WATEREDDOWN

Nah. I don't think so. I think its not watered down...
...its the writers that are liquored up.

Goose Gossage, Jim Rice, Blyleven...
...some fine candidates still out there.

I don't know the future players involved but is there a...

Trend of shorter careers

Longer stints in the minors

Larger player pools with similar tool sets

Fewer heros

Fewer players with "long term" passion for the game.

FA which dimminishes the repect from the fan which results in complacency in a player.

Personally I think it has to do with the passion issue. There's way to much "I" going on in the last 20 years, to much emphasis on $ through FA, and if you look at the "old school" HOF as an entity, it reeks of passion. Numbers are numbers but you can not measure passion in the span of a career. It's funny how passion drives results and earns respect, and that is missing today.

Add in long-term multimillion dollar contracts, where a player is set for life at an early age, and one could see how a player could lose some of the passion.

I could be dragged into this thread, but no, it would only add more disdain!!

im gonna have to agree with rz1 mostly. its a different era, things dont always work the same way forever.

not so sure about the passion part. baseball is what they do for a living, and guys who actually have a shot to make it to the HOF would do anything to try and win a world series. thats passion.

as for the millions of dollars. talk to the crazy owners and gm's.

quote:

not so sure about the passion part. baseball is what they do for a living, and guys who actually have a shot to make it to the HOF would do anything to try and win a world series. thats passion.

There's a fine line between "trying to win" and having the passion to win. Passion is not something that is measured, or, something that is turned on/off, it is part of your soul, and once you have it, you have very little control over it. I think it's a hard concept for todays youth as a whole to understand. I'm NOT saying it does not exist. I AM saying that years ago it was an intangible that many players had, today I don't think that it is as widespread.

I figure every parent on this site will say that their kid has passion for the game, and I won't argue that. However, there is a difference between childhood passions and adult passions. I can't explain it, it can't be measured, but I don't think it's as previlent today on a professional level as it was years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by rz1:
I don't know the future players involved but is there a...

Trend of shorter careers

Longer stints in the minors

Larger player pools with similar tool sets

Fewer heros

Fewer players with "long term" passion for the game.

FA which dimminishes the repect from the fan which results in complacency in a player.

Personally I think it has to do with the passion issue. There's way to much "I" going on in the last 20 years, to much emphasis on $ through FA, and if you look at the "old school" HOF as an entity, it reeks of passion. Numbers are numbers but you can not measure passion in the span of a career. It's funny how passion drives results and earns respect, and that is missing today.

I would simply add players not staying with one team their entire career. Notice the two that got in this year both played with their respective teams their entire career.

T Bird

Great point !!!!!

quote:

I would simply add players not staying with one team their entire career. Notice the two that got in this year both played with their respective teams their entire career.

To date HOF players are for the most part from the pre or early FA era. The 2 recent inductees both had the FA options, but, besides there personal make-up, their teams may have made the best offers for them to stay.

True, but there have been numerous trades throughout baseball. Even though most of those are out of a players' control, it still seems to impact HOF balloting in my opinion.

I'm with ya t-bird, that is a plus. However, It would be interesting to see what % of HOF members were single team players. I'll bet it is very small.

On the other hand being a "single team" player may have it's disadvantages, that being exposure. We have all seen how irratic voting can be and a player that has made a mark on in other places may have an advantage over a single team guy.