I stopped giving a damn about the Hall of Fame years ago, save for one player. I wanted Ron Santo in the Hall Of Fame because I thought he deserved it, but also because I loved Ronnie so much and he wanted it so badly. I'm glad they finally called his name, despite the fact that they insultingly did it after he was dead.
I used to care about career WAR and peaks and all the rest of that crap, but I don't anymore. I've come to terms with the fact that it is the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and the voting criteria (just like the MVP award) is vague enough that many different interpretations can be semi-reasonable. I don't care that Jim Rice is in the HOF, or if Jack Morris does get elected. I have no problem with giving Morris bonus points for 1991 Game 7, because that performance was pretty damn famous (see also: Bloody Sock game, Jeter Flip, etc.).
Which brings me to Sammy Sosa, who is currently sitting at around 8% of the vote according to Repoz's tracker. I don't care if he gets in or not. I don't think he'll ever get in, due to the chance he could fall off the ballot, the fact that his career numbers are marginal-ish for the HOF, and the fact that enough of the BBWAA won't vote for him even if the HOF gets off its ass and takes a position on the PED era. They can't force people to vote for Barry Bonds, no matter what they do. Just look at all the machinations to get Santo in, FFS.
I do think the hall would be better with Sosa in it than not, as well as Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, and Palmeiro, and whoever else you feel like associating with the PED era. This is a baseball museum. It's not like they can pretend the 90s (1998 in particular) never happened. But it's surprising how easy we forget just how famous Sosa was from around 1998-2003. Derek Jeter was probably the only baseball player more famous than Sammy over that time period, and he appeared in countless commercials, promos, etc because his enthusiasm was always so infectious in everything he did. Who didn't want him as a spokesman? Any ballpark he played in buzzed during every one of his PAs (one could make the tongue-in-cheek argument that he was the Most Feared hitter during that time period, something that's been used before). Then it all fell apart in 2004 and suddenly people said they never liked him anyway. People made fun of him for wanting a lawyer to talk to Congress, never mind that law is complicated and English is not his first language. When pictures surfaced of whatever strange skin thing he had going on people mocked him mercilessly (hooray racism!), not to mention his awkward social media debut last year. I guess we take glee in punching our former heros when they're down.
/Goes back to not caring about the HOF
Comments
Welcome to UT, Charlie Strong (dying laughing)
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/10257706/booster-red-mccombs-bashes-texas-longhorns-charlie-strong-hire
BerseliusQuote Reply
My friend showed this to me the other day and it made me happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYdObwP93Nk
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Dammit, now I want a hot dog
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
That would be nice, but the website makes you pick one team. After declarations and the combine, I’ll start on my own big board/mock draft.
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“I guess we take glee in punching our former heros when they’re down.”
Babe Ruth was nothing more than a fat old man with little-girl legs.
EdwinQuote Reply
Myles wrote:
That was easy…
59 ILB SHAYNE SKOV STANFORD
90 DE JACKSON JEFFCOAT TEXAS
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Edwin wrote:
Smith runs a base 4-3 front and mixes coverages. It’s not always Cover-2.
7 OLB ANTHONY BARR UCLA (Consolation. I think they move up for Clowney.)
38 OT LA’EL COLLINS LSU
100 TE C.J. FIEDOROWICZ IOWA
Like You CareQuote Reply
Nicely done, b. It’s laughable how people modify their perceptions of Sammy over time. One minute they’re basing their trips to the bathroom on his at bats, literally dancing in the aisles waiting to pee until they’d watched him take a few swings, the next they’re claiming they could never stand him (as they stealthily hide their also-hated Spice Girls CDs in their basements).
Sammy was awesome. He was great for baseball. Too bad baseball has been berry berry mediocre to him in the past decade or so.
AndCountingQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
Is Red McCombs more upset that Charlie Strong doesn’t share a similar heritage as Mack Brown, from say, 200 years ago, or that the boosters didn’t get to hire the coach instead of UT?
SVBQuote Reply
Today’s ballots on Repoz’s tracker broke decidedly away from Piazza and Biggio. Both lost about 4% in the vote, but Biggio still gets in.
SVBQuote Reply
@ AndCounting:
Hi AC!
