An Issue With Watson? Other Cities Have Gotten Over Things

Since Deshaun Watson was acquired by the Browns, the fan base has been torn. Supporters of the team would like him to be exonerated from all of civil suits filed against him, which might not happen for around 18 months.

Others point to the lack of criminal charge by a grand jury as proof of Watson’s innocence. Remember, that legal proceedings are a “game” in itself, and sometimes it’s just a matter of the prosecution failing to make a solid case from the evidence the police brought forward.

Some will feel “dirty” even if all of the civil cases went the quarterback’s way, because at the very least the former Texan QB was guilty of bad judgment.

Others have talked themselves into believing Watson won’t be suspended if he wins all of these civil cases. (In our opinion, he’s going to be sidelined at some point by the league office).

But if the Browns start winning, becoming a perennial playoff team, and perhaps even making or winning a Super Bowl, all of this will fade into the background.

That’s the nature of sports and fandom.

Barry Bonds is one of the more polarizing players baseball has even seen. It would be difficult to find a supporter of the slugger anywhere except San Francisco.

Bonds was never a warm and fuzzy figure among fans and reportedly among his teammates as well. However, if you talk to Giants’ fans and say he’s a disgrace to the sport, be ready for a fight. Most people out in the Bay Area love him, and regard him as the sports’ all-time home run leader, while people who aren’t Giants’ supporters believe Hank Aaron is the true king of the long ball and wish Bonds would just go away.

The same is true of Baltimore Ravens’ fans and Ray Lewis. Lewis is revered for the most part in Baltimore, and there is a statue of him in front of M & T Bank Stadium where the Ravens play their home games.

Here, and we would assume other AFC North cities think the incident Lewis was involved in Atlanta in 2000 after a Super Bowl party make his less than an ideal candidate for a statue. But he went on to work for ESPN as an analyst and has served as a pitch man for several products.

By and large, Lewis’ reputation is Baltimore is as a great player and great leader. He’s a huge part of their two Super Bowl titles, and he’s been honored for his involvement in the community.

So, while many fans feel uncomfortable with the Browns getting Watson and giving him a boatload of cash to wear the brown and orange. If Cleveland wins with him as the quarterback, fans will figure out a way to live with his past.

Sure, there will be those who can’t get past it, and may even stop rooting for the Browns, and if they continue with that position if Cleveland gets to its first Super Bowl with Watson under center, they are stronger than most.

For most sports fans, they will look the other way on Deshaun Watson’s past if the Browns are successful. Cleveland won’t be any different than other cities.

Our Two Cents On The Baseball Hall

Times have changed, that’s for sure. It used to be people could have a good debate about things, particularly sports and walk away friends.

It’s still possible, but in today’s times, usually the argument ends with one person calling the other stupid and criticizing them for having that opinion.

The voting for baseball’s Hall of Fame is one of those discussions. Some voters have their selections made public and then are ridiculed for not putting an “X” by a certain player.

Hey, the writer earned a right to vote by covering baseball for many years, and that’s who he thinks should get in. Most of the voters take the job very seriously.

We don’t have a vote (obviously), but if we did, here would be our criteria. And a few months ago, we posted on social media who we would vote for and several people took the time to tell us we were wrong.

Again, we aren’t saying we are right, it’s just who we think should get in.

First of all, we would not vote for anyone connected with PEDs. We understand there are players already in the Hall who used them, but we would not have voted for them, but if the electorate decided they were worthy, we aren’t going to go crazy.

And we understand Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the poster boys for illegal enhancers, were great players before it appears they started to use, but they knew it was wrong and did it anyway.

As someone once said, if those players thought it was no big deal, they would have used them out in the open, not someplace out of view.

The world is filled with people who did many good things, committed a crime, and still were punished.

And by the way, we would not have voted for David Ortiz.

We are also a “small hall” baseball fan. We see many of the ballots that are published with votes for 10 players. Sorry, there are very few times, if any, where there are 10 Hall of Fame players on a single ballot.

Nowhere does it say you have to vote for that many, and in our opinion, writers shouldn’t be voting for the Top Ten candidates.

For the most part, you know a Hall of Famer when you see them play, but that doesn’t mean time and studying doesn’t make a person change their mind. Look at Tim Raines, for instance. He’s definitely worthy of the honor, but it took a lot of people time to realize it.

