Jack Morris’ Hall Of Fame Credentials Still Stirring Fierce Debate

This is Jack Morris’s last year of Hall of Fame eligibility. Somewhere, there’s a hardscrabble town in Pennsylvania that’s built around the industry of Jack Morris/Hall of Fame arguments. Once those are gone, the entire town will slowly crumble into dust. First the diners will close. Then the pool hall. Then the family-owned hardware store. I hope you’re happy.

There’s no way Morris is going to get elected. Predictive models suggest that someone with Morris’s 67.7 percent last year would be close to a shoo-in this year, but those models don’t account for ballottageddon, in which there are as many as 18 deserving Hall of Famers on a 10-slot ballot. There’s going to be a groundswell of let’s-get-Jack-in support, but it won’t be enough.

Yesterday, I “reviewed” some things that Ken Rosenthal and Jon Heyman made on MLB Network last week, in the wake of the BBWAA’s Hall of Fame balloting results. Today, it’s some other guys’ turns. Here’s Harold Reynolds, same show but different desk:

It’s not like we don’t have some guide to the future. When Mark McGwire retired, I think it’s fairly safe to say, a majority of Hall of Fame voters considered him an excellent candidate. Six years later, he got 24 percent in his first appearance on the ballot. Were the voters just letting McGwire twist in the wind? One year later, he got 24 percent again. Then it was 22 percent, and 24 percent. That’s one hell of a wind-twisting.

Here’s Jon Heyman on MLB Network last week, shortly after the results were announced:

Later, Heyman sent this out into the world:

It wasn’t that long ago that I cared about the Hall of Fame, and those who were enshrined in its walls, quite a bit. I still do care in the present, but whatever fire for Cooperstown once existed within me has been reduced to cooling embers by this point. Opinions about who deserves entrance -- and who should be barred from Cooperstown’s halls -- remain, but whether or not things work out the way I prefer is of less consequence now than it used to be. I want to care more, but instead, the whole post-holiday time frame where Twitter, the blogosphere, and the Baseball Writers’ Association of America stop to take their annual turn as cause-heads for Cooperstown is just exhausting.

Not to pick on one person, but this can be traced back to when Jim Rice was elected in 2009. Now, Rice was a fine ballplayer in his own right, but personally, his career is outside the scope of what Cooperstown is supposed to represent. Given he wasn’t elected until his final year on the ballot, giving the voters 15 chances to decide he was worthy, it’s not as if I was alone in this opinion, either. Here’s the thing, though: just because I didn’t think Rice wasn’t a Hall of Famer doesn’t mean I think he was bad. Nuance doesn’t get a lot of room (or attention) during this time of year, though, as it’s those on the extremes who get the notice. Rice became something of a symbol for the old guard, who created legends about his prowess and the fear he engendered at the plate. This left his career, in many ways, with less dignity than it would have had, had he just been allowed to slip off the ballot in that 15th and final attempt. On the other extreme, Rice was presented as something less than he was in order to counter the overly glowing perception of him from many of those with a vote, an equally unfair fate.

I mean, it’s not the only Jack Morris article you’ll read this year. This very StoryStream™ has something I did, as well as something from some guy named Neyer. But if you had to pick just one, it might be this one from Jonathan Bernhardt.

It seems some sort of bizarre performance art: one of the most respected national baseball writers currently working asserts that having a moustache and being gruffly confident is the secret sixth tool of baseball; will anyone call him on it?Bernhardt uses logic, stats, and narrative to pop the Morris balloon -- something that others have done before, but this essay feels more comprehensive than what’s come before. And it even goes as far to suggest that Morris is a candidate for the Hall of Fame because Lonnie Smith ran the bases like he had a burlap sack over his head.

It all started so innocently. And by “innocently”, we mean “not innocently.” Jon Heyman woke up in a rankling mood, and he felt like rankling people. So he tweeted this:

i love the folks who never saw jack morris pitch who are certain he isnt hall of famer bec their stat guru said soDustin Parkes has a plausible scenario up about how Heyman spends his day. Makes perfect sense. If riling people up is your thing, Jack Morris is a great go-to tool. Heyman did beautifully.

Monday, the Hall of Fame announced the results of the 2012 Baseball Writers’ Association of America election:

Barry Larkin.