SVBQuote Reply
SVB wrote:
My guess is 25 percent former, 75 percent latter.
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Making fun of Samny’s skin color was/is probably the strangest thing ever. Nothing had made me less comfortable with following baseball as much as I do as that bizarre time. Quite unsettling to see so many gleefully mocking someone’s appearance and even more so when it was as racially motivated as this was. The numbers of people doing it. Wow.
dmick89Quote Reply
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/the_2013_hof_ballot_collecting_gizmo
Looks like curtains for Jack Morris…
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Good article. So was Myles’.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
It’s so nice to have new Justified episodes to watch.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ AndCounting:
So just as a little counterpoint here, to B and AC, but first:
The skin thing was crap. People should have shut up about that.
The yellow sweaters? Those were pretty funny. It was an awkward attempt and I don’t think there is any harm in pointing that out. Doesn’t have to be personal though, but I know in some cases it was.
I loved watching Sosa play baseball too. For much of the time while he was at his peak, everyone loved watching him and everyone thought he was an awesome dude. It was a reputation he cultivated.
In counterpoint, after the corked bat and his reaction to that, and the clubhouse issues at the end of (2004?) when he walked out on the team, I lost a lot of respect for Sosa. Seems fairly likely with the passage of time that he probably took PEDs too.
So while I agree it is disingenuous to say “I always hated Sosa” because for most people that wasn’t true, I don’t think there is any problem saying “I’ve lost a lot of respect for Sosa based on the end of his career and what’s transpired since, and that’s really shaded how I think about his career now, even though I thought he was awesome when I was more naive.” So Sosa is the Mel Gibson of baseball. It happens. He made his own bed.
SVBQuote Reply
SVB wrote:
So not a fan of the “walked out on his team” narrative.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
Nothing on the home page of the HOF about their annual announcement later today.
Sammy may not be a hall of famer when it comes to social media skills, but compared to the baseball HOF he’s a perennial MVP candidate.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
I guess it really is a new year. First AC showing up yesterday, and now MO getting in the papers for taking the polar bear plunge
https://scontent-b-ams.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/1604549_696660493697646_28777109_n.jpg
Suburban kidQuote Reply
FWIW, I always assumed Sosa’s Pinterest photo shoot was done ironically, and it made him fun again. I guess I assumed he was in on the joke with the infamous yellow sweater. Then again, I’m naive and mostly dumb.
mikeakaleroyQuote Reply
SVB wrote:
Sosa and Mel Gibson should not be said in the same sentence. Mel Gibson is a raging douchebag who also made some good movies. He’s an asshole who has clearly hurt other people. Some physically and others emotionally. Sosa never hurt anyone to my knowledge. He certainly didn’t offend an entire religion and has and has, to my knowledge, never attempted to rewrite history when that history contains the deaths of many millions of Jews.
Was Sosa an asshole? Yes. I think we can all agree on that if we’re willing to agree that had no impact on the other players in any meaningful way.
Suburban kid wrote:
Me neither. Who here hasn’t left work early? Who hasn’t called in sick one day when they weren’t? That’s what Sosa did.
I’ve done a lot of thing that are worse than what Sammy Sosa has reportedly done. I’m assuming he hasn’t been physically abusing his wife or kids. I know of no such information that suggests otherwise and everything we’ve seen reported are not as bad as some of the things I’ve done.
I owe only the people I hurt an apology and not anyone else. Those people do not have to forgive me and life goes on, but I owe no community an apology.
That said, losing respect for Sammy is one thing. The outright hatred of the man they once loved is another.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
It’s implied by many (players and fans) that being part of a team is different than a regular job. Do anything to put yourself first rather than the team is against the spoken (but unwritten) code.
But that’s a bunch of bullshit unless we;re talking about little league or high school teams, maybe college (but I would argue that). Minor league teams are a different beast. Players have no control, so I can see how the collective mentality among players could be strong (but maybe not. They’re all competing with each other for promotion).
