Sports

Maybe zero heroes today

As If we didn’t have to deal with enough gridlock in our nation’s capital, the nuisance is now heading up to the countryside. To Cooperstown, the alleged birthplace of baseball.

At 2:00 this afternoon, National Baseball Hall of Fame President Jeff Idelson will announce this year’s Baseball Writers Association of America inductees to the renowned museum. The leading contenders are, in order: 1) No one; 2) Craig Biggio; and 3) Jack Morris.

In the film “The Campaign,” Marty Huggins (Zach Galifianakis) says of Washington, D.C., “It’s a mess!” and you could argue the same about the Hall’s current logjam. You’ve got highly suspected illegal performance-enhancing drug users such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, lowly suspected users in Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza and a convicted user in Rafael Palmeiro. You have Morris, the darling of the visceral crowd, and Tim Raines, the poster boy for the geeks.

You have only 10 slots on your ballot and multiple, conflicting perspectives from the voters, which could lead to a very lonely induction weekend this July in Cooperstown. And that could be a sign of years to come, as players, cornered by disparate opinions on their credentials, tread water between the five percent of the votes required to stay on the ballot and the 75 percent that gets you atop the podium.

To which Idelson calmly said, “At the end of the day, we have complete faith in the process and complete faith that the BBWAA will handle it with the great care that it has since 1936.”

Beyond those of us screaming at one another about relative lacks of intelligence, there’s an obvious economic component to this situation. The Hall and Cooperstown itself rely heavily on induction weekend for a revenue infusion. If the only non-media honorees this summer are Veterans Committee submissions Hank O’Day, Jacob Ruppert and Deacon White, all of whom are currently dead, there won’t be much of a party.

There has been talk that the Hall needs to provide guidance to the BBWAA on the illegal PED issue to clear up this fog, and I say that’s hogwash. The only component that separates illegal PEDs from other controversial voting matters — say, the viability of a designated hitter’s candidacy, or how much to weigh postseason numbers — is the emotions surrounding it. Voters need to toughen up and devise a philosophy that can be defended under public scrutiny.

Besides, the last time the Hall told us what to do is when it took the suspended Pete Rose off the ballot in 1991, and we didn’t respond very favorably to that.

In this unstable time in his world, Idelson is banking on the stability of history. When I asked him whether the Hall of Fame would consider changing its voting, essentially firing the BBWAA and looking elsewhere, Idelson said, “Given that our relationship with the BBWAA goes back to when Joe DiMaggio was playing center field for the Yankees, I don’t see it changing in a vacuum.”

Idelson said, flatly, “We don’t foresee there being too many quiet July weekends. We still believe in the process and that, at the end of the day, worthy people will be inducted.”

Well, next year, Greg Maddux arrives on the ballot, and you can set your watch to him getting to the 75 percent mark for a 2014 induction. The 2016 ballot will have Ken Griffey Jr.’s name on it, another slam dunk. Also coming aboard over that span will be Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson, Jeff Kent, Pedro Martinez, Mike Mussina, Gary Sheffield, John Smoltz and Frank Thomas.

Enough people should get to 75 percent, even now that the Steroids Era has hit the ballot in full force. It might not be everyone you want. It might be people you don’t want. But there will be honorees and, just as important, there will be passionate debates about inclusions and exclusions.

In dissecting a ballot, “The snapshot isn’t one year,” Idelson said. “It’s 15 years,” which is the maximum amount of time a player stays under the writers’ jurisdiction.

We’ve got a while to go, in other words, before we can fully assess what this all means. Yet you needn’t cry for the Hall of Fame. It will survive this gridlock far better than its neighbors to the south.