Apologies to the former NY Times baseball columnist turned blogger Murray Chass if the above headline doesn’t do full justice to his rationale for voting in favor of Jack Morris‘ election to the Hall Of Fame, though Murray does promise that if Morris makes it this time or next January in his final year of eligibility, the former will relinquish his ballot.
You might ask and reasonably so, if I plan to stop voting, why did I vote this year? I voted in the hope that my vote would contribute to Morris’ election. I didn’t vote for anyone else because anyone I might have considered was a known or suspected cheater, and I didn’t want to aid and abet a cheater.
I think I am safe in concluding that Morris did not cheat. I know the stats zealots don’t think Morris is a Hall of Famer because his rankings in their new-fangled ratings fall below their standards. But they don‘t have a formula for intestinal fortitude or determination.
Morris willed the Minnesota Twins to win Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, refusing to leave as long as the game was scoreless. The stats zealots are tired of hearing about that game, but it is symbolic of the fatal flaw in their way of viewing players. Numbers simply don’t tell the whole story.
Morris could be hurt or helped by how writers vote on the cheaters. If they go big for the big names, they will very likely not include Morris. If they choose to reject the cheaters, Morris figures to benefit. If Morris isn’t elected this time, he could face a problem next year because Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine will be on the ballot for the first time.
Of course they could, with a good imaging system, and maybe a CAD program, or something similar. Bet they’d come within 2-3 inches of his intestines true length. Of course the only way to prove it would be to disembowel Jack Morris, but sometimes sacrifices must be made if one wants to prove himself fit for the Hall Of Fame.
And who sez he was clean? Prove it.