MLB Hall of Fame: An Argument For a Big Hall

MLB will be announcing the Hall of Fame voting in early January. What would be so bad about seeing a handful of names?!

Every January, we seem to have the same argument – who is truly worthy, who is not? What things should we consider, what should we not? Which statistics are the right ones to value a player versus his competition from a previous era?

As we begin to have these debates, I believe many have the same view of the Hall of Fame that I once did. They see Cooperstown as some giant place that has endless displays honoring those who have been voted in.

Sure, it’s a baseball history museum, so there would be bound to be some displays on other historical things in the museum as well, but the focus would be on the guys who have been voted in.

After all, why else would we have these endless arguments about who belongs and who does not if not for this huge disparity in coverage, right?

The Truth

The real truth about the Hall of Fame is that Cooperstown is a museum first and foremost. Those plaques you see on the day your favorite player is placed into the Hall? They’re all in one massive room that really constitutes a whole separate part of the museum.

When touring the museum, I took note of a few things. I was curious just how frequently certain media pariahs were on display. In my visit to Cooperstown, Barry Bonds was on display in four different spots in the museum, Roger Clemens in two spots, Shoeless Joe Jackson in two spots, and Pete Rose in three spots.

I compared that to a few players that I wanted to see information on. Hank Aaron was in four displays plus his plaque. However, all of the rest of the players I was interested in seeing were only mentioned via the plaque room – Kirby Puckett, Warren Spahn, and Sparky Anderson.

The debate we have every year so fervently is really about who deserves to have a bronze simile of their face hung in what amounts to an oversized walk-in closet.

So How Should That Change Voting?

For me, that has led me to always vote the maximum players on my ballot I get as a member of IBWAA. If I were to ever get a ballot as a member of the BBWAA, I would max out the players I could have on that ballot as well.

There’s no reason not to honor as many people as possible in that one room. We honor all kinds of other guys in the other room regardless of their transgressions, so whether we like their morality or not, they’ll be displayed in the Hall of Fame.

You don’t want steroid abusers in the Hall of Fame? Sorry, too late. You don’t want gamblers glorified? A life-sized cutout of Pete Rose diving head first into a base would have put that idea on its head.

Those players are going to cycle through being displayed in the main museum of the Hall of Fame, and rather than worrying and arguing about their merits about being included, which writers don’t get any control over, we should work to get as many players as possible mentioned and honored, and that is something that writers can do.

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For good measure, I am part of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA), and we do our own award voting and Hall of Fame voting. A number of players have already been voted in, so they aren’t on our ballot, but here’s my ballot: