Each year there is a sympathy vote given here and there to a player for the Hall of Fame.Jay Buhner got a vote in 2007… no doubt from a sports writer who thought Jay was a hell of a nice guy.
Now one of these years, some player will buy 405 sports writers a lobster dinner and have them throw in a “he’s a hell of a nice guy” vote and we’ll see someone like Bobby Higginson in the Hall of Fame… but I digress.
David Segui got a single vote this year, and it is no doubt bewildering to some. Mike over at The Sport’s Pig Blog demands to know who it was.
But I think in a way, as a protest vote, it kind of makes sense.
Not in terms of his stats. He played 150 games once over a 15 year career. Hit over 20 homers once. He never once sniffed an All Star Game.
He was a good .291 career hitter with a career OPS of .802 which I think is good. But nothing special.
And if anyone knows anything about Segui, it was he was a juicer.
And frankly he isn’t the best advertisement for ‘roids use. If a talented hitter was on the juice, shouldn’t they be putting up massive numbers… like McGwire or Rafael Palmeiro.
But what did David do that McGwire, Palmeiro, Bonds, Clemens et al didn’t?
HE ADMITTED IT!
And in the end, isn’t that what people are pissed about regarding the ‘roids? Being lied to.
When A-Rod and Pettite admitted to being juicers, didn’t people start to move on?
What they did was the same as Clemens and Palmeiro did…but they didn’t go to Congress and say the didn’t use anything…
and they didn’t wag their finger at Congress.
(Isn’t it odd that Jose Canseco dropped off of the ballot so quickly and yet Mark McGwire is sticking around?)
Maybe the vote for Segui was a vote for “just admitting it.”
Oh who am I kidding? He was a mediocre player and some writer lost his damn mind.
I am waiting for 96% of the Voters not vote for a Slam Dunk HOFer in his 1st year to make a point about 1st year guys and he gets less than 5 % of the votes and is off the ballot. It could happen to someone like Maddux, Jeter or Rivera. I then would like to see what they do.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about PED use is that it is incorrect to assume that nearly any player that ingested them should uniformly put up "massive" numbers. Perhaps they did--for their individual potential and level of skill.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone doubts the effectiveness of them, Brady Anderson is the poster boy of a journeyman loser gone monster (at least for a year or two) using PEDs.
However, for every Bonds, Clemens, and McGwire that took their already extraordinary skills to their unnatural acme by cheating, there are piles of Jason Grimsleys and F.P. Santangelos that may have had no business being in the majors, except for using PEDs.
Yes, Jeremy Giambi did not put up objectively monster numbers by cheating, but he sure exceeded his natural lack of talent enough with them to earn an MLB contract or two.
Segui is a similar case in that PEDs helped him stick around longer, delay the majors-AAA-waiver-AAA-majors-trade-AAA-waiver rubber band game that he would have had much sooner.