WE ALL HAVE POWERFUL MEMORIES, SO WHAT’S THE POINT OF A HALL OF FAME?

Sports fans can ask why media types, who should be concerned about keeping jobs, are so endemic to an annual voting process that a Hall isn't necessary when people have their own all-time favorites

     If memories survive a whiskey flask and Jason Kelce’s hairy chest, it’s fair to ask a sports question not posable in Cooperstown, Canton or Springfield. Should Halls of Fame be preserved on plaques inside museums over 362 days a year? Or should retention remain only in our personal souvenir banks, without election days and induction ceremonies?

     You might think Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez deserve places of eminence. But a crew of baseball writers insist otherwise, and in a media world turning more tragic by the minute, I’m wondering why they have the credibility to determine what millions of fans believe about prestige.

     Anyone who watches a sport has his own all-time favorites. Must the greats go through a cold process in which they are safeguarded or rejected by people sitting inside press boxes? Life has reached a mutation point where a Hall of Fame might not have to exist, especially when so much effort is placed into who belongs and who doesn’t. It’s nice to keep hotels and restaurants active in our prominent Hall locations. But if you view Gary Sheffield as having a worthy career when writers say no — instead installing Todd Helton and Joe Mauer — the planet carries on anyway as pitchers and catchers report.

     Too much superhype is involved in the Hall voting game. Do writers really think anyone cares, including family and friends, how many elected Adrian Beltre in his first year of eligibility? The third baseman was supported by 95.1 percent, which sounds good until we look back at the inaugural edition in 1936. What if I said Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner also received 95.1 percent, a stunningly lowball number for monstrous legends who deserved unanimous approval? What if I said Cy Young, Rogers Hornsby and Tris Speaker didn’t make the first Hall cut? But, hey, the 2024 boys shot Beltre to upstate New York with a slightly intoxicated total.

     And Mauer, in his first year? He won three batting titles as a catcher but was moved to first base, where he averaged low power numbers while the likes of Yogi Berra and Carlton Fisk had to wait a second year. Meanwhile, no one could decide if Sheffield is a doper after his appearance in the 2007 Mitchell Report, failing with 63.9 percent in his 10th and final year on the ballot.

     “I did this on purpose: Go fishing, go play golf, enjoy your life, don't let situations define you,” Sheffield said. “You know what you did, and you know what you didn't do. And so live with that, and that's what I've always done.”

     We knew weeks ago that he wouldn’t make it. There was so much jibber-jabber before the final results, as writers continue to invite website trajectory from Ryan Thibodaux and social-media goons. Do they get involved for traffic when anonymity is preferable? Like others, I have harsh views on the biggest fiends of performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds, Clemens and Rodriguez shouldn’t be in Cooperstown, even if Fox Sports seems to have a “Hall of Fame” format, which might help Rodriguez get in — he’s at 34.8 percent — so the broadcast crew can throw him a party.

     And that would include studio mate David Ortiz, who made the Hall despite his own positive test in 2003. Make any sense?

     Thankfully, I am not voting anymore, giving up the honor two decades into my career as a Baseball Writers Association of America stooge. I do not think media people should vote for Halls of Fame, personal awards, Heisman Trophies, honors that define athletes for life and also reward them with incentive money. We do not make the news. We report and analyze the news.

     Writers have enough to worry about these days, such as keeping their jobs. Let the Halls of Fame move forward without them, as leagues install their own voters or just commemorate games. I decided to stop the conflict of interest when Ryne Sandberg, my radio partner in Chicago, was inducted. We wish a good man the best as he battles metastatic prostate cancer and will live on. Fans of the Cubs have their own precious memories of Ryno.

     They didn’t need me or anyone else voting for him. Our Halls are in our minds. Visit often, please.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.