If I made up a fake Twitter account in order to parody Hall of Fame voters who oppose PED users being inducted, it wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as the real one run by Philip Hersh of the Chicago Tribune.
He’s an Olympic reporter, by the way. Hasn’t covered baseball since some of you have been born. But once you get your BBWAA card and hold it for ten years you get a Hall of Fame vote for life. And you can use it any way you want.
Hersh is using it like this:Oh, the joy I will have snubbing Sosa, Bonds and Clemens (plus McGwire and Palmeiro, natch) on my HoF ballot.
— Philip Hersh (@olyphil) November 28, 2012
I have a ballot because I covered baseball for nearly 20 years.And I’m keeping it just to vote against the druggies.
— Philip Hersh (@olyphil) November 28, 2012
Which is his prerogative. Just as it’s the BBWAA’s prerogative to allow a person who has covered ice skating, downhill skiing and the like since 1987 to continue to vote on the Hall of Fame while it makes hard-working baseball writers who cover games for a living wait ten years after membership before getting the privilege. Phil Hersh: do your worst. Marc Carig, Adam Kilgore and Zach Levine: wait in line.
But it also must make some of the Hall of Fame voters mad that he treats a process which most of them take seriously as some sort of vindictive lark. And that’s true even if they ultimately get to the same place Hersh does.