By Larry Legend

Every year America’s sport is bureaucratized as an arbitrary ensemble of “baseball’s elite” dictates to us fans who of our sport’s greats they deem worthy of being enshrined in their museum up in Cooperstown. They decided long ago that a certain era of baseball should be erased as they snubbed their nose at the discovery of PEDs in the sport.

This year 397 of these “experts” got together and resubmitted the newest edition of their diatribe on the careers of players like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. They reminded us that Bond’s 762 career home runs are irrelevant and that Clemens’ Cy Young awards are trivial. These sport’s writers once again told me and you that their disgust at the vice of such players supersedes all career accomplishments. This indictment on certain players was to be expected as it is every vote, and surprised no one.

One thing that came as a surprise to me this vote was, however, the way in which 396 of these 397 ballots came together. This year was the first that Derek “The Captain” Jeter was eligible. Jeter is well known to all of us as the clean-cut Yankee’s All-Star from the late 90s through 2000s, a player with over 3,000 career hits and a .310 batting average. Jeter is by no means a power hitter with roughly one-third of the career home runs as his longtime teammate A-Rod (a player not likely to be voted into the HOF anytime soon), but I have nothing but “re2pect” for Jeter’s ability hit for contact as sixth all-time on the hits list.

What may come as a surprise to some 396 vote casters is that Jeter also had a position in the field – he was the Yankee’s short stop. The SS is arguably the most important fielding position second only to catcher by most analytics. Given its high importance, one would assume that a first-ballot Hall of fame SS would be a solid glove; a SS will bat once every 9 outs but will field for the entire half of the game.

This is not the case: Jeter is one of the worst fielding shortstops to ever take the diamond and by far the worst to ever be permitted to take it over and over again.  He has some of the worst fielding range in the metric’s history and owns the record for last in defensive runs saved at -152 runs from 2003-2014, lapping second-place Prince Fielder at a mere -93 runs.  His career defensive WAR of -14.7 serves as a permanent reminder that the Yankees would have won 14 to 15 more games if they let some AAA call-up take the field in his place.  

By any and all ways of looking at it, Jeter was a liability in the field and frankly sucked at his position.  The only way he was able to justify allowing so many runs to the other team in the field was his ability to get on base as the sixth all-time leader in hits.  Was he so good at hitting that he should hold the record for the highest percent of first-ballot votes for a position player and join Mariano Rivera in that inner sanctum of Cooperstown? 396 sports journalists thought so and put him above Ken Griffey Jr.in 2016 for record percentage of votes to a position player.  

Jeter’s only justification to his greatness is his ability to hit for contact and as sixth all time in hits, and we are to believe that he is among the greatest to ever play the sport? As we climb the all-time hits list to the top we find a Pete Rose. Pete Rose went on to coach and famously was banned from baseball for gambling (on his own team…). Pete Rose had nearly 1000 more hits than Jeter during his career. Jeter’s hitting ability was enough to excuse the worst defensive career in baseball history and Pete Rose’s far superior ability to hit doesn’t justify the fact that he bet (ON HIMSELF) to win.

The hypocrisy in this charade has gone on long enough.  It’s high time we leave Cooperstown in the dusty remote village it is and create a real hall of fame.  One that has Bonds and Clemens in the center.  One that celebrates winning and talent.  One that includes the sport’s all-time leader in hits.  One that will even make room for the sports sixth all-time leader in hits, maybe on a second ballot, and definitely as a DH.