Selling Change

When Dan Le Batard announced he was the Hall of Fame voting baseball writer that sold his vote to the readership at Deadspin, you knew it would hit the fan.

People had wondered for a while how ridiculous the BBWAA, the group of sportswriters given the task of voting players into the Hall of Fame, would react once they found out which of their members had sold their vote.

To quote the Joker from The Dark Knight, “They did not disappoint.”

Le Batard was stripped of his Hall of Fame vote and barred from attending any baseball game as a media member for a year.

In a statement released by the BBWAA, the organization said that it “...regards Hall of Fame voting as the ultimate privilege, and any abuse of that privilege is unacceptable.”

Of course, as reporter Richard Justice points out, Le Batard isn't the first person to crowd source his ballot (just not on this size of scale).

And apparently, the BBWAA doesn't consider voting for Jack Morris and Jack Morris only while deciding to leave Greg Maddux off his ballot an “abuse of that privilege.”

The problem with the voting process is it has become an exercise for vote-carrying reporters to feel extremely important about themselves.

In part, Le Batard explained the reason for selling his vote:

“I feel like my vote has gotten pretty worthless in the avalanche of sanctimony that has swallowed it...

Baseball is always reticent to change, but our flawed voting process needs remodeling in a new media world. Besides, every year the power is abused the way I'm going to be alleged to abuse it here. There's never been a unanimous first-ballot guy? Seriously? If Ruth and Mays and Schmidt aren't that, then what is? This year, someone is going to leave one of the five best pitchers ever off the ballot. Suck it, Greg Maddux.

...in a climate without reform, my next 20 years of votes will be counted but not actually heard. At least this gets it heard, for better or for worse.”

He is not the only one who feels the system is broke and with each passing year, more and more ridiculous. The only ones who don't feel way are the voters who feel important while holding the keys to baseball's Pearly Gates.

So while Le Batard will no longer vote and have to eat hot dogs in the section adjacent to the press box this year, hopefully his doing will result in change to the way Hall of Fame voting is done.