discuss whether he had ever seen a player become complacent following a conversion. ''Religion is a touchy subject,'' Torre said.

Did any Giant player feel concern over the zeal of the born-again players? Randy Moffitt, a regular at chapel, says he detected ''a little bit of it a few years ago, but it's all gone now.'' Lavelle says he heard rumors the born-again players took a separate bus on trips.

One Giant said, off the record, two years ago that he thought that a few teammates were spending too much time in prayer and not enough time in practice, but that same player said last week, ''We should probably be more like them.'' Pressure for a Commitment

One Giant who raised concerns recently is Darrell Evans, one of the founders of the Giants' chapel group who says he feels estranged from his evangelical teammates because he perceives ''pressure'' on him to make a stronger spiritual commitment.

''For the last couple of years this club has been frustrating,'' Evans said recently. ''When a game is over, you should reflect on it. I want to see everybody is involved 100 percent. I just don't get good vibes sometimes. I see a guy come off the field, I think, maybe it's just not that important to him. It looks like he just went through a normal day's work.

''This is not a 9-to-5 job. I'm not saying we should throw things around the clubhouse, but a few times in baseball I've seen guys who used to be very intense and are now very placid. You wonder if guys think things are predestined.''

John Montefusco, who was traded from the Giants to Atlanta this season, says his religious beliefs differ from the evangelicals but he praises them strongly.

''When I was pitching for the Giants I hated to come out of a game,'' Montefusco said recently, ''but I always felt better when Gary Lavelle came in for me. You could see he had competitive spirit. He may hold back his feelings, and maybe that's not healthy, but he is one of the finest people I've ever met in baseball. These are good people. They are my friends. I think the press took a few things and blew it out of proportion to make those guy look bad.''

Lavelle says he has tried to avoid the ''religious fanatic'' label by not preaching to people unless they ask him about his faith. He is disturbed that what seems like a positive to him, a stable life, an even disposition, could be described as a potential detriment for a team.

''It seems so natural to me to carry my faith with me into the locker room,'' Lavelle says. ''I'm not asking for things, but I believe my relationship to Christ makes me a better husband, father, ballplayer. To see it turned around the way it has been - it makes me wonder.''

Illustrations: Photo of Gary Lavelle

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Listen to 6-2 Mike Krukow talks about the Giants needs in Podcasts

Finally!! An acknowledgment that the Giants are just playing losing baseball on all fronts. And this from one of the teams greatest apologists on-air. I am tired of the pundits and the scribes repeating the may the Giants are just getting BABIP'd to death or the pitching staff is "unlucky" all the freaking time.

Matt Moore is not unlucky.
Matt Moore has no control and no command of his stuff.
In or out of the strike zone. He hangs it, they bang it. Consistently. MISTAKES.
One is an anomaly, two is a coincidence, three or more is a trend.
Matt Moore is in a deep trend.
He must miss his spots more than anybody in the league.
Let's see that metric.

His FIP -- which removes BABIP, allegedly -- is the worst on the staff.
So are all the other relevant metrics.

Sometimes you just suck. Own it and grow from it. Acknowledgment of the problem is the first step.
W-L shouldn't stand for Winning and Losing, is should be Winning and Learning. Making excuses for mistakes inhibits/delays/retards Learning. STOP IT!! Just STOP IT!!

Hopefully the Krukow epiphany is happening behind closed doors in this clubhouse. Somebody needs to trash a post-game spread or two on this team which is to say step up and lead.

Looking at you Posey. Looking at you Pence. Looking at you Belt. You're getting big money now. Looking at you Crawford. Ditto on the contract.

These are the guys on the field every day  drawing large dollars. We seem to have a lot of dead money on the pitching staff, if there is also a lot of dead money in the everyday lineup, this becomes DEAD TEAM WALKING.

Right now it seems like the team needs a heart transplant. Hopefully, just a stent or two.
Enough is enough.

