In a few days, Rickey Henderson will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; he may be joined by at least one other player, probably Jim Rice but who knows. I could do a breakdown of this year's ballot, but I find the 1971 ballot more interesting.

That year, seven players and one builder (George Weiss) were inducted. The Veterans Committee inducted six players, plus the builder, while the Negro Leagues Committee inducted Satchel Paige - the first-ever inductee from the Negro Leagues.

The baseball writers inducted a grand total of zero players - despite a ballot that included future Hall of Famers Yogi Berra, Early Wynn, Ralph Kiner, Enos Slaughter, Johnny Mize, Pee Wee Reese, Red Schoendienst, George Kell, Hal Newhouser, Phil Rizzuto, Bob Lemon, Duke Snider*, Bobby Doerr, Nellie Fox, and Richie Ashburn. For this reason, I think that any time a blank ballot is mailed to the Hall, it should go straight into the shredder. If you can't find anybody on the ballot who's worthy of induction, then you're not trying hard enough.

* Remarkably, Gil Hodges finished fourth by appearing on 50% of the ballots, while Duke Snider appeared on only 24.7% of the ballots - less than Marty Marion or Johnny Vander Meer. Snider, of course, was the second-or-third-best player on the ballot behind Yogi; his candidacy grew steam until he was inducted in 1980, while Hodges (who died the following year) never built any momentum.

The Veterans Committee inductees were Dave Bancroft, Jake Beckley, Chick Hafey, Harry Hooper, Joe Kelley, and Rube Marquard. Not a group of household names... Beckley and Kelley were both 19th century players, and were both solid choices. Bancroft and Hafey were former teammates of Frankie Frisch, the Committee chair who was trying to get all of his former buddies inducted into the Hall. Marquard might be the worst pitcher in the Hall; Hooper's career is a mirror image of contemporaries Bobby Veach and George J. Burns, and it's not really clear why his "fame" has outstripped theirs.

If I Were a Writer Ballot:
Rickey
Rock
Hawk
Bert Blyleven
Alan Trammell
Mark McGwire

Andre Dawson is an admittedly borderline candidate... but he had a very long, very unusual career that I think fits somewhere among the lower third of Hall of Fame outfielders. Obviously he was better than Vada Pinson; obviously he wasn't as good as Willie Mays. It's a large grey area.

McGwire has issues, but he was an awesome power hitter who easily meets Hall of Fame standards. As for the other stuff... last I checked, the Earth still revolves around the Sun, cats and dogs are still mortal enemies, and Baseball still has an antitrust exemption, so anything Mark did couldn't have been too bad.

(just last week, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a statement saying that it was satisfied with baseball's testimony before the committee. In the statement, chair Henry Waxman comments that "though I have a weird feeling that not everybody was telling the truth at all times, I have come to the conclusion that baseball still kicks ass. Only 96 days until Opening Day!")

If I Were a Carpenter Ballot:
Rickey
Rock
Hawk
Bert Blyleven
Alan Trammell
Lou Whitaker
Mark McGwire
David Cone
Jack Morris
Dave Stieb
Jim Rice
Dwight Evans
Dave Parker
Dale Murphy
Ted Simmons
Bobby Grich
Lee Smith
Dan Quisenberry
Don Mattingly
Will Clark
Tommy John

Hmmmm, that's an awful lot of guys to induct at one ceremony - time will get especially tight when Rickey's speech stretches into its third hour. But that's what happens when you don't induct enough players each year; a backlog develops.

As I've grown older, I've become a Big Hall guy. Actually, a Big Big Hall guy, a Bigger than the Hockey Hall guy. I know that a lot of baseball fans take pride in the fact that the baseball Hall is the hardest one to get into - except, of course, when it isn't - and I used to feel the same way. But exclusivity sucks, in all forms; I have no time whatsoever for private clubs, private schools, private golf courses, or the like. And an unfortunate byproduct of exclusivity is that it turns the group who gets in, the group who doesn't, and the group who decides, all into assholes. Just one of those human things, I guess.

From my point of view, there's already enough assholes in the world without us manufacturing new ones. So let them all in; once we get through this group, we can start on Ron Santo and Gil Hodges and Roger Maris and Bill Freehan. And for those who might argue that we're watering down the "honour" of being inducted into the Hall... well that's true enough. Tough titties.

(I'm still not sure what to do with Pete Rose. On the one hand, we may as well put him in; once we've inducted Vida Blue and Dave Concepcion and Roy White, it doesn't really matter. On the other hand, the potential of a Colbertesque putdown - "Hey, Pete, we've inducted Darrell Evans and his career .248 batting average into the Hall, but you're still not in!" - might be impossible to resist.)

But for now, it's a crucial year for three left fielders. For Jim Rice, it's his final year on the ballot; if he isn't inducted, then he will have to wait for the Veterans Committee - and as Joe Gordon might tell you, if he were alive, that can be a long wait.

For Tim Raines, it's a chance to increase his vote and start building some momentum. In his first year of eligibility, Raines appeared on only 24.3% of ballots cast; it's a long road to go, but it can be done. When Duke Snider first appeared on the ballot in 1970, he appeared on only 17% of ballots cast; he was inducted ten years later. In 1995, Jim Rice began his Hall odyssey by appearing on 29.8% of the ballots, but has been inching closer ever since.

For Rickey Henderson, it's a chance to hobnob with baseball executives, and try to convince someone that he can still play in the majors.