But pro athletes? They aren’t even employees, they are independent sub-contractors. Some of them don’t even live in the same city as the team, let alone their teammates. Sammy’s contract was finished and wasn’t being renewed. He also wasn’t going to be put into the last couple innings of that game. He had completed his assignment and left. BFD.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
Technically, Sosa’s contract wasn’t up. He ended up being traded to Baltimore for Mike Fontenot (along with some other player and about $15 million going to Baltimore IIRC). That’s fine. I can completely understand why an employer (the Cubs) would not appreciate what Sosa did. It was disrespectful. I get that. But the fans? Who gives a flying fuck if he left when he wasn’t even playing and the season was over. He didn’t want to hang around and be questioned about the failure that was 2004. Really, who can blame him for that?
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
It seems like it was an issue because fans decided they already didn’t like Sosa.
EdwinQuote Reply
Other strike against Sosa: He apparently listed to music on a boom box, which I guess Kerry Wood destroyed with a baseball bat. I hope Sosa got reimbursed for that.
EdwinQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Even if his contract wasn’t up, he knew his time in Chicago was up. It was only very slightly disrespectful to his employer, if at all – they were mutually done with each other. Maybe talking to the press is in his contract but I doubt that he is required to do so every single day of the season.
But as Kevin Millar taught us, veterans always know if they’re going to be playing that day. If Baker was planning on using him, that would certainly have been part of the smear campaign. But he wasn’t.
I would be pissed off if he left town like the previous day or something, but not in the second half of the final game in which he wasn’t going to be playing.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
don’t forget about jerry hairston jr!
Edwin wrote:
yeah this is exactly true, although i’m not really sure why. it’s not like he was terrible in 2004. the only thing i can think of is that it was a combination of his BA dropping to .253 and the fact that he’d been accused by the chicago media as being super selfish for so long that people started to buy into it? so he made the perfect scapegoat for the 2004 season?
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
@ Edwin:
I never understood the boom box thing. Who cares who destroyed it? Who cares that it was even destroyed? I’m willing to bet that was far from the most valuable thing destroyed in that clubhouse that week of the season.
dmick89Quote Reply
also…i’d be curious to know how many players leave the last game of the season early (or just plain don’t show up at all). i suspect very strongly that sammy sosa is not the first person (or the 10th, or the 100th) to do this.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
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Suburban kid wrote:
Yep, it’s a non-issue. I’d bet everything I own other players left at that point in a game in 2004 and it was not an issue. Starting pitchers often go the clubhouse after their start. They’re basically no part of the team whatsoever, down in the clubhouse doing whatever they want. Why is leaving early a big deal?
It isn’t. It’s like the boom box. It was a story and a way to blame Sosa for failing to do what everybody expected in 2004. What people missed throughout the season was that the Cardinals were a far superior team.
dmick89Quote Reply
SVB wrote:
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My stupid DVR thought that Justified was only a 15 minute show. Thank goodness for re-runs.
EdwinQuote Reply
nice article on maddux.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
…
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ EnricoPallazzo:
Maddux was a pretty unique pitcher. I’ve tried to use Fangraphs or other sortable pitch f/x databases to look for a pitcher with a similar style, but I haven’t found many RH pitchers who basically threw just variations of fastballs and a changeup and had success like Maddux had.
Are there any pitchers today who emulate Maddux’s style of pitching?
EdwinQuote Reply
Suburban kid wrote:
Agreed.
EdwinQuote Reply
@ EnricoPallazzo:
That’s a great article. Thanks for the link.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Edwin:
I love having that show back.
dmick89Quote Reply
I could read a book on Maddux anecdotes.
MylesQuote Reply
Brilliant casting on Justified last night, having Dave Foley as a Canadian mobster (dying laughing).
Also, I was convinced that David Koechner was going to be killed before the end of the episode. He checked every box short of saying he was two days from retirement for all the “I’m gonna get killed” cliches.
BerseliusQuote Reply
I don’t really care about Sosa leaving early either, for the reasons stated above and the fact that the media had the tar and feathers out for him for months and it was clear he was going to be scapegoated for that team not making the playoffs. The corked bat thing doesn’t really bother me either, but that’s mostly because I know that corking bats doesn’t work (dying laughing).
Sosa had a big personality, that’s why we loved him so much. It’s not surprising that he would struggle when his skills faltered.