Listen to 6-2 Mike Krukow talks about the Giants needs from Kruk & Kuip in Podcasts. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/kruk-kuip/id992994793?mt=2&i=1000386083720

BBWAA writers should relinquish throne as HOF's moral gatekeepers-MLB - Buster Olney Blog- ESPN

Glad to see my original thoughts, from years and years ago, are starting to gain some mainstream traction. IMO, it will be too little, too late from both Clemens and Bonds. The BBWAA will take the easy way out and pass it along to the Veterans Committee as they have historically.

Time to revamp the whole process. They are weeding out the "undesirables", the guys in the BBWAA who do not even watch baseball but retained a Hall of Fame vote. That made sense, although it mimics what we do in this country to vote for a POTUS, so WTFDIK?!?

I like them both, but under the circumstances as we now know them, how Clemens garners more support than Bonds, under than covert, subtle racism among the voting bloc, is beyond my understanding.

Also, if there is place for Piazza and his back-ne, then explain to me again, like I'm a second grader, how Clemens and Bonds don't belong. Once again, other than a "good old boys" wink-wink, nod-nod, HTF does that happen?

Oh, what a tangled web these good old boys weave.....

from ESPN:
http://espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/insider/post?id=11997

BBWAA writers should relinquish throne as HOF's moral gatekeepers

Thom Loverro attaches a label to the writers who have changed their minds and voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
The ballot machinations have been interesting this year. Some voters hid behind the so-called character clause for years in declining to vote for Bonds, Clemens, Mike Piazza or others linked to performance-enhancing drugs, and are now reversing course without truly acknowledging a complete flip-flop or any previous mistake they've made. Which is a cop-out.
It's OK to change your mind; we all do that. But nobody should attempt to write, at least with any credibility, that the character clause should be given weight and then switch a vote on a player from the PED group.
What that really means is that voter has never actually developed a true standard for election, which has always been the core challenge. Either the character clause matters in the process, or it doesn't; there can be no middle ground on that question.
And as has been written here for years, the character clause should hold no weight, because even with current Hall of Famers, it cannot possibly apply, given the high number of people with personal flaws -- human flaws -- among the group.
For starters, the person believed to have written the character clause, former commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, worked to keep the sport segregated, and that in itself should have been enough to appraise the depth and significance of the character clause.
For the record: I stopped voting in the Hall of Fame last year. Before that, I voted for who I believed to be the best players on the ballot, regardless of PED history, for a couple of reasons:
1. There was never a way to know exactly who did what, and when, and in what volume, and ascertain a proper context for any one player's use of performance-enhancing drugs.Yes, we know some things about what a small handful of prominent players did, like Mark McGwire, but was he one of 500 players who did something? A thousand? Maybe he was one of 10,000 or more when you include the number of minor league players (and other various circuits) attempting to elbow their way to The Show?
This is what made the Mitchell investigation and report so disgustingly abhorrent: There was absolutely no chance of reaching anything close to a necessary understanding of the scope of drug use within the sport, and yet the folks who generated that information singled out fewer than 100 in their final rendering, while knowing they were effectively demonizing the handful they threw to the mob.
Sadly, writers have done the same with the handling of the Hall of Fame voting.
Insider

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from Yahoo Sports:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/barry-bonds--roger-clemens-inch-closer-to-hall-of-fame-induction-021548714.html?soc_src=mail&soc_trk=ma

Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens inch closer to Hall of Fame inductions

