Hall of Fame?

Goose Gossage’s selection to Cooperstown this week has made me consider the whole concept of the Hall of Fame.

In part, that’s because I’ve got no real attachment to Gossage. I’ve only been following baseball for ten years so I never saw him in action and the history of the sport doesn’t reverberate in the households of Britain quite like it does in America, to put it mildly. So aside from what I’ve read about him recently, he’s a bit of a distant figure to me. I feel that more keenly this year than ever before because, in contrast, the 2007 induction was the first time that I really felt like I could be part of the celebrations. I had witnessed the tail-ends of the careers of Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken and from a personal standpoint, it validated my self-defined position as a “baseball fan”. That I had watched Gwynn and Ripken and came to the same conclusion (i.e. that they were great players) as life-long, knowledgeable veterans of the game, convinced me that I did know something about this sport after all. It was almost like a rites of passage to go through: I can tell a great ballplayer when I see one, now I’m a man!

Anyway, the Hall of Fame has a certain novelty factor for British fans. If you had to describe it in one word, “American” would be a good one to choose. Our friends from across the pond feel no inhibitions when it comes to celebrating success, while us Brits are frankly a bit embarrassed by it. The idea of grandly celebrating somebody’s greatness doesn’t fit very well with the restrained, stiff upper lipped British (or perhaps more accurately, English) psyche. We will join together to support a ‘lovable loser’ and, lord knows, there’s nothing we like more than seeing a successful person suffering a humiliating fall from grace. But holding a big event to recognise the fact that somebody is extremely talented? That’s just not cricket, I’m afraid. We don’t want them getting too big for their boots after all. A mark of appreciation followed by a firm handshake from some vaguely relevant dignitary is quite enough praise, thank you very much.

So the whole concept is a bit alien to us and that’s before you consider that this richly prized honour is predominantly bestowed upon someone thanks to the opinions of sportswriters. Maybe I’m being harsh, but would either the sportsmen or the fans put much store into whether some hack from the Daily Mail thinks that “player A” should be immortalized as a great, while “player B” should be passed by? I doubt it. Not that I’m suggesting all Americans believe the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) is a faultless judge of sporting greatness either, but at least they’ve been allowed to assume their lofty position as the primary gatekeepers to Cooperstown. Although the opinions of some British sportswriters would be held in high regard, a Hall of Fame determined by the whims of the Press would struggle to assume much legitimacy.

Even without the British aversion to public praise and the misgivings towards the Press, would a football Hall of Fame catch on over here? While top 100 lists and glorified talent contests may be popular with the general public (and TV channel execs), I don’t think there is much desire to set in stone a list of great players. The overriding response would be one of indifference (e.g. “what’s the point?”) and most people would probably argue against it for one of two completely different reasons:

• all sports fans enjoy arguing the merits of different players and most sports fans think that their opinion is correct. Although a Hall of Fame encourages such debates in the first instance, setting up an establishment that formally declares who we should consider to be a great player, and therefore who is right and who is wrong, is an attack on this pleasure.
• while we may argue about the very good players, we all know who the great players are anyway. Part of what makes someone a great player is that their greatness is recognised by (virtually) everyone. If there is a viable argument against them being considered great, then great they are not.

Although this second point is a slight oversimplification, I think it’s worth considering. When I read that Gossage had been elected to the Hall of Fame, one thing stood out above all else: this was his ninth time on the ballot. How is he a better player in 2008 than he was in 2000? He cannot be, of course, as a player isn’t eligible for selection until he has been retired for five years. So he hasn’t added to his resume during that time. Have his supporters simply worn down his many detractors? Has he got in now because other comparable people have been voted in (such as Bruce Sutter)? Did he just get lucky that there was no one better to vote for this time around? Is it a combination of the above?

And what about Jim Rice, who fell just short of the 75 per cent needed at his fourteenth attempt? Those who passionately support his candidacy still hold out hope that he will make it next time around (his last chance before going in via the back door that is the Veterans committee). If he does, surely that decision will be completely worthless? Before the hate mail floods in, I fully recognise that Rice had a very good career and I have no personal bias towards his selection either way. My point is that the Hall of Fame, if it stands for anything, is there to celebrate the very small amount of exceptional players who had a spectacular impact on the game. If the people responsible for deciding who fits into that bracket have overlooked someone fourteen times, he unequivocally does not belong in that very elite class.

Unless the voters got it wrong the other fourteen times. In which case the whole system is a sham.

I think we have to accept that Hall of Fames are not a very British phenomenon; we can enjoy the hullabaloo they create while not taking them too seriously. That’s a good way to deal with all the inconsistencies and the arguments at least, although it’s not a route open to ballplayers. Whether you are a Hall of Famer has a significant impact on your standing in the game and it seems a pretty arbitrary line to me.

That still leaves open the question of why Americans feel it is so important to maintain a formal system to recognise the greatest players, in contrast to the ambivalence for such a process over here? Perhaps there is no great cultural or psychological background to it. The importance of the Hall of Fame and the fierce arguments it creates may have just developed over time out of natural competitiveness. If the thinking behind its initial conception was of a more opportunistic nature, it could explain why they haven’t taken off in the U.K. If they are simply about publicity, excuses to hold grand celebrations linked to patriotism, and attracting tourists, we’ve got no need for Hall of Fames.

We’ve got the Royal Family instead.