Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Idiocy 101


Rickey Henderson. All time stolen base leader. All time Runs leader. The Best Leadoff Man Of All Time. Over 3,000 Hits. Playoff Success. Clutchy Goodness. Is this man a hall of famer, by any standard you want to set? Seemingly, yes. Bill James has been quoted as saying, "If you'd split him in two, you'd have two hall of famers". But not according to this BBWAA member. In his column written for a senior citizen community paper, Corky Simpson, a man who combines the name "Corky" with the last name of a cartoon character known for being an idiot, published his ballot for this year's Hall Of Fame class, which included some borderline deserving candidates (Bert Blyleven, Alan Trammel, Tim Raines), some understandable but not deserving candidates (Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Don Mattingly) and some "wtf?" candidates (Tommy John? Matt Frickin Williams?). But the most "wtf?" aspect of this list is the glaring omission of the aforementioned Rickey. There is no possible explanation for this. Even old time baseball men types, who think Bill James ruined baseball and that VORP is something you eat on a hike would appreciate Rickey's stolen base skills and general clutchiness. It's not that he can't appreciate Rickey's particular skill set, because he voted for Tim Raines, who's like Rickey Lite. And he can't be he just had a senior moment and just forgot about Rickey, because he puts him in a list of candidates"honored with nomination this year and who may well be voted into the Hall of Fame" a list Rickey shares with luminaries like Dan Plesac and Greg Vaughn, (Rickey is located between Mark Grace, a personal favorite who's a borderline Hall Of Famer, and Jack Morris, who gets a lot of old baseball man votes). It might be because Corky seems to be an unabashed D-Bax fan who wanted desperately wanted Matt Williams to get in. But that can't be, because a) Mark Grace? and b) the HOF vote is no time to be a partisan idiot. Some people have said that Simpson is old and out of touch and the BBWAA should have an age limit. However, I don't believe in insulting the elderly by associating them with Corky Simpson.
Having exhausted all that, it's time to come to our final conclusion. Corky Simpson is simply an idiot. I have no better explanation for why somebody believes Matt Williams is a Hall Of Famer, and Rickey Henderson is not. He does quite a bit to prove my assumption, saying that he didn't vote for Mark McGwire because McGwire took steroids, when Williams was busted by the Mitchell Report for guess what, taking steroids.
What can we do about this? Well, the dude's like 80, and married with children I think, which unfortunately means he has already passed his toxic idiot genes to the next generation. However, I think a stripping of his BBWAA membership is an order, as is a personal apology to Rickey Henderson. I think we should also make him do something immoral and demeaning, but I leave that to people with better imaginations than I.

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