Slowly, improbably, the tide is turning and the Baseball Writers Association of America is seeing the valley of its illogic. This year, it's a legitimate, substantial jump. Next year, a likely leap into a majority. And after that, perhaps the rolling snowball turns into an avalanche that sweeps Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens into their rightful place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
.
The Hall reveals the results of balloting at 6 p.m. ET Wednesday, and the only sure thing is Ken Griffey Jr. waltzing into Cooperstown. Momentum – and exit polling – are in Mike Piazza's favor. Jeff Bagwell could sneak in past the 75 percent threshold. And Tim Raines is close enough that he should book a ticket to upstate New York for July 2017.
Amid it all are the suddenly ascendant candidacies of Bonds and Clemens, steroid pariah Nos. 1 and 2. Their first two years on the ballot were thought to have been a litmus test, and the results were more acidic than alkaline. Bonds received 34.7 percent in 2014 and 36.8 percent in 2015, Clemens 35.4 percent and 37.5 percent.
What once seemed a lost cause now can be categorized merely as a longshot. A confluence of events is breathing life into the candidacies of Bonds and Clemens, who occupied two of the nine names on my ballot, alongside Piazza, Bagwell, Raines, Mike Mussina, Curt Schilling and Edgar Martinez.
As of early Tuesday evening, the Hall of Fame vote tracker kept by Ryan Thibodaux showed Bonds tracking at 49.7 percent and Clemens at 49.1 percent of the 171 ballots shared publicly by BBWAA members. That's about 10 percent ahead of where they were on public ballots last year, and those numbers – particularly for those who used or are suspected to have used steroids – tend to end up about 5 percent higher than the entire lot of ballots.
While their gains don't match some – Mussina is up 22 percent, Bagwell and Martinez 19 percent, Raines 15 percent and Schilling 13 percent – they are gains nevertheless, and they may not stop despite the Hall's clear – if not publicly stated – desire to keep them away from walls dotted with cheaters already.
Certainly it's possible that the exit polling is deceiving and Bonds and Clemens remain stagnant, though if history does hold, there are two explanations for the jump: winnowing upward of 100 voters and others beginning to rationalize why keeping Bonds and Clemens off their ballots went against logic.
Taking away votes from voters who haven't written about baseball in decades made sense. The best electorate is the most informed, and to expect those far removed from the industry to understand the game's shift – and the according increase in knowledge – places an unfair burden. Those new to Bonds and Clemens have their reasons, though the most compelling comes from San Francisco Chronicle national baseball writer John Shea, who wrote: "How could I in good faith not vote for Bonds when I might be voting for other PED guys?"
Shea isn't the only national voice to add Bonds and Clemens to their ballot. Fox's Ken Rosenthal, the most respected voice in baseball writing, checked off Bonds and Clemens for the first time this year. ESPN's Jerry Crasnick, another writer known for intelligent and measured thought, did the same. At least seven others publicly acknowledged adding Bonds and Clemens, and longtime writer Jon Heyman said he voted for Bonds for the first time.
Not only do the votes of big-name writers help this season, they could subtly nudge others to reconsider their positions in future seasons. Advancing the case even more would be the induction of Piazza. By the twisted reasoning of some, it will take a player believed to have taken steroids – though dogged by suspicion, Piazza never tested positive nor was proven to have used performance-enhancing drugs – entering the Hall before voters are comfortable allowing others in.
Treating Piazza like some sort of steroid pioneer is so twisted, so backward, so very Hall of Fame. If that's what it takes to help voters recognize that leaving out Bonds and Clemens – the greatest hitter since Babe Ruth and one of the finest pitchers ever – is an abdication of duty, so be it. Just because the Hall of Fame refuses to wipe out its antiquated character clause, one ignored by our voting predecessors and that has no business in choosing players who best represented their era through the quality of their play, doesn't mean that writers who vote must hem themselves to it.
No matter what any writer believes, he or she doesn't understand what happened during the height of steroid use in baseball. Even if opinions can be rendered without a full accounting, anything but an all-or-nothing vote – either you consider all players from an era or don't bother casting a ballot – is a cop-out. Not voting for players because of suspicion is hubristic considering how little we truly know; not voting for those who tested positive is more understandable, though it lends credence to tests that athletes employ chemists to beat.
All of these things are conspiring for a step forward from the BBWAA. The moralists won't go away, and they may well occupy more than 25 percent of the electorate. That's not a surprise. Nobody ever accused the middle- to late-aged white male – the vast majority of BBWAA voters – of being the most progressive group.
At the same time, as the ballot glut of recent votes clears over the next few years and more writers who don't stigmatize steroids quite the same as others earn their votes, Bonds and Clemens adorning plaques in Cooperstown looks possible. It would be a striking moment for baseball, one that places accused cheaters alongside those who will argue the Hall would be ruined by their inclusion. Those are the words of obstructionists, of hypocrites, of a group that should welcome the game's best and brightest.
And whatever they might've been – liars, cheats, abusers of the privilege that is playing baseball – Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were the best and brightest. Forget all the rest. The voters have seven years left to get it right.

