The candidates for the 2025 class of the Baseball Hall of Fame have been announced, and the guaranteed name to get in is Ichiro Suzuki. He was the modern-day Ty Cobb. A player who understood the science of baseball better than anyone else playing or watching the game. In 19 seasons, split between the Mariners, Yankees, and Marlins, he accumulated 3,089 hits (25th most all-time in American baseball).
Debuting for Seattle as a 27-year-old rookie, Ichiro played for the Orix Blue Wave of the JPPL from the age of 18 until the age of 26. He had 1,278 hits in Japan, and if baseball writers cared about that, his 4,367 total career hits would be 111 more than Pete Rose. Like Cobb, Ichiro also has cleanup power at the plate but chose not to use it. His batting practices and spring training homerun derby titles are things of legend.
Ichiro led Major League Baseball in hits seven times and had over 200 hits 10 times. He was a rookie of the year, Most Valuable Player, 10-time All-Star, and two-time batting champion. Defensively, he won 10 Gold Glove awards. Ichiro had elite speed on the bases and in the field, and one of the best outfield arms in baseball history. Altogether, he is one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, yet there’s a chance that some writers won’t vote for him to get into the Hall of Fame.
Who gets into the hall of fame and who doesn’t is determined by writers who didn’t play the game. This isn’t to say they don’t understand the sport they have covered their entire lives, but it has allowed them to make up silly rules about how they vote. The question they ask isn’t whether a player deserves to get in or not, but whether or not they deserve to get in on their first try. As if they aren’t worthy now, but an extra year of doing nothing, and accumulating zero stats, will make them worthy later.
Nolan Ryan is the perfect example of this absurdity. He pitched 27 years in the majors, winning 324 games (300 is the number to guarantee a pitcher gets into the Hall of Fame). He led the league in strikeouts 11 times, including a current record of 383 K’s in 1973, and finished with 5,714 career punchouts. He has 1,600 more strikeouts than the guy in second place, Steve Carlton. He also threw 7 career no-hitters (second place all-time is 4).
When Ryan was up for the Hall of Fame, he received 98.8% of the votes (491/497). Six writers felt that Ryan did not deserve a vote, meaning they felt he was not one of the best pitchers of all time. There are no statistics to support such an argument, and the power move was done primarily to get them some recognition as “being the guys who didn’t vote for Nolan Ryan.” That may not be something a sports writer wants to be known for, but in today’s world, any spotlight is apparently better than no spotlight.
It’s time to start weeding out some of the Hall of Fame voters. Some of these writers are old and senile. They can’t remember where they put the remote control, and baseball is trusting them to remember who was great and who wasn’t. It’s time for Hall of Fame Voting Reform. A new strategy needs to be put into place, where if a writer doesn’t vote for a deserving player, they are stripped of their voting rights forever, and the publication they write for is stripped for 5 years.
Who is deserving? Aren’t writers allowed to disagree on who should be in and who shouldn’t? Absolutely. A player who deserves to be in, or a sure thing, would be someone who gets 90% of the vote or more. If someone is among 10% who don’t vote for a player, they either are trying to make a name for themselves, make a statement on “first-ballot” guys, or they just don’t know the game of baseball. Whatever the case, they should never be allowed to vote again.
When the inductees for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Class of 2025 are announced, Ichiro will be among the names called. There isn’t enough stupidity in the world to prevent that. We shouldn’t make the day about the voters, we should make it about the players. As fans, and as members of a civilized population, we also need to ensure that sports writers never make it about themselves ever again.
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