The “Whatever They’re Calling it This Year” Committee at the Hall of Fame has selected Fred McGriff for induction.

There’s a very good chance you’ve not heard of him and are wondering what the heck he did that makes him so great. Turns out there are two things that hurt his candidacy – both of which were pretty much beyond his control.

The first was the 1994-95 Strike. It happened right in the middle of his career, when he was at his most productive. Some seventy games were erased from the schedule. Given McGriff’s pace those two years (34 home runs in 113 games in 1994, 27 home runs in 144 games in 1995), it’s a good bet he’d have slugged another ten home runs in those games. As it is, he finished his career with 493 home runs. Those extras would have put him over the “milestone” number of 500.

It interesting and useful in McGriff’s case to see who is in the “500 Club”, and see who is NOT in the Hall of Fame. There’s Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera, who are not yet eligible. Gary Sheffield is still on the ballot (though he hasn’t managed to get more than 50% of the vote). That leaves Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmiero, and Manny Ramirez as the ones on the outside. What is a common thread connecting those players? Right! PED allegations, and serious ones at that. McGriff has never been accused of taking PEDs.

For the record, McGriff has more home runs than Hall of Fame sluggers like Willie Stargell, Vladimir Guerrero, and Chipper Jones.

The other thing that hurt his candidacy was related to the Strike. Afterwards, there was a serious – if not stated outright – effort by MLB to win back the fans. It seems they settled on playing up home runs. The ball may have been “juiced”, ballparks were designed to increase the frequency of home runs, and both MLB and the media “looked the other way” when players started taking PEDs. McGriff stayed clean and continued to hit the long ball, but he couldn’t compete with the likes of Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa. And as his career wound down in the early 2000’s, he bounced around from team to team while Bonds and Alex Rodriguez were racking up the home runs, so no one was going to give his “quest for 500” much attention.

You can argue that since he never won any major award, rarely led the league in any hitting category, and only made five All Star teams, he shouldn’t really be a Hall of Famer. But there’s still plenty of room in Cooperstown for the players who show a quiet, sustained excellence.

So the results of this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame election have been announced, and we do not have a winner.

The leading candidates were Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling, each of whom has problems when it comes to the “Character Clause” that voters are asked to consider. They all fell short by a handful of votes; for obvious reasons.

I do not have a problem with the clause itself; what does irk me is how much people publicly agonize over their decision. “Oh, we can’t allow people who cheated in the Hall! What about players who, when they were active, were known to have or at least were widely suspected to have cheated and are already enshrined? What about the known racists in the Hall? What about the players who will appear on the next ballot?” I can understand why one might ask these questions, but do we really need to read about all your hair-pulling and kvetching?

Then there are those few who have said they aren’t going to vote in any future elections, because the Hall hasn’t given them any guidance on how to deal with this matter. Why are you telling us? If you have a problem, take it up with the BBWAA. You know, that organization of which you are a member and sends you a ballot every year? By the way, can you not trust your own judgment?

The “electorate” consists of nearly three hundred people. And an election does not have to be unanimous. One individual vote is rarely going to make a difference. We’re going for a consensus here.

So you can’t bring yourself to vote for someone who, on the basis of their record, clearly belongs, but has been a real schmuck off the field. OK, that’s fine. Don’t vote for them.

And by the way, it is also fine to change your mind about someone. Every year, once the results are announced, we read about players who increased or decreased their vote totals. You know what that means? People changed their minds! If no one ever did, no one would ever go “up” or “down” in the polling, and we’d only have to have people on the ballot once when they became eligible – instead of keeping them on for up to ten years.

I get that you want to treat the matter – and your vote – with seriousness. Good, you’re supposed to take it seriously (and not consult a Magic 8 Ball to help you decide). But this isn’t like partitioning India. Fill out your ballot, and don’t lose any sleep over it.