This Made Me Angry

I found this link in a BP article about PED's and the Hall of Fame vote. Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote about his empty HoF ballot, and I just had to go all FJM on it.

Ilook [sic] at my 2008 Hall of Fame ballot with sadness. That's a photocopy of it on the right, and as you can see, other than my name, signature and Baseball Writers' Association of America card number, it's unmarked.
I voted for no one.

I'm going to assume that Mr. Telander had his space bar covered by the tears of a thousand young children over the horrific turn MLB has taken...really you start the article off with a typeo??

I didn't mail my ballot. The stamp is still good.

Why do I care if the stamp is good? How lazy do you have to be to not even mail in your fucking ballot?!!!? I get that you're trying to make your ballot a martyr for the Steriod Era but wouldn't that be best served by sending it to the powers at be?? Or were you too afraid to, knowing that they would see you as a freaking bum?!? The fact that you stamped it would lead one (i.e. a rational human being) to think that you were going to mail it and then just didn't.

Know what I think? I think you just forgot completely about the vote and so decided to come up with this lame ass excuse. In my 8th grade Humanities class we had an assignment where we had to draw 6 pictures and then explain the symbolism of each. One of the guys in my class (Lars) forgot about one so he just turned in a blank sheet of paper. When the teacher asked him about it it said it was his, "invisible castle" which "symbolizes all my hopes and dreams that aren't tangible." It was the gayest thing ever. He got an A. This ballot is Rick Telander's invisble castle.

I am weary of the constant insult brought on by doping and stupidity and head-in-the-sand-ism and Bonds-ish arrogance and Clemens-ian tape-recording and duplicity of all manner and the way this has chipped away at the edifice of the wondrous American sport of baseball.

How about the fact that this is a media driven problem, the very same media that you are a part of Mr Telander gazing longingly at your childhood hopes and dreams on a blank sheet of paper that for some reason has a stamp on it. The media is complicit in their ignorance of the problem as it emerged, and now is soley responsible for wide spread blame-everyone-ness (I can add on random endings to words, too!) that leads other wise rational people (maybe I've giving you too much credit Mr. Telander) to think that everyone who ever played ball is a possible doper and therefore not worth of Hall-of-Fame-ariffic-ness-ing-s.

Rich Gossage -- nine All-Star teams, 310 saves, 2.36 World Series ERA. I'm delighted Goose was voted in Tuesday.
He deserved it.

I voted for him in 2007.

But I couldn't be a part of it this year.

The one sentence paragraph thing gets really old. Pardon me Ricky, but could you tell me one freaking thing at all that changed about Goose Gossage's career from 2007-2008? The idea that he was a Hall of Famer in 07 but because a handful of star players have been linked to the use of performance enhancers -- all the rumors and inuendo were there in 07 as well -- is completely fucking insane. Are you saying Goose roided, and you only learnt of this in the past calendar year and you felt strongly enough about it to not vote him into Cooperstown but you didn't report any of this???!!??!?!

My steroid disgust blossomed into anger and decayed into a kind of defiant ennui.
The image of commissioner Bud Selig shrugging his shoulders, of Barry Bonds gazing smugly at a disappearing baseball, of congressmen asking star athletes if they knew anything about syringes and cycles.

I get that the whole PED issue beats you down, it beats me down. The reason that it beats me down much is because there are soooooooooo many uninformed people, who bare responsibility in the problem, who don't take the time to accuractly fact check or try and find any sembalnce of truth. People just spout out insane rumor after insane rumor like... I don't know...just randomly picking one...Not voting for Goose Gossage because of steroids!!!

There is nothing in his "explination" that refers back to the fu-manchoed one at all. You still need to explain why in 07 Goose = Hall but 08 not so much.

What do you do, Rick?

You wrote about steroids as far back as the late 1970s.

I like that he asks himself questions as if someone would be reading this article and think it makes any fucking sense what so ever. Nice of you to try and save yourself with the "[I] wrote about steroids as far back as the late 1970s." Where's the article? Obviously you didn't stick with the cause, make a big enough hoopla out of the story. The best you can do is "the late 1970s"? this watershed moment in sports journalism has been pinpointed to a five year stretch when they were very pervasive in body building and football.

Tommy John -- 288 wins -- was a pioneer. He should be in the Hall...What if Tommy John made his comeback from that tendon grafting because of HGH?

First off, Tommy John should not be in the Hall. He was good pitcher who pitched for a really long time and had a surgery, that's it. Dr. Frank Jobe should be in the Hall, he is directly responsbile for saving the careers of more players than any other human in the history of the game. TJ should not get inducted just because someone chose to name the surgery after him...what if it was Frank Jobe surgery? or Ulnar Collateral Ligament Replacement surgery? It just easier to say Tommy John because it's a really common name that people know and associate with the surgery.

Second off, let me get this straight... You didn't vote for Tommy John - who you said "should be in the Hall" because he has a lot of wins (terrible way to meausre pitchers) - because you think he's a possible HGH user???

Gimme a minute here...

...*bangs head against wall for several hours*...

Ok I'm back.

How about I give you conclusive, indisputiable proof that TJ didn't use HGH? Dr. Jobe performed the groundbreaking surgery on September 25th, 1974. A company called Genentech pioneered the first use of recombinant human growth hormone for human therapy in 1981.

So unless Dr. Jobe hopped in the De Lorean, stole some HGH, then went back in time -- assuming he could generate the 1.21 gigawats of electricty needed to opperate the flux capacitor --- then gave the future HGH to Tommy John so he could rehab slightly faster and continue his mediocre to good (and in NO WAY HALL OF FAME WORTHY) career, I think it's safe to say that Tommy John did not use HGH.

That took me 7 seconds to find out on wikipedia; just typed in "Tommy John" for the date of the surgery, "HGH" to find the history of the drug and I still had time to check the spelling on De Lorean.

You're too fucking lazy to take 7 seconds out of your pompous genuflection of the good ole days to find out the truth. Instead you make crazy rediculous clames about Tommy John using HGH.

...should be in the Hall. Same with Andre Dawson, Lee Smith, Jim Rice and maybe Bert Blyleven

Maybe it's all for the best that you didn't vote this year if you think a corner outfielder with a .323 career OBP should be in along with a closer whose entire value is tied with the fact that he has tons of saves (maybe the worst stat in baseball) and a "feared" hitter who was so feared that he was intenionally walked 77 times in 8225 ab's. All these guys should be in ahead of one of the 12-15 best pitchers of all time.

What about the single most deserving guy not in the Hall, Ron Santo...oh, wait, he used insulin.

Everybody's innocent until proven guilty, we heard again and again.

Except in my eyes where I make wild crazy allegations that have no basis in rational thought and deprive people of their profession's ultimate priveldge because of it.

I have been to Cooperstown.

And I can say unequivocally it is the most magical, enchanted village I have visited in this country.

More one sentence paragraphs. Cooperstown should be held in that high of regard, which is why you should at least put in some freaking effort into your ballot!! People like you are ruining the Hall. You don't care enough about the job you have to do to search on wikipedia for 10 seconds.

Cooperstown, hard by Otsego Lake, nestled in the Adirondacks,

I have no clue what the hell "hard by" means.

It is our past and our present, mortared by baseball. By heroes.

And torn down by mad Dr. Jobe and his time machine!

This must have actually happened, he went back in time and changed history that's the only possible way to explain the fact that someone can take no time or effort at all in the HoF vote make certifiably insane claims and keep their job.

Who is President of the United States?

"George Bush"

"The Actor??!?!?"