Rickey and Rice for the Hall of Fame

Congratulations go out to Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice on their election to the baseball Hall of Fame.

Rickey, as you might know, was a near unanimous selection, with 94% of the vote.

This is a day both Yankees and Red Sox fans can enjoy, and, with a little luck, Rickey will give his entire HoF speech in the third person.

You Go Goose!

Congratulations are in order for former Yankees' reliever Goose Gossage who today was voted into the Hall of Fame!

Known as much for his mustache as for his fastball, Gossage recieved over 85% of the vote on his ninth try for the Hall.

Jim Rice, who was also strongly considered, fell just short, with 72% of the vote. He has one year left of eligibility on the ballot, but, with such a high total this time around it will be surprising if he doesn't make it next year.

For those interested, the complete voting tally (from the above linked ESPN article):

Goose Gossage 466 85.8
Jim Rice 392 72.2
Andre Dawson 358 65.9
Bert Blyleven 336 61.9
Lee Smith 235 43.3
Jack Morris 233 42.9
Tommy John 158 29.1
Tim Raines 132 24.3
Mark McGwire 128 23.6
Alan Trammell 99 18.2
Dave Concepcion 88 16.2
Don Mattingly 86 15.8
Dave Parker 82 15.1
Dale Murphy 75 13.8
Harold Baines 28 5.2
Others receiving votes: Rod Beck 2, Travis Fryman 2, Robb Nen 2, Shawon Dunston 1, Chuck Finley 1, David Justice 1, Chuck Knoblauch 1, Todd Stottlemyre 1.




You know, for a slow moth, as January is supposed to be, there's a whole lot going on....

Initiation Rights

So I was talking with a friend last night, and he had an interesting quandry:

If Roger Clemens had, in fact, retired in 2002, he would have likely gained first-ballot admission to the Hall of Fame this year.

With all the talk about whether or not he (or any known steroid user) should gain HoF admission, there is the question that arise: what if someone well known and respected gets into the Hall of Fame, only to later be implicated in PED use?

What if Clemens had gotten into the Hall of Fame, before the Report came out? I'm sure the question now would be whether or not Clemens deserves to remain in the Hall?

It might be uncomfortable addressing such a question, but I will be surprised if it does not come up, and sooner rather than later. It'd certainly be more crushing--to find someone we all believed to have gotten in on talent and work ethic had successfully deceived us--than it would be if the deception is caught before the Hall of Fame vote becomes an issue.

Perception is often more important than reality. There are numerous instances of this throughout history--but I'll attempt to restrain my own political bias on a sports blog. There are other examples, though--think of Santa, the Tooth Fairy, even judged competitions--the gold might not go to the best skater, but instead the best competitor for that one performance.

It might not be right, but the hall of fame inductee isn't necessarily the best player out there--just the one we believe is the best. Think of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez--Alex has the pure numbers, Jeter has the rings. Which one do you take?

What happens when, of two guys in the same class, one gets in and the other doesn't, and then, g-d forbid, the one that gets in is shown to have used PEDs, what then? Yeah, it's likely the one that didn't get in will eventually get in, but he'll have missed out on the whole first ballot thing.


What do you guys think? What happens if someone gets into the Hall and it's later revealed he used PEDs? Should there be an asterisk? Something more? Can you revoke someone's HoF status?

It's an interesting question, and I don't really have an answer for it.