MLB Hall of Fame: Too restrictive?

To be honest I’ve never really paid attention to the whole process of being elected into the MLB Hall of Fame. This year I looked into it, as some of the players that I grew up watching are now on the ballots. First off, I congratulate Bruce Sutter for joining this prestige society. On the other hand I looked at other players on the ballot and have to wonder, is it just too difficult to make the hall? So, I began looking into the rules and guidelines for acquiring membership. I’m going to use this year as an example: 29 candidates were eligible for induction, in order to be elected the candidate must receive 75% of a Yes vote. Candidates that receive less than 5% of the vote will be ineligible for a future election. These are very strict guidelines. So, who determines who gets in or not? The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWA), why these guys? According to the BBWA site they are, any active and honorary members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, who have been active baseball writers for at least ten (10) years, shall be eligible to vote. They must have been active as baseball writers and members of the Association for a period beginning at least ten (10) years prior to the date of election in which they are voting. We are talking about a combined 20 years of baseball writing experience members, so basically the old MLB newspaper writers and yes Peter Gammons. I would like this to be changed but, I’m not saying take out the writer’s votes, but more of a sample size such as previous/current players, ex-managers, and umpires. I think more people involved with the game deserve to vote. How about the fans, fan participation should be allowed to maybe a certain percentage, 5%?

Secondly, the BBWA says voting is based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played. This maybe a personal knock, but why isn’t Murph in the hall?? He was a really good player on some very bad Braves teams. That could be his downfall. The same can be said about Bert Blyleven, who has picked up a following of supporters through the years(since ’98), but still hasn’t made it in.

This year’s group included names like Rice, Dawson, Goose, amongst the already mentioned. Sutter was the only one to make the cut and he made it with 76.9% election. He’s been at this campaign since ’94 when he received 23% yes votes. His number has gradually increased with the exception of a couple of years where it went down a bit. Throughout its lifetime there have been 7 times where the BBWA has not elected anyone, the last time this happened was 1996. Since 75% is the cut off, I wondered who barely made it and who made with ease. Back in ’92 Tom Seaver received 98.84% of yes votes while in ’53 Al Simmons was inducted with 75.38% votes.

I know I’m not the first to propose changes to these strict guidelines but I sure would like to see more players making it rather than one, two or none each year.