Hall of Fame voting becoming more chore than honor

The honor is never lost on me.

Sometime just after Thanksgiving every year, the enveloped arrives in the mail from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown. Enclosed is my annual Hall of Fame ballot as I am part of the electorate that consists of all members of the Baseball Writers Association of America with 10 years of continuous service.

I have been voting for 24 years now and do not take the responsibility lightly.

Being elected to the Hall of Fame changes people’s lives and demarcates the great players of the game’s history from the very good. When I get ready to cast my vote, I always pause to appreciate the significance.

Voting for the Hall of Fame is something I enjoyed for many years. It was fun to look at the various candidate’s careers – study their statistics, recall personal observations, talk to peers from their playing days – before casting my ballot.

However, the fun is being squeezed out of the task with each passing year. So many of the candidates seem to come with questions about their character.

Consider the five players I voted for this year.

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens have long been associated with steroids use. Though neither ever failed a drug test, there is enough anecdotal evidence and court testimony to suggest both used performance-enhancing drugs.

Manny Ramirez never went to trial on PED-related matters. However, he was twice suspended by Major League Baseball for testing positive for steroids.

Yet I vote for Bonds, Clemens and Ramirez because they were three of the greatest players in baseball history. Bonds’ 762 home runs is the all-time record while Clemens had 354 wins and Ramirez had a .996 OPS.

I understand and appreciate the arguments for and against my stance, but my thinking is they cannot just be expunged from the game’s history. We cannot pretend as if they never existed.

Furthermore, Bonds and Clemens were never suspended by MLB and neither those two nor Ramirez have ever been convicted of any PED-related crime.

It gets a little trickier, though, when it comes to the last two names on my ballot – Omar Vizquel and Curt Schilling.

Many will argue that Vizquel does not deserve induction in Cooperstown strictly on the merit of his playing career.

He was considered an average, at best, offensive player. However, in my eyes, Vizquel is best defensive shortstop I have ever watched – including the great Ozzie Smith – and his 11 career Gold Glove awards stands as solid backing of my evaluation.

However, Vizquel was accused of two alleged physical acts violence by his wife in a story published in mid-December by The Athletic. He denied he had ever abused her.

Blanca Vizquel also spoke of the allegations in a video on her Instagram account posted Oct. 7, saying in Spanish that “no one deserves to have violence against them.”

Vizquel has not been charged with any crimes. Yet, Blanca’s allegations have obvious raised questions about her husband’s character.

The Athletic story came out before the Hall of Fame ballots were due Dec. 31. I admit I thought long and hard before ultimately put a checkmark next to Vizquel’s name. I will explain why in a moment.

And then there is the case of Schilling, whose 216-146 lifetime record in the regular season along with his heroics in the postseason with three different teams make him a Hall of Famer in my eyes.

Schilling has always rankled a certain segment of the population by very publicly expressing his conservative political views. His controversial social media posts led to him being fired by ESPN from his job as a color commentator on its flagship Sunday Night Baseball broadcast.

However, many people felt Schilling really crossed the line Jan. 6 when his social media posts supported the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol to try to have the result of the presidential election overturned. The mob’s actions led to five people dying.

As Forbes.com’s Maury Brown reported, numerous voters have asked the Hall of Fame to amend their ballots ahead of the results being announced Tuesday evening. I am not one of those voters, though it is certainly not because I agree with what Schilling did.

I have always approached my ballot by voting for players who I felt were worthy of induction because of their on-field careers. So that is why Vizquel and Schilling were on my ballot along with Bonds, Clemens and Ramirez.

Perhaps I am burying my head in the sand, but I am just a sportswriter, not a moralist. I do not feel comfortable passing judgement on the morality of people I know almost exclusively just through reporter-athlete interactions. It is certainly not part of my job description.

I do not know if I am doing the right thing with my approach and I am sure many fans would disagree. However, that is the decision I have made.

The whole Schilling situation could make me reconsider my thought process, though it is not something that requires a snap decision. The next deadline for voting is 11 months away, after all.

The one thing I am certain with voting for the Hall of Fame is it is becoming as much burden as honor.