Wednesday, January 10, 2007

What is the Duty Owed by Sports Writers Voting for the Hall of Fame?

Excellent article by Tim Cowlishaw in yesterday's edition of the Dallas Morning News (Steroids Issue Still a Judgment Call). Cowlishaw points out that, less than 24 hours before the veteran baseball writers who vote for the Hall of Fame had buried Mark McGwire's first-ballot chances based on a suspicion of steroid use, the football writers and broadcasters who vote for the Associated Press All-Pro team embraced steroid use by putting San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman (who actually missed 1/4 of the season because he tested positive) on the first team. While Cowlishaw candidly acknowledges that he wouldn't have voted for McGwire this year if he had had a vote, he also alluded to the problems associated with writers making voting decisions based upon speculation and conjecture:

"But there is a problem with writers taking the moral police role in making these determinations, because we have learned now that Major League Baseball is testing, that steroid users don't always look like steroid users. Even though he also appeared before Congress, Rafael Palmeiro was not on the list of highly suspected steroids users. He's not a big-muscle-type guy. Then, after wagging his finger defiantly, Palmeiro goes out and tests positive. And so have a lot of relief pitchers who also don't fit the Popeye mold... They guess a decisive "guilty" on McGwire based on the size of his forearms. But they say an emphatic "no chance" when confronted with Cal Ripken Jr.'s amazing consecutive-games streak of 2,632. Look, I am not suggesting anything about Ripken. Just pointing out that it is somehow completely off limits to guess how a player managed to push himself to play every day for more than 14 years, while it's a duty to guess how a player added 30 to 40 pounds of muscle during the course of a career."

Cowlishaw is absolutely right that it is all speculation. The fans and the media are definitely permitted to speculate and formulate opinions about whether McGwire took steroids, whether they affected his performance, and whether there should be an "asterisk in the record books." But should writers voting on post season awards, including the Hall of Fame, be held to a different or higher standard, or at a minimum, a standard that is clearly defined? [Maybe it is clearly defined, and I'm just not aware of it.] I mean we're talking about the Hall of Fame, not some all-time top ten best players list put together by some columnist or blogger. Hall of Fame voters, in essence, seem to be permitted to make their own subjective determinations that McGwire did in fact take something. And even further, that the something they think he took is probably on the banned substance list that was subsequently developed and tested for after McGwire played.

What do the voters want here? If McGwire came out today and said that he never took an illegal steroid or a substance that is currently on the banned substance list and tested for, would they be satisfied? Probably not. Is it that they are upset that McGwire isn't talking about it, and they want him to speak out to the public about the dangers of steroid use? I guess we'll never really know for sure, and the answer may be different depending upon which voter you ask. While there is an element of subjectiveness in determining who gets in the Hall anyways based upon performance, at least we can say that those determinations are based upon an analysis of objective-based performance statistics.

The purpose of this post is to inquire about the parameters or standards for determining who gets in the Hall and who doesn't, not to engage in the steroid debate. So what is the duty of a sports writer in voting for the Hall of Fame? I don't mean a duty in a strictly legal sense, but should it be objectively defined? Or is it sufficient for the writers to be permitted to take on a broad "moral police role" as Cowlishaw alluded to. If so, what are the perameters of that role? Presumably writers are permitted to make decisions that even go beyond mere speculation over steroid use, for example the use of illegal narcotics (and speculation of such use) or other acts of perceived misconduct on and off the field, unless that role is more narrowly defined of course. And if the standard is that broad, then why not just let the fans vote, similar to the way the fans vote for the all-star games? Because fans are just as qualified as the writers--maybe even more qualified--to make these types of decisions.

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