OK, the Hall of Fame

OK, here's the thing ...

Everyone is stunned that I don't watch MLB's Hall of Fame ceremonies. This won't take long to explain. It's pretty simple, really.

I plan to take my family there one day. I can hear the questions now. "Daddy? Who has the most home runs all time?" Barry Bonds. "Let's go see his plaque." He doesn't have one. "Why?" He took steroids. "Well, who had the most hits of all time?" Pete Rose. "Can we see his plaque?" He doesn't have one, either, because he bet on baseball while he was a player and a manager.

Look, the Hall of Fame is a museum, and whether these guys belong in the hall can be debated all day, but they need to be represented in the museum. Not putting Bonds and Rose in the Hall of Fame is somewhat like denying that they even played. The bottom line is, Bonds was a hall of famer before he started juicing. He was an idiot, he cheated the game, but he's a hall of famer. When you create his plaque, say he took steroids, and that explains how a guy who never hit more than 47 homers somehow hit 73 in 2001, but put the guy in the museum, already. Same with Rose. Engrave the words "banned for life for gambling" on his plaque, but Rose is a hall of famer.

It's not the Hall of Clean, the Hall of Good, or the Hall of Values. We should put the best players on display, and tell their stories. Cobb was a racist dick. Ruth a fat drunk. All of these characters make up the fabric of this wonderful game.

And Bert Blyleven ? In my opinion, he's a hall of famer, but goddamn, if you've missed the cut 14 times, and finally make it, have you really made it ? What if they revoted the guys that made it every year, and if they miss one year, they take them out of the hall ?

The Hall of Fame voting should happen once. You're either a hall of famer, or you're not.

So, that's why I don't watch.