Enshrinement Everywhere

Has the phrase "Hall of Fame" ever been written more in a one-week span than in the past seven days? With the Baseball HOF inductions last Sunday, rampant speculation on Rafael Palmeiro's future and the Pro Football HOF ceremonies today, the sports media is in the midst of Hall fever. People love to write about the Hall of Fame three different ways: A) Arguing about which players should be inducted; B) Arguing about which players will eventually be inducted; and C) Arguing about the best players who aren't inducted. Nowadays, sports HOF debates are more passionate more controversial and certainly more widespread than they've ever been. I understand that the Hall provides terrific fodder for discussion but I ultimately wonder-- how much does the Hall of Fame really matter?

Sport is ultimately about the games played. And I can't help but feel that too much energy is spent on these arguments that don't actually have to do with the games, but rather about how much a given player contributed to games that were played over five years ago. The Pete Rose Debate is a prime example of why the Hall is overblown. Countless people around baseball strongly advocate Rose's inclusion in the HOF despite his lifetime ban. "He's the game's most prolific hitter! His plaque deserves to be displayed in Cooperstown!" the argument goes. But even without being inducted, Rose is still in the record books, he still has his World Series rings and he's still universally recognized as a great hitter. In fact, Rose gets more notoriety now for his martyr status than he ever would being just another Hall of Famer.

Ultimately, the Hall of Fame phenomenon is about writers being gatekeepers: the HOF is the one chance for writers to directly influence the sport they've covered. While it's admirable that most journalists take their responsibility so seriously, it's a problem comes when they overestimate the actual importance of that responsibility.