As for a Cleveland connection, we hope the veterans group does the right thing and put both Kenny Lofton and yes, Albert Belle in Cooperstown soon.

Lofton was a tremendous player and did it for a very long time, accumulating 2428 hits, with a lifetime batting average of .299 and an on base percentage of .372. In terms of players similar to Lofton are three players already enshrined (Raines, Harry Hooper, and Fred Clarke) and a fourth, Ichiro Sukuki, who will be soon.

Belle was a dominant offensive player for a decade (1991-2000), averaging 40 HR and 130 RBI per 162 games. Had he not retired due to a hip injury at age 33, he likely would have hit 500 home runs (he had 381) and had nine straight 100 RBI seasons when he left the game.

Let’s say he would have knocked in 500 more had he been able to play until 40. That would put him in the top 25 all time.

He had three top 3 MVP finishes (he was robbed of it in 1995) and is still the only player to hit 50 home runs and 50 doubles in the same season.

Instead of saying the Baseball Hall of Fame is irrelevant because of who is not in it, it should be and is a great source of discussion if you are a fan of the game. It’s also not the reason the sport has lost popularity. There are many more reasons for that.

As for the Bonds/Clemens debate? We’ll see how the former players who now hold their fate feel about putting them in. It might even be tougher for them to get in.

Hall Of Fame Voting Should Be Debated, Not Condemned

There’s an old saying that any publicity is good publicity, and in that vein, it’s been a good week for Major League Baseball. The debate around the Hall of Fame voting has certainly brought attention to the sport on shows that normally don’t talk about the sport.

We are a “small Hall” person. Cooperstown is the most difficult Hall of Fame to gain admittance to, and that’s fine. You should be a great player to be enshrined there.

Unfortunately, the social media era has changed things. Many voters are shamed according to who they vote for or don’t vote for. That’s wrong. The person voting earned a vote by covering baseball for many years and they are entitled to their opinion, something that isn’t taken into consideration these days.

Should some broadcasters be given a vote? People who cover the sport on a daily basis should obviously be considered along with writers. No problem with that at all.

One continuing controversy is what to do with the players who used PED’s. We feel they should not be included in the Hall. We hear the argument that many of these players were great before they started to enhance their performance, so they should be enshrined.

Try that argument on your significant other.

And please don’t use the tact that some PED users are already in Cooperstown. It’s a bad argument. It’s the same as using the fact that Rabbit Maranville (look it up) and his .258 batting average (658 OPS) are in the Hall, so others with similar statistics should be in.

That the writers (in this case) made a mistake does not mean more mistakes should be made.

We find it fascinating that people don’t vote for Curt Schilling because of things he has said or written, which gave him no advantage on the playing field, but vote for Bonds or Clemens. Bonds made himself a player you basically couldn’t pitch to after he turned 35 years old.

His best years were ages 36-39. That’s not unusual?

Look, we wouldn’t want to hang around with Schilling, and understand his views make a lot of people uncomfortable. But he’s a Hall of Fame pitcher, and despite his wishes about not wanting to be on the ballot next year, we are hoping he gets elected in 2022.

The writers do make mistakes. As Tribe fans, one of them that we hope gets rectified by the Veteran’s Committee is Kenny Lofton. The leadoff man on the great Indian teams of the ’90’s received just 3.2% of the vote in his first year of eligibility in 2013 and was removed from future ballots.

However, Lofton deserves the nod. With a .299 lifetime batting average and a .372 career on base percentage along with 2428 hits, we think Lofton was overlooked because he played in the same era as the greatest leadoff man of all time, Rickey Henderson.

It took Tim Raines, a similar player, ten years to get in. In fact, of the top ten similar hitters to Lofton (according to Baseball Reference.com), four are in the Hall, and a fifth, Ichiro Suzuki, will be.

The Veterans Committee has made mistakes too. The selection of Harold Baines raised some eyebrows.

For what it’s worth, if we had a vote, we would have voted for Schilling and Jeff Kent. That’s it.

The point is voting for the Hall of Fame is a subjective process. And because of sports, it should be fun to have arguments about it. It’s also a privilege for the writers who participate, and most of them take it very seriously.

A small Hall is fine for us. We’d rather that than the NFL’s method of putting in a lot of players simply because they now work on the broadcast side of things.