Jay Mariotti wants to get kicked out of the BBWAA. Hey BBWAA: please do it

Jay Mariotti didn’t vote for anyone for the Hall of Fame. Not a single person. He gave his rationale on his ESPN podcast (transcript via Baseball Ink):

I didn’t vote for anybody in the baseball hall of fame this year. Ya know why? To me...the first ballot is sacred. I think Roberto Alomar is an eventual Hall of Famer, not the first time. Edgar Martinez, designated hitter, eventually, but not the first time. Same goes for maybe Fred McGriff. As far as Blyleven and Dawson...if they haven’t gotten in for years and years I cannot vote them in now. Ripken, Rickey Henderson and Gwynn. They are true first ballot Hall of Famers, but I didn’t vote for anybody, throw me out of the Baseball Writers. I don’t care.

Mariotti isn’t the only voter who imposes the erroneous “first ballots are sacred” rule, but he is its loudest, most self-centered and most obnoxious practitioner. His other exclusions are even more ridiculous, seeing as though he has previously voted for Blyleven and Dawson.

I suppose I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before when I call Mariotti an immature and obnoxious attention whore, but I wish he’d limit his self-aggrandizing shtick to his columns rather than allow it to infect Hall of Fame voting which, no matter what Mariotti thinks of it, is still taken pretty seriously by most of us.

Mariotti ends his rant by saying that he wants to get kicked out of the Baseball Writers Association of America. By all means writers, give the man what he wants.

In other news, if you just can’t get enough of terrible sports writers and their terrible Hall of Fame ballots, today Patrick Sullivan of Baseball Analysts has a FJM-style takedown of Dan Shaugnessy’s “I know a Hall of Famer when I see it” column from the other day. Good stuff.