When you think of the Baseball Hall of Fame, what do you think of? Cooperstown? The most elite players of all time? Who deserves to be in the Hall? All these are valid question and statements. We recently just had the Hall Fame voting where Randy "Big Unit" Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, and Craig Biggio were inducted. All of these players were outstanding and brought something to their teams in their era.
There seems to be so many different changes and rules that make everything about this elusive Hall(or as some people call it a Museum). The one rule that bothers me the most, which seems to bother a lot of people, is that you can only vote for a maximum of 10 players. What if you feel that there are more than 10 players worthy of making the Hall? There are many instances like this where players get robbed of making the Hall. It's because of this rule that players have to sometimes wait 2, 3, or even 4 years to become Hall of Famers.
The best situation that I see it with is Mike Piazza. He is the best hitting catcher of all time. He has the most home runs by a catcher. On his 3rd year on the ballot, he received 69.9 percent of the votes. If he deserves to be in the Hall, then he should have been voted in already. People claim that he was "linked" with steroids. He would not have received the amount of votes he did if people really thought he was linked to steroids.
Craig Biggio's case over the past couple of years was really crazy, maybe worse than Piazza's. Biggio collected over 3000 hits, was an All Star at 2 different positions(catcher and second base) and even has 2 Silver Sluggers for 2 different positions. That in itself is a pretty amazing stat. He fell 2 VOTES short last year, before finally getting in this year with John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez, and Randy Johnson. Biggio played well in his career, probably considered the best position player to ever play for the Astros.
If there wasn't the "Rule of 10", many other players who are Hall worthy would be in there. Jeff Bagwell, in my opinon, also deserves to be in the Hall. The one shocker is Tim Raines. He is the best lead off hitter ever not named Rickey Henderson. I believe he will in the Hall of Fame.
The "Rule of 10" should really be called the "Rule of Infinity." "Rule of Infinity" should allow voters to vote for however many players they feel are deserving. I remember reading a certain article of a Hall voter mentioning how he feels he has to leave off certain players on this years ballot. The question for that is why would he do that? While reading more of the article, he mentioned he left some off the ballot because others needed the votes sooner.
