The Keys to the Kingdom

     The Baseball Writers Association of America holds as much to the keys to the Kingdom, Baseball’s Hall of Fame, as does Congress pulling the strings on appointments for American citizens. It’s an imperfect process, but it’s our process. Many similarities co-exist, and until recently, as in the last fifteen years, the BBWAA ballots for potential Hall of Fame members was about the same number as congressman, and senators. Now the BBWAA is nearing 600 ballot casters who are members.
     The unfortunate thing that prevails is that for all the brilliant writers that follow the sport of baseball with passion, many other writers due to their reassignments, job changes, and promotions that remove them from baseball sport’s writing as their main venue are still left with the ability to cast ballots. It’s not unfair to say that as many political figures outlive their useful purpose in politics, the same applies for HOF ballots cast by individuals that aren’t involved in the day to day play of Baseball.

     A writer is eligible to vote after ten years of tenure, he is allowed only to cast ten votes. Like you have old politicians mixed with new politicians, it’s very rare that at any given time they can agree on one single issue, with a fifty percent or greater number. Just as old and new politicians clash over ideas and values, the sportswriters both new and old have similar culture clashes. Too top it off, the writers must select ten, and only ten baseball players to vote for. With such diverse backgrounds and such a large number of voters, it’s sad to say that 576 writers will even be voting on the same ballplayers.

     The odds of seventy-five percent of the writers picking the same Baseball player are diminishing. They’ve only ten ballots to cast apiece. And as the cast of HOF voters increases, that seventy-five percent margin is harder to achieve thanks to no small part in diversity of opinions. Tyler Kepner wrote a great synopsis of this and it was featured in the New York Times. Here’s a link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/sports/baseball/baseball-hall-of-fame-voting-process-Tyler Kepner's NYT's article