I occasionally write about baseball and/or baseball cards on the internet. Whenever I start to get “imposter syndrome”, thinking maybe I’m not worthy (I’m no Peter Gammons or Bill James, after all), I go read material from so called “professional” writers out there, and the feeling goes away in a hurray.
In a world where Dan Shanessy has a job that doesn’t involve making French fries, I can feel ok about sharing my thoughts in print. I read an article on mlb.com recently where a professional writer argued both that Billy Wagner didn’t belong in the hall of fame both because of his low career IP total (900+) and because of his playoff performance (career postseason IP - 11.2).
I tend to think that the biggest problem with HOF voting is that the people who are competent and actually care and the actual people who get a vote barely overlap.