Gwynn 'n' Juice

Consider this another product of the Steroid Era of baseball, one that has not only tainted the game but apparently the logical reasoning of those people who cover it as well. ...

Eleven members of the Baseball Writers Association of America didn't believe Tony Gwynn was worthy of the Hall of Fame. When considering 545 ballots were cast, 11 doesn't seem like that large of a number, and it isn't.

When looking at it the other way, however, that figure is absolutely obscene. The thought of being able to find 11 people, 11 people who cover the sport for a living for heaven sakes, who believe somewhere in their logic-deprived brain that one of the greatest hitters in the history of the game doesn't have the right credentials — and then provide an argument to back that up — is exactly what motivates me to write things like the other day when I suggested that sportswriters are often a pitiful group of petty, lazy, and all-around valueless hypocrits. Sometimes all of the above.

Listen, there are THOUSANDS of great sports journalists who bring the craft to a level of excellence. This is not damning of the countless many who deserve to be read regularly. Good sports journalism still does exist, despite the fact that so much of it has become formulaic and indifferent.

Unfortunately, there are THOUSANDS of sports journalists who fit the former mould. They are niggling and self-important. They are the ones who openly admit to not voting for someone simply because they don't want a player to go in unanimous (as Gwynn and Cal Ripken, Jr should have). They are the ones who cast blank ballots as some sort of vain and pointless protest that only succeeds to put their name above the process.

As ESPN.com's Jayson Stark wrote earlier this week, anyone who doesn't vote for Gwynn should be embarassed. If Gwynn isn't a Hall of Famer, then why do we even have a Hall of Fame?

• Career .338 batting average, better than any player since Ted Williams.
• Hit. 350 or better five years in a row, a streak no one has remotely touched in the past 70 years.
• Fifteen-time all-star, five Gold Gloves and batted .500 in the 1998 World Series against a stacked New York Yankees team.
• Most remarkable: Five times Gwynn struck out less than 25 times in a season he hit .350 or better. He was virtually impossible to strike out.

On top of all that, Gwynn is widely accepted as one of the great class acts of the game, which still amounts to something in this era of distrust and antipathy towards modern-day ball players.

Yet 11 people — for whatever their reasons, which we likely will never know — found him unworthy of going into the Hall of Fame even though he did things many couldn't come close to repeating, and did it over the course of 19 seasons.

Tony Gwynn is a better man than I, I suppose. He doesn't care about those 11 imbeciles who chose to butcher their prestigious honour by casting completely disgraceful ballots that fly in the face of the spirit of the Hall of Fame.

To steal Jayson Stark's line, with people like this entrusted as the decision-makers... why do we even have a Hall of Fame?