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Jessica Mendoza versus John Kruk: Tale of the Tape (psst...spoiler alert: it's no contest)

OK, tale of the tape, Mendoza versus Kruk:

Intellectual Appeal:
Advantage Mendoza. The average IQ level in the booth goes up by 30-40 points easily with this move alone, we'll get to the Boone - Schilling trade-off later. Mendoza, a Stanford grad. Kruk, IDK room temperature IQ maybe?

Visual Appeal:
Advantage Mendoza. Not that this is, or should be that important because the camera faces in the opposite direction 99% of the time, but I'm just saying.....again the Q-rating, or whatever measures this sort of frivolousness just went through the roof.

Auditory Appeal:
Advantage Mendoza. This was the one area where Kruk may have had a shot to win, but he has't really offered much to the broadcast in years. Other than a certain self-deprecating, Uecker-esque appeal to his career -- which was actually pretty good -- there's only so many beer-swilling, crotch-grabbing locker room stories one can slip in to a baseball broadcast without detracting from the game. Mendoza has transitioned almost seamlessly from the softball side to the baseball side, leaving behind the urge to present opinions with a "this is how we did it in softball" caveat. She gets the game of baseball as if she was the one who had Kruk's career and presents a well-rounded, intelligent viewpoint nine times out of ten.

Easier to listen too, easier to watch, easy decision to make. Mendoza by unanimous decision.

As to the Boone for Schilling trade-off, neither one is particularly easy to listen to. Schilling gets removed for shooting his mouth off  too often outside the booth. Instead of putting down the gun or removing the ammunition, he just kept shooting himself in the foot.

And he'll probably blame anybody or anything but himself for the removal. Too bad. Some people live in houses without mirrors. 

from Big Story:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0ba4005862c14acc8d321c01d2741e0f/jessica-mendoza-joins-sunday-night-baseball-full-time

