Revamp Baseball Hall Of Fame Voting

Sunday, February 12, 2006, 2:16 AM

It's time to make a change in the Baseball Hall Of Fame voting. To keep the integrity of the Hall intact, baseball needs to start weeding out voters who show us, the fans, that they haven't a big, fat, clue as to what they're doing.

It's important to remember that sportswriters are, in many circumstances, journalism students who were sent to the sports department by their editors, please don't for a moment believe that these people are in any way, shape or form, more adept than we are at deciding who is a Hall Of Famer and who isn't!

For many years, these sportswriters were the only people to see all the ball players during the course of a year. Up until television, many people didn't see a ballgame, not being close enough to a city with a team, thus relying on radio broadcasts and newsprint descriptions. Even with the advent of television, you still had to be within the signal range to watch a local game. During these years, sportswriters were the only people who had a chance to travel and see all the players during their careers. But times change. With the advancement of cable and satellite t.v., everyone who wants to watch any game in either league can do so without much fanfare.

I don't have a problem with sportswriters per say, its just the idiots, morons and self important know-it-alls that I would like to see thrown out of the vote. Here's what I propose. If a sportswriter should cast a vote for any player who receives less than the 5% needed to stay on the ballot the following year, he should lose his voting privileges for another 10 years, as he has proven that after 10 years of watching baseball games he is just too stupid to live. At the very least, his editor could just move him over to the "Lawn & Garden" section of the newspaper, which would be better than watching said sportswriter cast another Hall Of Fame vote for the likes of Terry Steinbach, Terry Pendleton, Danny Tartabull, Lenny Dykstra or Chet Lemon.

Also, if a writer does not vote for a player receiving 95% and above of the votes, he again should lose his voting privileges for 10 years. Do we, the fan, really want a sportswriter deciding who should go into the hall if he didn't know that Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Tom Seaver and Johnny Bench were Hall Of Fame ballplayers?