Staring Out The Window: Not So Fast

The Hall’s call

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It’s like the higher powers sensed it. No sooner do we start staring out the window and waiting for spring than baseball immortality knocks.

In recent years, I’ve grown jealous of the tranquility and monotony conveyed in Rogers Hornsby’s winters compared to the contemporary annual cacophony of Hall of Fame voting analysis, arguments, and grandstanding. Earlier this year, I made peace with all decisions collectively made by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.

Cooperstown’s main attraction is officially named The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. It’s a museum! It’s meant to preserve history, link generations, entertain and educate. It transcends the Plaque Gallery, which honors those who are enshrined; the Hall of Fame is a journey and a destination, uniquely experienced by everyone who passes through.

Why do people get worked up over the voting? Because we love the game. And why do we follow the voting year after year, no matter how dissatisfied we might have been the prior year? Same reason: We love the game.

So once I finally understood for myself that the Hall is a museum, and the museum serves as perhaps the greatest ambassador of the game, I no longer had reason to begrudge any one player’s election or decry any one writer’s ballot.

Each plaque tells a story. What they don’t share is what percentage of the vote a player received or in which year of eligibility a player ultimately gained the necessary votes.

It’s a museum. A museum with a very public curation process.

When looking back at the career of Roberto Clemente earlier this month, I learned that he had received “only” 92.69% of the vote. Thirty-one writers decided that one of the game’s greatest humanitarians, who had just recently passed away in a selfless effort to help others, and who was a 15-time All-Star, 12-time Gold Glove Award winner, four-time batting champion, and 1966 NL MVP, was not deserving of their vote.

I don’t want to have to rationalize those voters’ decisions, nor should we. That’s not the story.

Clemente’s story is preserved — at least the core of it — in Cooperstown. (There was an email delivery issue during the week that the recent column on Clemente was published. If you missed it earlier this month, please click here to find it and learn where else his legacy is honored.)

So by electing Scott Rolen earlier this week and Fred McGriff in December, the Hall will add two outstanding pieces of baseball history to the museum this year. Two more chances to connect over the game we love.