Baseball Writers Association of America/HOF

[bigtrain]

I understand that there are currently about 700 members of the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from the internet and TV, it seems that newspapers and magazines are rapidly going out of business. What happens in 10 or 20 years when there are just a few daily papers left? Will the baseball writers still have the Hall of Fame vote if their numbers dwindle to say a hundred voting members? Will the membership expand to include more writers on the internet, book authors, commentators? Or will they lose the vote completely? What do you think?

[Fred]

That is DEEP. Interesting question. I think the HOF voting has been a mess for ages. One example is Bruce Sutter. Please, don't get me wrong here. I have lots of good memories of Bruce Sutter. He was a good pitcher, however... he played 12 seasons and had a sub 3.00 ERA in 7/12 seasons. He also had an ERA > 4.00 in 4/12 seasons (that's a third of his career, actually about 30% of his career if you count the number of games). Add to that a less than .500 lifetime W/L record. Was he good? Yes. Was he GREAT? Unless you use a watered down basis of great I don't think he passes that test. Sorry to you Bruce Sutter fans, I had to use someone as the example (and there are plenty of others).

Maybe there's a better way to do the HOF voting. Yes, sadly, we're losing a lot of writers but does it really matter when you think of them as voters for the HOF?

[novakjr]

Seriously, how in the hell did Sutter manage 75% of the vote, while pitchers like Hershiser, Saberhagen and Dwight Gooden got almost no consideration at all? I'd even go as far as saying that Dennis Martinez is more deserving than Sutter.

[Chris Counts]

Sadly, a reasonable understanding of baseball history is not a prerequisite for membership in the BWAA. These are the same guys who write nonsense like the "25 Coolest Athletes of All-Time." Most of them probably believe Abner Doubleday invented the game, if they've heard of Abner Doubleday ...