THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Eric Nusbaum will earn our BBWAA ulcers

I’ve been looking for a guy like this.

It’s not lost on me that if the Hall of Fame stakes weren’t there, the Tim Raines appreciation society might not get the same amount of public attention. But that’s exactly the problem. Instead of appreciating baseball for all it offers and enjoying its stars for all they give us—which really is so much—we chose to give ourselves ulcers over the injustices committed by the BBWAA.
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Whining and whispering about which names on the Hall of Fame ballot may have used steroids is a new annual tradition. It’s not likely to go away anytime soon because Hall of Fame voters are losing a grip on the only world that they control — that world of illusions comprised of discarded Gold Glove trophies and dusty Hall of Fame plaques. In their world, morality consists of things like “clutchness” and “being a class act.” It also consists of not hitting home runs between say 1997 and the present because doing so makes you suspicious and suspicions are like fog and fog makes it harder to see.

I cede the floor to you Mr. Nusbaum, and any future ulcers.  You are both a gifted writer, and a fan of baseball, exactly the kind of person who should be part of the solution.