Letter aside, my Hall voting methods won't change

Yahoo Sports’ Jeff Passan is undoubtedly one of the top baseball writers in the country and I’m proud to call him a friend. However, I am not going to follow his lead and refuse to vote in the Hall of Fame election.

I certainly understand Passan’s reasons for declining to cast a ballot. I believe it was quite heavy handed of Joe Morgan and the Hall of Fame to send a letter to the voters last week urging us not to vote for anyone who has been connected to performance enhancing drugs.

As I wrote last week, the toothpaste is already out of the tube on that issue. I have already voted for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens during each of the six years they have been on the ballot.

My biggest issue with Morgan and the people in Cooperstown is that their advice is too little, too late. For nearly a decade, the Baseball Writers Association of America asked the Hall for guidance on how to deal with players who had been linked to PEDs and the answer was always “sorry, you’re on your own.”

Well, during all that time waiting, I decided to formulate my own idea and that’s to vote for the players I think are worthy. Bonds is a Hall of Famer in my eyes and so is Clemens. Nothing has happened since I voted last December to change my mind.

I have great respect for Morgan, Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson and the rest of the staff at the Hall of Fame. Morgan was a great player and the staff does a tremendous job of preserving the game’s history. Visiting the Hall of Fame is almost an out-of-body experience and should be on any baseball fan’s bucket list.

I greatly cherish being entrusted with a Hall of Fame ballot and my hands shake just a little when I open the envelope and look at the ballot. That’s how seriously I take it.

In fact, I care about so much that nobody is going to change my mind on how I should vote.