Reset: Major League Baseball Hall of Fame 2.0

Major League Baseball is tremendous but the way it's marketed is horrible.

Easily the most conservative of the four major team sports, MLB has always relied on tradition and the depiction of “the grand old game” to draw fans in. But seriously, with each generation subjected to warbly mono renditions of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and an intense policing of any official game footage on YouTube (to name but two offenses), MLB risks losing a nation of young people if it doesn’t change its ole time-y ways soon.

A positive first step could be hitting the Reset Button on the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s a fine spot to spend a summer’s afternoon. But it’d be a big step symbolically if MLB would forgo any future Cooperstown inductions and in lieu, open a fresh new facility (maybe in Manhattan or Boston) that could help bring the sports into the 21^st century (or even 1973, if you want to get snarky about it).

This Hall would be different. Here are a few ground rules that’d help differentiate it from Cooperstown:
- Voting is based 100% upon on-the-field performance. Drugs, gambling, womanizing, overeating. All irrelevant. If you could hit and/or pitch really, really well or made a big impact on the sport otherwise, that’s all that would matter.
- No five year waiting period to get in. The primary rationale is based on the opinion that MLB does a weak job of making its marquee players into household names. Case in point: why isn’t Albert Pujols at the level of celebrity of Tom Brady or Lebron James? The St Louis slugger put up an initial 10 seasons that’d rival the first decade of any player ever. And yet, what does the average baseball fan really know about him?!? He’s not a menace like Alex Rodriguez and not a lush like Miguel Cabrera nor a headcase like Brian Wilson. It’s unfortunate. From marketability alone, it’d be unique have actual Hall of Fame players on the field and might bump these dudes up a few notches in the celebrity ranks.
- You can vote players OUT of the Hall of Fame. This would be pretty exciting if all of a sudden people realized that a certain player’s historical significance lessened as time passed. Image the debate, the outrage if this happened. Fires would be set. Families would dissolve. It’d be wonderful. Personally, I might vote Ryne Sandberg out of the existing HOF if given the chance. He was good. But not THAT good.
- Give votes to people outside the Baseball Writers Association of America. More bloggers, maybe long time season ticket holders, Geddy Lee, etc. It’d be nice if there was an acknowledgement of voices outside this antiquated old boys club.

A few additional refinements would need to occur but in the meantime, here is a roll call of the players and non-players that I’d have inducted immediately into the Baseball Hall of Fame 2.0. Comments in parenthesis where warranted.

Position Players
- Alex Rodriguez
- Barry Bonds (100% no brainer.)
- Chipper Jones
- Craig Biggio (Personally, a far superior player to Ryne Sandberg overall plus he spent more years on the Astros than Sandberg did on the Cubs. So there.)
- Derek Jeter
- Ichiro Suzuki (See Appendix A)
- Ivan Rodriguez
- Jim Thome (A guy who is on the bubble in reality but I think he needs to make it. He gets fingered as largely a “counting stats” guy but check out the career OBP. It’s more than solid.)
- Manny Ramirez (In spite of his pathetic 2011 retirement episode.)
- Mark McGwire
- Omar Vizquel (Basically a modern day equivalent of Luis Aparicio and Ozzie Smith. Plus he’s apparently friendly as hell.)
- Pete Rose (Needs to get in ASAP. He is kooky but putting Pete Rose in the initial wave of inductees for HOF 2.0 would be a MAJOR news story.)
- Rafael Palmeiro (Similar to Thome in terms of longevity. Although that insincere finger pointin’ episode in Congress is so laughable, it basically hit The Reset Button on his credibility.)
- Sammy Sosa (His skin is bleached now apparently.)

Pitchers

- Greg Maddux
- John Smoltz (I like the parallels with Dennis Eckersley.)
- Mariano Rivera
- Pedro Martinez
- Randy Johnson
- Roger Clemens (Such an a-hole but on stats alone, easily one of the Top Five pitchers ever.)
- Tom Glavine
- Trevor Hoffman (I could see him and Rivera as maybe the last two closers ever elected to the HOF. Managers and General Managers alike are getting wise to the fact that investing in any closer long term is not good for business. The BJ Ryan contract with the Blue Jays might turn out to be one of the more influential contract bombs of the past decade.)

Everybody Else

- Bill James, statistician
- Billy Martin, manager
- Bobby Cox, manager
- Dave Duncan, pitching coach
- Donald Fehr, head of Major League Baseball Players Association (Most annoyed looking HOF 2.0 member.)
- Joe Torre, manager
- John Schuerholz, general manager
- Leo Mazzone, pitching coach (HOF 2.0 member most likely to be mistaken for somebody with nerve damage.)
- Marvin Miller, head of Major League Baseball Players Association (It took a United Steelworker to obliterate MLB’s infamous reserve clause. Miller’s handiwork was effectively ground zero for the escalation of MLB player salaries over the past 40 years.)
- Scott Boras, player agent (Evil but deserving, based on influence and fear alone.)
- Sean Forman, website founder (Founder of BaseballReference.com, easily the most referenced MLB website of the past decade.)
- Tim Dierkes, website founder (Tim created to horribly addictive MLBTradeRumors website and could be a gateway to a new wave of MLB influencers from outside the immediate circle.)
- Tony La Russa, manager

Appendix A

The Reset Button is on the bubble over whether there should be a fourth category for individuals who were “Historically significant and/or memorable” rather than “Great”. Occasionally, a player such as Ichiro Suzuki can be both. If it’s given a go, here are a few names of players and non-players who should be considered:
- Andy Van Slyke
- Bo Jackson
- Curt Flood
- Curtis Pride
- Doc Ellis
- Fernando Valenzuela
- Jim Abbott
- Jim Eisenreich
- Jim Morris
- Lenny Dykstra
- Roger McDowell
- Tug McGraw
- Turk Wendell
- Billy Beane, general manager
- Charlie Finley, owner
- Don Zimmer, manager/coach
- Lou Piniella, manager
- Walt Hriniak, hitting coach