Hall of Fame Joke

Today they announced the 2007 induction class for the Baseball Hall of Fame. I am extremely happy to see that both Cal Ripken Jr and Tony Gwynn were easily selected to the Hall. Both of these players had stellar careers and played their entire careers for one team.

Cal Ripken Jr is one helluva an athlete and should be what future shortstops are compared to when being selected for the Hall. Cal was a true ironman of a player and played the game the right way. When the big money contracts originally started being signed, I only thought that two players were worthy of receiving those sort of big money contracts. Ryne Sandberg was one and was elected to the Hall last year, Cal Ripken was the other and now Cal is joining Ryno in the Hall. Tony Gwynn was the San Diego Padres from 1984 until he retired at the end of the 2004 season. The only negative thing that I am able to say about Tony Gwynn was that in 1998 when Sammy Sosa had also reached 62 home runs, the San Diego Padres acknowledged the achievement prior to the Cubs at Padres game that following Monday in San Diego. Tony said that he was offended by the ownership of the Padres should not have made such a big deal out of what Sammy had done. I for one thought what John Moores & Larry Lucchino did for Sammy was a very classy act.

I am again disappointed that some high profile individuals did not make the Hall of Fame once again. Rich "Goose" Gossage fell 21 votes short in his eighth year of eligibility. Gossage being one of the men who helped define what a closer was should have been a first ballot Hall of Famer and it is disgusting that the Baseball Writers Association of America still will not allow him to be enshrined. Another glaring omission once again is Andre "Hawk" Dawson. Andre was the epitome of what a baseball player should be and had a magnificent career for teams that really did not do much making the post season. Andre started in Montreal, the came to my beloved Cubs in 1987 with a blank contract and wound up winning the league MVP that year. What the BBWAA has against both of these individuals I do not know. I do know that both of them deserve to be there.

Of course there is always the the biggest omission that the BBWAA that still has not been corrected and I am not sure if the veterans committee is smart enough to correct the mistake. Ron Santo of the Chicago Cubs should have been in the Hall of Fame a long time ago. I was watching the broadcast of ESPN's coverage of the announcement and Karl Ravech talked about the criteria of being selected. Everything that was mentioned including integrity, professionalism, and how the game was played epitomised what Ron Santo did in his career day in and day out. Ron Santo deserves to be in the Hall and I just hope that one day Ron will be in Cooperstown before too long. Most every Cubs fan that I know agree with me completely on this and some of the talk around the league shows that people are dumb founded that Santo still is not in the Hall.

I hope that one day the BBWAA decides to change its ways and alters the 75% of the 545 ballots gets changed to make sure that players who deserve to be in the Hall make it. Those that do not deserve to be there no matter what will never be able to make it. One day some of the wrongs that the BBWAA has made should be corrected. Of course I am dreaming here on that thought. Just like I continue to dream that maybe one day in my life time that the Cubs will be World Series Champions. To the Baseball Gods, I say Please in my life time correct some of the mistakes that Major League Baseball and the BBWAA have made so that more fans will be happy. Wait a minute, I dreaming here. The reality says that the Cubs won't win in my life time and the BBWAA nor the Veterans Committee will never correct the blatant mistakes that have been made.