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Guess I'm in a cranky mood today. SI.com has a columnist talking to people who vote for the baseball Hall of Fame, and the idea about making their votes public. Many of the writers do, but there are some who cling to their secrecy.
Madden comes off as an old-school hack. Yes, Bill, it does matter to people that someone gives a vote to John Lowenstein. It questions their fitness to take part in an election where the threshold -- 75 percent -- is so high.
What I find more offensive, however, are the guys who are at the other end of the spectrum. Show me the 20 guys who DID NOT vote for Willie Mays and Hank Aaron (and the two doofs who didn't vote for Seaver) and hold them accountable for their decisions. Because if Hank Aaron doesn't meet your standard of a Hall of Famer, then you are not knowledgeable enough about the game.
Madden's whine about opening up a new forum for writers to be criticized is laughable. If he doesn't want public criticism, he can go cover something else.
Stepping off my soap box. Here's his comments from the SI.com column:
Bill Madden, New York Daily News: "If guys choose to reveal their vote as writers, that's their prerogative. But I think it detracts from the process to make the votes public, because it opens up a whole new forum for writers' being criticized. I've always said in the past, What difference does it make if somebody gave a vote to John Lowenstein? By the same token, what difference does it make who that voter was? And in instances where a bunch of blank ballots are cast, what does it accomplish to reveal who those voters were? In the year blank ballots cost Jim Bunning election in his last year, I was one of them, and I revealed as much, as well as my reasons. But by allowing the votes to be public, you suddenly turn the emphasis from who got elected to who voted for whom and why. I believe this election should be like any other election, where your vote is your own unless you care to make it otherwise."
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