Jessica Mendoza joins 'Sunday Night Baseball' full-time

Jessica Mendoza wonders what she'd be doing during the upcoming Major League Baseball season if not for some events out of her control.
The retired softball star was scheduled to call two Monday night MLB games late in 2015 for ESPN and hoped to get a regular gig this year, but figured she might need to wait longer for a slot to open up.
Instead, six days after her debut, she leapt onto the network's showcase platform of "Sunday Night Baseball" — and hasn't left since.
ESPN announced Wednesday that the 35-year-old Mendoza is now a permanent fixture in the Sunday prime-time booth. She'll join another new analyst, Aaron Boone, alongside returning play-by-play voice Dan Shulman.
They replace Curt Schilling, who moves to Monday, and John Kruk, who returns to "Baseball Tonight."
"It's just crazy when I look back, and literally less than six months ago I had no idea what was going to happen after the Monday night games," Mendoza says.
Just like that, she's the most prominent woman calling national games for a major men's sport — one of the few in the booth, not limited to sideline reporter. It's an ascension that seems to have happened blindingly fast, and yet it was also a slow and steady climb.
An Olympic gold medalist and the sport's premier hitter, Mendoza found herself needing a new career when softball was dropped from the Summer Games. The Stanford alum joined ESPN in 2007 and didn't give much thought to calling baseball until the following year, when Kruk took part in Women's College World Series coverage.
Mendoza saw how knowledge of one sport could translate to the other. Still, she acknowledged, historically there was just "one-way traffic" — her father, a baseball coach, would guide her softball teams, but a woman typically wouldn't instruct baseball players.
She later did some sideline reporting on men's sports and studio work for "Baseball Tonight." In June, Mendoza became the first female game analyst for a men's College World Series telecast.
Meeting with senior coordinating producer Phil Orlins in April, she was eager to work games but wary of seeming like a gimmick. Mendoza remembered watching in 2012 when former U.S. teammate Michele Smith appeared on a nationally televised MLB game on TBS and "feeling like she was a guest."
She dryly describes how she didn't want her male colleagues to promote her presence in the booth: "We have a female with us today, yay."
But Mendoza came away from that meeting confident ESPN was serious about her long-term prospects as an MLB game analyst. Not that she ever imagined a spot on "Sunday Night Baseball" could come anytime soon. She laughs in recalling that when she attended a Sunday night game early last season to observe the crew, she felt like a total groupie.
On Aug. 24, she called the Monday night matchup between the Cardinals and Diamondbacks. The next morning, Schilling posted then quickly deleted a tweet comparing Muslims to Nazis. ESPN pulled him from that Sunday's game and replace him with Mendoza.
She couldn't eat, couldn't sleep — squeezed by the pressure that her performance could sway whether other women received future opportunities to call men's sports.
"I knew even the smallest mistake, it felt like the world would come after me," Mendoza says.
As a player, she would visualize how a huge game would go, but "it's hard to do that when you've never done it." On the field, she would take confidence from her preparation, but now there wasn't time.
"I could have totally sucked," she says.
Yet while this was her first "Sunday Night Baseball" assignment, it was hardly her first live sporting event. As the pitchers started throwing and the batters swinging, she realized it was no different from the dozens of softball games she worked each season.
"You could feel the change in her comfort level inning by inning even in the first game," Shulman says.
The Cubs' Jake Arrieta made history that night by no-hitting the Dodgers. Mendoza made history after her debut earned rave reviews, sticking on Sunday night the rest of the season and becoming the first female analyst to call a nationally televised MLB playoff game when she worked the AL wild-card matchup.
John Wildhack, ESPN's executive vice president for programming and production, doesn't want to speculate about what kind of position Mendoza would've held in 2016 if not for Schilling's tweet. She was undoubtedly a big part of the network's long-term baseball plans before that, he adds, preferring to focus on how she managed the circumstances that were in her control.
"She seized the moment," he says.
As Wildhack talked to others in the industry about Mendoza's performance, he realized: "Wow, this was not just good. This was really, really, really good."
Boone adds that what he heard "from very smart people I respect is she said some things on games from an analysis standpoint that made them take note."
Still, there were occasions in those first couple of broadcasts that Mendoza hesitated before making a point, fearful of the repercussions of a misstep. The moment would pass and she'd never get in that observation.
That happened less and less by the wild-card round. The additional games, along with her studio work during the playoffs, also allowed her to introduce herself to players and managers around the batting cage and in the clubhouse.
She fondly remembers chatting with Royals star Eric Hosmer during the World Series, his bat in her hand, just two great hitters talking shop. Mendoza hopes that soon she'll no longer need to start each conversation explaining who she is, why she's there, and how she understands the intricacies of their swings.
"It just felt so good for the guys to see me as a peer and not just a female," she says.
And now with the benefit of a whole offseason, Mendoza has time for her beloved preparation. She expects to put together an Excel spreadsheet on each team.
Returning from the World Series, Mendoza happened to be on the same flight as "Monday Night Football" producer Jay Rothman. He showed her video clips that coach-turned-analyst Jon Gruden compiles and narrates for his colleagues to highlight areas he's focusing on.
Hoping to learn more, she shadowed the Monday night crew for three days before the Nov. 9 game between the Bears and Chargers in San Diego. Mendoza attended all the meetings, sat down with play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico for three hours, and peppered Gruden with questions about his routine. She wanted to know everything from the volume of his notes to where his eyes go during a play.
With her new role, Mendoza, who lives in California and has two young children, made one particular request: She'll still call the Women's College World Series.
She and Boone will be the fifth different analyst team in six seasons for "Sunday Night Baseball" since Jon Miller and Joe Morgan departed after 21 years in 2010 — partly because Bobby Valentine and Terry Francona each left the booth to return to managing.
The 42-year-old Boone, who joined ESPN in 2010 after playing a dozen seasons in the majors, moves up from the Monday night games. "Sunday Night Baseball" also gets a new producer in Andy Reichwald, who also comes over from Mondays, while Buster Olney returns as the reporter.
"If this team establishes themselves as we hope and we think they can," Wildhack said, "it will be terrific for us, terrific for 'Sunday Night Baseball' and terrific for the sport."

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