My IBWAA Hall Of Fame Ballot

by Ernie Paicopolos, Editor-In-Chief

As we get ready to find out who—if anyone—will be named to the Hall of Fame, I wanted to pass along my own votes in the unofficial Internet Baseball Writers' Association balloting. As you may know, the membership of IBWAA ended up naming just one inductee—Mike Piazza—with 79.10% of the vote. Members were allowed up to ten choices. I selected the following six (in the order I felt them worthy): 1.) Mike Piazza, 2.) Curt Schilling, 3.) Alan Trammell, 4.) Lee Smith, 5.) Craig Biggio, 6.) Barry Larkin (who was not selected last year by the IBWAA). Regarding the whole PED controversy, I cannot bring myself to vote for those who unfairly gained an advantage over their fellow players. I subscribe to the very simple yardstick used by Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci: "Voting for a known steroid user is endorsing steroid use." What if only a handful of players were somehow using aluminum bats—undetected by MLB? Would their inflated totals be acceptable as Hall of Fame worthy? Obviously not. And, while it's true that baseball has always had a subculture of "cheating" (from nail files to Vaseline to amphetamines) none of them reach the "nuclear" level that is steroids and HGH. The real Hall of Fame results will be announced today at 2PM Eastern time.