My meaningless ballot

Once a year, I am invited to reacquaint myself with musty old statistics and cast my vote for nominees to the baseball Hall of Fame. Jack O'Connell, secretary-treasurer of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, sends a ballot each December. This one, I believe, is my 20th.

The ballot always stirs me to revisit moments of a long-ago past. Baseball consumed a big part my life for decades, but eventually the corruption and venality of big-time sport — and big-time media — became overwhelming. My attention to major league baseball (indeed, any corporate sporting event) has dwindled to almost nothing. My workplace, my hangout, my playground eight months of every year, used to be the press box of major-league ballparks from coast to coast. Now, I haven't been inside a major-league stadium in 12 years. Is beer still $1.75?

One season, two or three years ago, I watched exactly two-thirds of an inning of televised major league baseball. I don't remember why I did that. Last season, I watched only the World Series (no regular season, no playoffs), because Jim Leyland used to be a friend and drinking buddy before we gave up the sauce.

Even though he now works in the ethical black hole that is the Ilitch organization, Jim is a straight arrow. He will not be tainted by association with the chiselers and liars.

My greatest curiosity in this year's Hall of Fame balloting is Mark McGwire's total. Will he draw enough votes (5%) to stay on the ballot? Does the integrity of the game have meaning? I cannot mark his name, nor that of Canseco. Same for Sosa and Bonds, if their names should ever appear on my ballot.

In years like this, I feel my vote is largely meaningless. Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn were first-time locks, so there went 20% of my possible votes. That left only eight spots for the other worthy nominees. (Click on the picture to see my votes.) I hope Jim Rice will eventually be elected, but I don't believe it will happen this year. Murray Chass of the NY Times analyzed Hall of Fame balloting and noted when first-time nominees are elected, few other nominees have a chance.

So, I fear, Rice will come up a loser again this year. So will Andre Dawson, Goose Gossage and Lee Smith. So will Steve Garvey — for the 15th and last time, and that's a shame. Garvey will go into voting limbo for five years, then will be eligible for consideration by the committee that votes on old-timers. To get into Cooperstown, he'll have to buy a ticket.

Update — No surprises at the top of the voting. Gwynn and Ripken Jr. are among the giants of the game, and men of character, too. I'm sorry to see that support for Jim Rice has not grown, and that fine pitchers like Orel Hersheiser and Bret Saberhagen did not draw enough support to stay in the hunt. I'm not sorry to see Canseco gone. But the number of votes for McGwire surprised me. How sad that Don Mattingly and Dave Parker and Dale Murphy drew fewer than half the votes of a player who stained the game so indelibly.

Winter ball

A continuing disappointment with the annual Baseball Hall of Fame vote is the also-ran standing of Jim Rice. I've written this guy on my ballot (yes, an official vote) every year of his eligibility. Lifetime .298, 382 HR, 1451 RBI, .502 slugging, MVP once and top five in MVP voting five other times. In a lineup with Lynn, Fisk and Evans, Jim Rice was the Darth Vader no pitcher wanted to face.

Why wasn't he elected years ago? This is why: Because of his surliness to writers (who do the voting), and because of race. Rice was not reluctant to suggest racial bias (remember, he played in Boston). He came up at the same time as nice-guy teammate Fred Lynn. Too many writers are hanging onto grudges over Rice's uncooperative attitude and insulting clubhouse conduct and remarks.

Rice has been on the ballot 12 years. Three to go, and I'm not optimistic about his chances.

Next winter we will see three big names on the ballot for the first time: Cal Ripken Jr., Tony Gwynn and Mark McGwire. Two of them are shoo-in winners. We'll see how forgiving voters will be with the taint of performance-enhancing drugs.

Never before has my Hall of Fame ballot so closely resembled the consensus as it did this year. Of the 10 top choices in the balloting, nine were mine. The one top-10 name missing from my ballot was Rich Gossage — only because the numbers ran against him this year. Only 10 names are allowed on a ballot, and I put priority on voting for a few worthy candidates who (like Rice) are about to run out of eligibility.

I know Gossage will be in the Hall of Fame one day; he has the credentials. Besides, the New York connection will eventually push him in. The New York sportswriters are a flock of magpies: When they begin to talk among themselves and write about a topic, their talking and writing feeds on itself, and soon they become a noisy swarm flapping in the same direction. I predict the Gossage swarm will occur next winter.

Dave Parker has had my vote nearly every year since he has been eligible. This year his was the only name on my ballot which didn't show up in the consensus top 10. He ranked 11th.

Two other players always on my ballot are Tommy John and Steve Garvey. Both clearly belong in the Hall of Fame, but they're near the end of their tenure on the ballot.

By Jingo

We don't want to fight,
but, by jingo, if we do,
we've got the ships,
we've got the men,
we've got the money, too.

Gunslinger To The World swaggered toward the dusty corral, unaware of the dark shapes that lurked well beyond his own narrow and distorted vision. He would do that which, he was convinced, he had been chosen to do. Some of us watching his descent along the dark avenue had, in the not-too-distant past, the means to prevent the awful mistake that was to come. But now we stood, mute witnesses to the Gunslinger's inexorable momentum, shouted into silence by cliques of profiteers and crowds of devout yahoos. Nothing was left to us but dread. And despair.