Hall of Fame voting
So the most intriguing MLB Hall of Fame class announcement of my lifetime will be this evening at 6.
Some caveats: I believe the Hall of Fame is watered down. I believe the voting system needs to be examined. I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
I also believe in high fiber, good scotch and the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap.
Where was I? Ah, yes, Cooperstown.
The magnitude of tonight’s announcement centers on the two best players of the last 40 years: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
I believe both should be in the Hall. I believe, eventually, both will be in the Hall.
Just not tonight. I think they will fall short on their 10th and final time on the ballot for the writers who vote on enshrinement. I think both will get there from whatever the Veterans’ Committee is called these days in a few years.
(For Peter Gammons’ sake if Harold Baines and Alan Trammel are HoFers, then I don’t care if Bonds was doing horse DNA in front of Rob Manfred as Pete Rose was betting on whether he used his left or right hand to inject. Buckets of ballots people, a baseball Hall of Fame with Baines – who may or may not have owned a glove for the last half of his DH career – and Ted Simmons but no Bonds or Clemens is lunacy.)
But tonight’s storyline does not end there. Like I said, I would vote for both of them.
But I understand the view of not voting for them because of what seems relatively clear to everyone with two working eyes and a vague understanding of the difference between steroids and asteroids. They cheated. I feel sure of it.
Which leads me to what makes tonight so interesting. Because if you are holding Bonds and Clemens out – two guys who have denied using performance-enhancing drugs and never reportedly failed a test despite widely asserted allegations and failing every eye test ever – you better not vote for A-Rod or Big Papi.
Remember A-Rod admitted to using – that awful interview and the confession about his cousin and what not – and David Ortiz was in the Mitchell Report.
And yes, the validity of the Mitchell Report has been questioned, but it’s stronger actual evidence against Ortiz than ever was presented against Bonds or Clemens, right?
So bring on the results. And then let’s examine the ballots, because if A-Rod and Ortiz get in – or really even get more votes than Bonds and Clemens – then the hypocrisy of the electorate needs to be the next thing on the ballot.
Biden’s live mic
So Joe Biden called a Fox News White House correspondent a “stupid” son of a female dog on a live mic.
(Personally, I think ‘hot mic’ gives it more of the espionage feel. Thoughts?)
Anywell, I don’t know this Peter Doocy fellow, of whom President Biden is certainly not a fan. He may be an awful human but I can’t speak to the S-O-B tag because I don’t know Peter’s mother either.
(Side note: In the range of insults, S-O-B is up there, right? I mean call me whatever you like – it’s not like I haven’t heard it before and you’re going to need to be pretty creative to till new soil in the insulting the fat-faced columnist category. But insulting my momma is fighting words. Thoughts?)
Hey, the political divide is clear, and we know the current president is more likely to give the CNN correspondent warm hugs rather than hot mic curses. And all the networks – especially the ones aligned on the opposite side of the aisle of whoever is being interviewed – are sending sound bite snipers to these news events in an effort to garner attention. It’s the mass media market in which we live.
Still, it’s a bad look for Biden if for no other reason than one of his strongest assets – especially in the view of someone like me who does not see eye to eye with many of his political inclinations – is that by almost every measure, he’s a good guy, especially compared to his predecessor.
But this feels very much like something that would have happened two years ago rather than two days.