As a lifelong baseball fan I have concluded that continuing the current system of voting players into the Hall of Fame has become such a fiasco that it should be discontinued.
Instead, the Hall should be a museum of baseball history, full stop. Everyone in, no one out. Fans will always debate whether this player or that was the greatest x, y, or z, but all this nonsense about PEDs and moral turpitude should have nothing to do with who is mentioned in the Hall.
Ty Cobb was a great ballplayer and also a racist and an unpleasant human being. Pete Rose was a great ballplayer and is a deeply flawed human being. Barry Bonds broke the home run records under a cloud of PED suspicion. All of those players, and every other player, should be remembered in the Hall, with both their accomplishments on the field and their personal triumphs (Roberto Clemente!) and failings off the field. And Marvin Miller, who played a crucial role in shaping the game and business of baseball as it exists today, should be there, too. To exclude Rose or Bonds or Miller makes the Hall a joke.
History should comprise everything and everybody—including the antiquated Hall of Fame. Keep it as another artifact in the Museum. Add an exhibit explaining how and why it became untenable.
This may seem extreme, but to continue the current ridiculous voting system lacks any credibility. It actually offends fans to the point of turning them away from the game. For the sake of the game, the fans, and the Hall, stop it now.
We agree! It is absurd to separate the play from the player. Some blend of “warts and all” and niche greatness in the context of the bigger life lived is the true essence of the game.