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| Friday, May 17 Canseco isn't the test case for Hall criteria By Ray Ratto Special to ESPN.com |
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Something odd happened the other day when Jose Canseco retired, and no, we're not talking about the rumor that Chuck Finley and Tawny Kitaen were going to appear on the next ElimiDate.
Not that we wish Canseco any ill. He stuck with the game far longer than the game stuck with him, but facts are facts, kids. He had a five-year prime, not even as long as Sandy Koufax's, and he was never as good a hitter as Koufax was a pitcher. Still, Canseco was listed as a "borderline" Hall of Famer because he put up some hellacious numbers in that prime and the Numbers Lobby has some very earnest proponents. See, there are two kinds of Hall of Fame voters -- drunks and weasels. No, no, that's not it. Start again. See, there are two kinds of Hall of Fame voters -- hard graders and easy graders, and their philosophies mesh like, well, like Chuck and Tawny on "Celebrity Deathmatch." The hard graders operate on various related theories, among which are:
The easy graders operate on two competing theories:
And with more players putting up numbers, fully contexted or otherwise, the debate between the two sides will only grow more heated, as in: "You suck." "I suck? You suck." And this goes on for a couple of hours until everyone adjourns to the first no-closing-time bar they can find. Now you may wonder who is right in this debate, and the answer is, as it always has been, "Me. I'm right, and you're a moron." The Hall of Fame voting criteria is as a vague as the Second Amendment, which is another one of those gun-barrel-of-the-beholder debates we simply are not going to engage in here, so back off, Heston. We're not playing. And while the voters are normally a diligent lot, they can be swayed by the first cute argument that comes along. Take, for example, Orlando Cepeda, who was voted in on his last year of regular eligibility largely on the strength of a public relations blitz by the San Francisco Giants that included the unprovable and almost certainly erroneous notion that he was kept out of the Hall because of a marijuana conviction. Why do we know it's erroneous? Because (a) it never was mentioned as a stumbling block in all the years he couldn't get 50 percent of the vote, and (b) because most of the current voters have smoked more hemp than Cepeda has ever seen. It became a topic of discussion only when the Giants decided that to make it one would help Cepeda. Does Cepeda belong in the Hall? Tough call. He wouldn't have been a Numbers guy, but he had a longer prime that Canseco, he did make a difference in the Cardinals' 1967 championship and never brought dishonor to the game. He was, in short, the quintessential "borderline" guy. But this isn't about Cepeda anyway. It's about two differing views about how inclusive the Hall of Fame should be, and whether one has to be cruel to be kind, or just make it festival seating in Cooperstown. There are even a few folks who think the Hall should eject some members already voted in to make sure the honor is as elite as it purports to be. We do not subscribe to that theory, if only because Babe Ruth really did a lot for the game in the years before he was a Boston Brave.
That's when the debate will become fun. With Jose Canseco on the table, it isn't even close. As for Chuck Finley and Tawny Kitaen ... well, the CourtTV folks say they're both Hall of Famers, sure, but their criteria may be different than yours or mine. Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. |
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