BerseliusQuote Reply
2 of the 4 best pitchers of my lifetime, in the playoffs. Watch this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke_fUqcOxHE
MylesQuote Reply
Oh my god Tim McCarver is terrible.
MylesQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
I had that same thought a couple times during the episode. I fully expected a bullet to his head when he and Raylan were sitting in the car talking about whether Raylan should go visit his kid or not.
cwolfQuote Reply
Busy day at work, so only a minute to comment at lunch…
dmick89 wrote:
OK. I’ll take that back. My point wasn’t to say Sosa was equally as douchey as Gibson, but simply to point out another celebrity whose public reputation took a turn for the worse after more details came out about his life/performance when not in front of the camera. I’m pretty bad about remembering gossip and I don’t read E!, so my points of reference are only the most extreme, I guess. Closer to home–Ryan Braun. Regardless of one’s opinion about PEDs, his response was horrible. Lie. Trash the piss collector. Blame the system. That’s worse that what Sosa did too, but it’s another example of a player that was well-liked and successful who then lost his good reputation because he was stupid.
dmick89 wrote:
If these guys don’t want to be held to a public standard, then they picked the wrong career. Same with actors, politicians, etc. They don’t make millions of $$ without the fans, and I have no problem with the fans changing their opinion of a player if it turns out he’s a jerk. I agree that fans should be more circumspect and a response like, “I loved watching Sosa play, wish we hadn’t turned out to be such a jerk” is more appropriate than “Sosa was always such f–wad. I never liked him.” I suspect that would be disingenuous. I wish the Cubs and Sosa would make up, because the club is clearly denying a big part of their recent history that they benefited greatly from, and it looks like Sosa is making an effort, no matter how awkward. Is it sincere or not? I don’t know. I’m not that much of a cynic.
But being a public figure means you have to deal with higher expectations than someone who takes a day off at a normal job. Equating leaving the office early one day at the engineering firm or the university or whatever isn’t the same thing as for a public figure. I have no patience for all the celebrities who piss and moan with “I am not a role model.” (Ugh, John Mayer–maybe I should have said him instead of Gibson.) I wonder if they understand the irony when they say that. But you can’t have your cake and eat it too, so suck it up.
As to the smear campaign, compare it Soriano. There was absolutely a media campaign against him but his teammates, coaches, and management (Thoyer at least) had his back, even before last year. Or Frank Thomas, since he’s in the news today. He had a prickly rep with the press, but his teammates pretty consistently said he was good in the clubhouse, etc. at least as far as I remember. I don’t recall Sosa getting much backup. So whether the corked bat, walk out, clubhouse presence, etc. was a smear campaign or not, I’m inclined to think it was based on truth because Sammy’s teammates didn’t back him up. To be honest, I think the walkout and the radio would never have become an issue if the bat hadn’t been corked. Seems like we discussed that here around the time when Sammy’s social media presence came out.
SVBQuote Reply
dmick, do you still have the Sosa posts we wrote when he retired? I tried looking for it yesterday but couldn’t search the ACB archives.
BerseliusQuote Reply
http://www.theonion.com/articles/grantland-game-recap-completely-omits-influence-of,34893/
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Myles:
In my spare time. (dying laughing)
SVBQuote Reply
New shit: http://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/our-ballots-for-the-ov-hof-vote-explained.html
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Berselius:
Maybe I just misunderstood your point, B. I took it to be something close to “people who are criticizing Sosa today are just being hypocritical because they all loved him before 2004.” And my response was supposed to convey, “It’s OK for people to change their opinion of someone/something when they get more information, but they should be honest about their response and admit it was a change of opinion and not pretend otherwise.”
SVBQuote Reply
Your answer to Sosa walking out on his team shows a myopic view and so if that were true, and it isn’t then you would be right. Walking out on the team is not analogous to calling in sick. Also, in either case (you or Sosa), your actions alter what happens to a team and a department or company……how could you be so selfish as to think otherwise. Aren’t there people left behind to have to cover for you/do your work or make up for it somehow? At the very least, some sort of production is lost. So selfish to think otherwise and that is the point with the Sosa situation….thinking of himself only and not others.
johnQuote Reply