Why Baseball HOF Voters are Dumb and Shortsighted

If you'll permit me, I would like to start off this post with one of my favorite hack-tastic jokes:

Q: What's the difference between a baseball writer and God?

A: God doesn't think he's a baseball writer.

I am reminded of this each year when the voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame occurs.  The class this year, for those of you who maybe don't follow baseball 12 months of the year because you have actual lives to lead, is just two folks: Burt Blyleven and Roberto Alomar.  I have no problem with either getting in.  Burt Blyleven had a great curveball, and Roberto Alomar was one of the top 5 second baseman ever to play the game (much better than that smarmy Joe Morgan--I don't know why I feel the need to say that--I just do).  So far, so good, right?

My little niggle? I mean, I kinda feel like Jack Morris should definitely punch his ticket now that Blyleven is in, just because he was a much better big game pitcher than old Burt.  And he could be DOMINANT.  Burt was many things: but dominant was not one of them.  I know that Jack Morris gets hurt for his relatively high career ERA (3.90), but haven't the "sabermetric" stat geeks proven that ERA doesn't tell the whole story?  You know, since defense has plenty to do with that stat, and try as they might, pitchers can't play third base. Add to that the fact he was an ACE for three different World Series winning teams, and I'm not sure what the holdup is.

(The man himself, in action.  Probably striking out Jody Reed for the 11th time)

Another thing--Ron Santo belongs in the Hall of Fame.  I can't go into it any further than that, or else I risk writing a 300 page diatribe on what is wrong with America. 

And here's where it goes off the tracks.  The Baseball Writers of America have apparently decided that they are going to not vote in two of the greatest players of the steroid era because they used, well,  steroids.  I'm talking about Mark McGuire and Rafael Palmeiro.  I am SO TIRED of this debate.  The 90's and early aughts were full of guys doing steroids, many of whom (Roger Clemens, Manny Ramirez, Barry Bonds) are stone cold locks to get to Cooperstown.  So why single out these two guys?  You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, although these sanctimonious writers will certainly try.  And each year they do so, the class that is voted in will be overshadowed by the class they chose to leave off their ballots.

I'm not happy guys were using steroids.  And MLB should have put a stop to this nonsense in the mid-90's.  But, they didn't.  And those years really happened.  And there are great players from that era that had careers good enough to be enshrined.  So stop whining and just deal, already.

From a purely baseball standpoint, I'm glad the game has stepped back from waiting for the three run homer, and put more of an emphasis on solid pitching and the art of stretching singles into doubles.  The game seems purer somehow.