The Five Percent Rule Is Not The Problem

Dan Rosenheck at The New York Times writes that the Baseball Hall of Fame should change the rule requiring candidates to garner at least five percent of writers’ votes to remain on the ballot.

The article attempts to reveal a so-called flaw in the Hall of Fame election process.  On the contrary, Rosenheck exposes the farce that is the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA), whose members do the actual voting.

How is it that support for Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven has “increased to 72.2 percent and 61.9 percent last year from 29.4 percent and 14.1 percent 10 years ago”?  Rosenheck admits that the players qualifications have not changed but does not question the illogical mindset of the BBWAA writers.  Instead, he contends that other “worthy” players — who could not even get five percent of the vote — are unfairly eliminated.

Poppycock.  Rather than doing away with the five percent rule, the Baseball Hall of Fame should do just the opposite:  A candidate gets one year to get the 75% of the vote required for election.  Period.  None of this 15 years of “getting better with age” crap.  If a player is (not) good enough five years after retirement, that player is not going to be any better (or worse) a decade and a half later.  (Egregious oversights can still be corrected by the Veterans Committee.)

This rule change would have the additional benefit of making the BBWAA writers more accountable.  Deserving players would gain unanimous acceptance rather than having some jackass writer or two hold out “on principle” or to make a name for him- or herself.

Rather than further enabling the dysfunctional BBWAA, we fans should demand that the Baseball Hall of Fame should go further to prevent marginal and mediocre players into their hallowed shrine.