Craig Calcattera at Hardball Talk has an excellent response to the LA Times' Ross Newhan's view of the role of the Hall of Fame voter:
“Somebody said we are not the morality police, but yet I think we are. If we aren’t, who is? Part of our job is that we are custodians of the game’s history.”
Calcattera:
The Hall of Fame is not heaven, my fellow baseball writers, you are not St. Peter at the gate, and no one — not even Jose Canseco — has written baseball’s book of life. Have a sense of humility about you. Understand that your role is not to be baseball’s moral arbiters, writ-large. You are to look at one player at a time and judge him accordingly. If you have nothing negative to say about him, and if his accomplishments are sufficient, vote him in.
Lovely!
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
