Defend or Deny… the baseball Hall of Fame vs Football Hall of Fame

[Belfast1933]

I have this friendly debate with my adult son - my position is that the energy, attention and importance of the Baseball HOF and all that goes with it (the vote, the player bans, the importance to the fans of the sport) is objectively more significant than the football HOF.

I like to say that I am a 4 sport fan, but a 1 sport collector - my son thinks that my baseball “beer goggles” clouds my objectivity on this debate.

But my twitter feed (algorithm) is full of as much football as it is baseball and yet it feels like I see 10 to 1 posts about the baseball HOF vs football.

Does anyone have ideas of how to objectively settle this debate? And if not, what is your POV on this issue? (… he asks on a vintage baseball card message board 😂😂&#128514

Jeff

[philliesfan]

Flip a coin........Heads Baseball.........Tails Not Football

[Mike D.]

I'm not a football fan, so can't speak in terms of the gravitas of being in the Hall of Fame. I do feel like the football process seems to happen each year with less fanfare, where the baseball one is typically months of media coverage, opinions, and discussion from November through January each year.

Maybe that's happening on the football side and it's just not where I hang out, but the baseball is all over.

[G1911]

It's definitely Baseball. Football just doesn't revere its past. Anything outside of the fans living memory is a footnote that few fans recognize. Jim Brown is probably the only player from the 50's or before a majority of football fans will recognize the name of. History and the Hall are a lot less significant. Baseball is rather unique in how it honors its history and that history is considered an important part of the identity of the sport.


EDIT: For vintage football card collectors, this is a great thing. Truly great, important players are mostly cheap still in vintage football cards even with much lower print runs than baseball. There aren't 5, 10, 20 expensive cards in a set, there's 0-1 and most hall of famers carry very modest premiums, if any premium. Bang for buck is really good in vintage football, and makes it a lot of fun to collect.

[JollyElm]

Football Greatness, in general, is often tough to define for us 'regular' fans.
Think about being a kid and cheering on (for me, the Jets and Bills) your team.
Almost all of your focus is on the QB, RB and WRs (these days, TEs get a lot more play). With certain exceptions, no one is crazy-rooting for Guards, Cornerbacks, Offensive Tackles or any of the myriad other positions (which you're probably clueless about) on the field.

When the HOF vote comes, the vast majority of the talk is really all about the main positions I noted - QB, RB and WRs. (Yes, there are exceptions.) With the Offensive Line, most of the players on Defense and Special Teams, many of us have no clue (even looking at stats) what would actually make them worthy of enshrinement.

Contrast that with the rigidity of baseball positions. Every kid knows what each player's role is in a game. Although it's hotly debated, we all have an innate ability to know exactly who should (at least) be in the conversation of being an all-time great.

To me, that's a part of why I feel answering Cooperstown is the 'better' bet.

[jayshum]

Here's an article talking about this

https://www.royalsreview.com/2025/1/...d-among-sports