MLB Hall of Fame Time: Why is it the Most Miserable Time of the Year?

Finding out which players, executives, announcers, etc. were elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame used to be one of the most exciting, highly anticipated days of the year. Then the Internet and social media took off and suddenly a day that should be joyous for a number of people became overshadowed by the disdain nominees, fans, and media - specifically the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) had for one another.

With the announcement coming up tomorrow, Wednesday, the fury has already gotten off to a great start thanks to MLB.com beat writer Ken Gurnick. As part of this year's process, all of the MLB.com writers made their ballots public on Tuesday which put a bullseye right on Gurnick's back due to this statement by the Dodgers' beat writer:

"(Jack) Morris has flaws -- a 3.90 ERA, for example. But he gets my vote for more than a decade of ace performance that included three 20-win seasons, Cy Young Award votes in seven seasons and Most Valuable Player Award votes in five. As for those who played during the period of PED use, I won't vote for any of them."

With that simple act Gurnick threw the baby out with the bathwater. It means he completely ignored legitimate candidates like pitcher Greg Maddux and slugger Frank Thomas. It also means there will still be no unanimous electee to the Hall. It's also an embarrassment to the game and to those are tasked with the privilege of electing the Hall entrants.

While I agree that players that were caught or admitted using performance enhancing drugs should not gain entrance to the Hall, you cannot lump other players (i.e. Jeff Bagwell) that you believe were PED users in with the "bad guys". And you certainly shouldn't be leaving out those, like Thomas, who have been anti-PED activists.

This year's election process also became farcicle when one voter sold a ballot to Deadspin.com, which then allowed its readers to fill out the ballot. Deadspin is trying to make a point of how much the process has degraded over the years, but the anonymous seller of the ballot should be permanently stripped of the honor of being part of the vote.

My ballot, if I had a vote, would look like this:

Greg Maddux
Frank Thomas
Jack Morris
Craig Biggio
Jeff Bagwell
Mike Piazza
Tom Glavine

Tejada Returns to AL With Royals

After sitting out the 2012 season, 38-year old Miguel Tejada has decided to try another comeback and has reportedly signed a deal with the Kansas City Royals.

Tejada says he will earn $1.1MM with the change to win another $400K with incentives. The native of the Dominican Republic played in 91 games in the 2011 season for the San Francisco Giants, but was released in September aftering compiling a .596 OPS. Tejada signed a minor league deal with the Baltimore Orioles this past May and hoped to play with the them at the big league level for the third time in his career. But after 36 games in the minors, Tejada had no home runs, 18 RBI, and hit just .259. The Orioles released him in late June.

Tejada won the American League MVP Award while a member of the Oakland A's in 2002. He hit 34 HR, drove in 131 runs, scored 108, and batted .308 while playing in all 162 regular season games. Tejada drove in 100 runs or better in five straight seasons between Oakland and Baltimore. He finished two RBI shy of 100 in 2005 or the streak would have been seven straight seasons.

The reputation of the shortstop/third baseman took a hit in 2009 when he admitted to lying to Congress about HGH and steroid use. Tejada had been mentioned in the Mitchell Report and was named as a suspect steroid user  by Jose Canseco in his 2005 book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big".