Steven Goldman puts Baseball Hall of Fame in Perspective.

I understand why the HOF wouldn't want the fans to decide. Fans are biased to a fault, naturally. NY fans would put Don Mattingly in but wouldn't even consider Al Oliver. It's not really fair and this process would vastly overemphasize a player's popularity rather than his on-field performance.

The professional baseball writers are supposed to bring some extensive knowledge to the process. They're supposed to know more than you and I. They're supposed to thoroughly analyze the careers of the borderline players and validate the voting process in a way that the casual fan can not.

But with Albert Belle receiving a mere 7% of the vote, the current process reveals itself to be little more than a popularity contest, anyway.

Steven Goldman questions the validity of the entire process and he makes a heckuva lot of sense:

"The Baseball Writers Association of America, is, if possible, a more benighted American institution than Congress. Whereas the Constitution says we have to deal with the latter, the former is inflicted upon us only at the sufferance of Major League Baseball, who tolerates their self-appointed guardianship of the major awards and the Hall of Fame voting. While it is broadly acknowledged that they are almost wholly unfit for this task — just read any of the dozens of columns the voters have written in the past weeks torturously justifying their votes to see why — their monopoly is shrugged at, as if it is a necessary, inescapable evil along the lines of sitcoms and dentistry.

Not only is there nothing inevitable about the BBWAA, but they should be stripped of their franchise. They use it irresponsibly.

With respect to Fred Lieb, Peter Gammons and all the other writers who started as team beat writers and went on to do bigger, better things, the job of the modern beat writer is not one with rigorous intellectual requirements. ... You have to have just enough intelligence not to (a) ask the players for autographs, (b) eat from the players' postgame spread, and (c) not show up in your underwear — and yes, these things have happened. Most importantly, you have to be credulous, very credulous, or risk losing your access.

Note that nowhere among this list of qualities is an appreciation of baseball history or an ability to judge ballplayers in and out of the context of their times. You get to come to your uninformed opinions without any sort of education whatsoever, except for the five Ws.

...

Of course, Gossage will now get in during one of the next elections, because otherwise the writers are going to have to admit to the basest hypocrisy — any rationale that considers Sutter a Hall of Famer also applies to Gossage. He'll get a fair chance next year, assuming the Writers can bring themselves to let Gossage be part of the glorification of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken, next year's surefire inductees (Mark McGwire is eligible, too, but things may not go well). The only pitcher of note being added to the ballot is Bret Saberhagen, but the two-time Cy Young winner probably won't draw much support.

Somehow 54 people who clearly were not around to see baseball in the 1970s and early 80s will have to be convinced of their own fallibility over the next 12 months. Pathetic. "