Longtime San Francisco Chronicle writer Susan Slusser is wrestling with her ballot this year for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The former Baseball Writers’ Association of America president tweeted a few weeks ago that given the recent induction of former commissioner Bud Selig, she was thinking for the first time about voting for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. That tweet garnered hundreds of retweets, generating both significant support and backlash.
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Slusser, who has covered the Oakland Athletics for the Chronicle for many years, offered more about her thinking on the Hall of Fame in a recent discussion with Sporting News.
When you say wrestling with the ballot, what kinds of decisions are tough when you’re going through and making your considerations?
The obvious one is, I’ve been a long-time “No Clemens or Bonds” voter based on the court testimony in their cases. They’re the only ones that I think it was actually linked pretty conclusively to steroids based on their court cases. But as I tweeted, I’m rethinking that.
I’m not holding Selig or Tony La Russa responsible for the whole era. But I just think that now as more of the principals of the Steroid Era are going in and going in quickly ... it’s becoming harder and harder for me to sort of reconcile just holding out two guys from the era when you know there are going to be players going in who have used steroids to some degree, maybe just even a few times to having used them regularly.
Much as I think that using steroids is cheating horribly and goes against the character clause, the character clause is something that the Hall of Fame puts on the ballot. It’s their character clause. It’s their Hall of Fame. To me, I think indications are that the Hall of Fame has sort of gotten to peace with the Steroid Era, with the inclusion (on Era Committee ballots) of people like La Russa, (Jim) Leyland, Selig (and) the players that were on in the last couple years. I think at that point, the character clause is a little less appropriate to apply to the steroid guys.
Were you a consistent “No” on Mark McGwire when he was on the writers’ ballot?
I was a no on McGwire. I would have been anyway. I think that the obvious (factor working against him) was the one year (the 1998 season) and that’s certainly steroid-tainted. Whether you apply the character clause, I think that you can say that inclusion based on an achievement that was enhanced specifically by illegal drug use, that’s enough to keep you out, character clause aside.
The same argument can kind of be said about Sammy Sosa, right?
Yes.
The writers don’t consider Bud Selig or Tony La Russa. If their had been a writers’ ballot for those guys, which way do you think you would have voted on them?
I’m not going to speculate on something like that.
This time of year, occasionally, I’ll see calls from writers or fans saying, ‘Hey, there should be another group that does Hall of Fame voting.’ How strongly do you come down on one side or the other?
Obviously, I was president of the baseball writers’ association. ... I can tell you why the Hall of Fame likes the BBWAA. It’s their call. It’s their Hall. We’re their voting body and certainly have been for a very, very long time. I think there’s some inherent value in that, in the continuity of the thing. But they like the fact that it’s a large group and it’s mostly people that have spent the majority of their working year covering baseball every day and who are not employed by clubs. Now, that’s going to change and has changed even a little bit at this point with some of the MLB.com writers. They’re certainly not employed by the teams, per se, but they’re being paid by the league.
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So I don’t know if that changes at all (the Hall of Fame’s) thinking, but I do know that that’s one reason broadcasters are not in the voting pool, given potential conflicts of interest. It’ll be interesting to see what happens as people that work for either team-owned broadcast outlets or who work for MLB.com, if that changes the Hall’s thinking. I don’t know.
It’s a very large voting body. That’s kind of what they wanted it. There’s obviously good reasons for that. Now that all ballots will be made public, starting next year, maybe they take a look at it again.
Are you a supporter of more public ballots being out there?
I’ve always been public with my ballot. I’m a postseason voter and those are all — all — public. I have no problem with votes being made public. This isn’t voting in an election. This is voting for an industry honor. It’s perfectly fine with me. I think that the committee I chaired a few years ago on potential changes to Hall of Fame voting, we were very much in favor of all public ballots.
Speaking of that committee, I know when it met, one of the things it recommended was increasing the ballot limit from 10 to 12 players. The Hall of Fame said no to this idea. Do you think there’s still a need for increasing the ballot?
They actually never said no. They didn’t really say anything. They basically didn’t respond for quite some time, and then when they did, they said they were taking things under advisement. I don’t think we ever heard an official word back. Obviously, they haven’t done that.
But there are a few things they have done in the last few years that were things we had mentioned among our suggestions. Maybe they are sort of implementing things on their own that either they have come up with or we came up and they said, ‘Hey, we were already thinking along those lines.’ I don’t really know. There’s been very little communication about it.
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I fall right in the middle (between) ‘It should be unlimited voting’ (and) ‘It should stay as it is.’ I do like the tradition of it. I think that there are good reasons for sticking with a system that’s been in place for a long time ... but I certainly do understand the dilemma of a packed ballot. It’s not always going to be the case that there’s a packed ballot.
I think the Steroid Era and especially that first Bonds and Clemens year skewed things and skewed the ballot pretty significantly. But we’re seeing players going in and going in at a pretty significant rate these past couple of years. I think the need for a greatly expanded ballot is, I hope, probably going to go away.
How often do you use all 10 spots on your ballot?
Never. I’m a small Hall person so I’ve never used it. I might this year if I switch, if I add Bonds and Clemens, and I’m not 100 percent exactly sure what I’m doing with that. I suspect I will. But yeah, I’m very much a small Hall person, for many reasons. I think it should be a Hall of Fame because it’s supposed to be something incredibly special.
But also, just having been to the induction ceremony numerous times, you don’t want a situation where (there are too many inductees). It’s a long day, it’s a hot day. I think two (inductees) per year is perfect. I almost would hope there was some way they could limit it to two and almost three max. Once you start getting more than that — the speeches are long, you’ve got a lot of elderly folks up on the stage who are among the greatest in the history of the country’s sports leagues. As a practical matter, I think that (limiting the time of Induction Day) is important.
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When you say small Hall of Fame, what does an ideal Hall of Fame look like to you?
I don’t think there’s an exact number. But I certainly think that there’s a lot of guys who are in there ... I think are borderline and Veterans Committee guys who I would say are not slam-dunk Hall of Famers. I want a slam dunk Hall of Famer.
I go and look at the numbers. I’m not saying I don’t look at the numbers. I have to know. There’s some old-time voters who say, ‘You know or you don’t know.’ I’m not one of those. I do look at the numbers. But I do want them to be a slam-dunk. I don’t want them to go like, ‘Well maybe this, maybe not, but here, here maybe.’ I think that these are incredibly (important) spots, and they really should be people whose numbers jump out as all-time greats.