In the coming weeks, I'll be writing a bunch about the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. I've been putting in the work for years and I can assure you that is a labor of love. This time around, it's a lot more real, too.
I am now, officially, a Baseball Hall of Fame voter for the first time. It brings a tear to my eye to type it, just as it did when I first got the email that I am, in fact, a voter, 10 years after I was admitted to the BBWAA while at the 2014 Winter Meetings in San Diego. When I get that ballot in the mail it'll be even more emotional.
I cannot guarantee that you'll be happy with my ballots moving forward. In fact, I guarantee pretty much everyone reading will disagree with me on occasion. That's just how it goes with a subjective exercise like Hall of Fame voting.
I can, however, guarantee you that I will give 100% of my effort and heart and soul in the process. I can't stress enough how seriously I care about this task. In many ways, I've been building toward this point for nearly my entire life.
I was swinging a bat and playing catch -- usually in a Cubs hat and/or shirt -- from the time I could walk. I turned 6 years old in 1984 when the Cubs made the playoffs for the first time since 1945 and I was hooked for life. I remember running home from kindergarten to see what happened in Game 1 of the NLCS (it was a day game, as Wrigley Field had no lights), only to find out that the Cubs exploded for a 13-0 win and even Rick Sutcliffe homered. I'd find out what pain was as a fan starting pretty quickly thereafter.
Fast forward a few years and my family took a trip that included a stop in Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame. Each of us three kids got to pick something out from the gift shop; I grabbed a set of Hall of Fame baseball cards. I can still picture the green framing on each card. That's where I learned about players like Ross Youngs, Joe Cronin, Carl Hubbell and Al Simmons alongside the early megastars like Walter Johnson and Ty Cobb.
That's really where my homework started. Those were pre-internet days, so I had to get my hands on any baseball book possible to learn about all the past greats. When my brother and I got heavily into playing Baseball Stars on an old school Nintendo -- back when you could create teams -- we started making all-time lineups with individual teams, initially arranging them on the floor with the baseball cards. We generally avoided the Yankees because they were too good, but we could create pretty stacked lineups with teams like the Giants, Red Sox, Dodgers, Reds, A's and Cubs.
And while I certainly knew about the likes of Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, Josh Gibson along with Black stars who started in the Negro Leagues like Willie Mays and Ernie Banks, the movie "Soul of the Game" in 1996 inspired me to shift my studies toward the Negro Leagues players. Oscar Charleston in particular became a personal favorite.
In college, I did reports and speeches on Robinson, Hank Aaron and the Negro Leagues at large. If there was ever a way to wedge baseball into any class, I'd find a way.
Right now I'm sitting next to a bookshelf that contains literature on Aaron, Robinson, Roberto Clemente, Derek Jeter, Rickey Henderson, the World Series, The Big Red Machine, the 2016 Cubs, Ted Williams, Juan Marichal, Mickey Mantle, the '90s Yankees, the '50s Dodgers and more. Sitting on the floor next to my desk, as always in Hall of Fame season, are the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract and The Cooperstown Casebook.
All of this is the long-winded, and I'll admit a bit indulgent, way to say that, yes, I've long been a baseball history junkie. The Hall of Fame reeled me in at such a young age.
I've been writing about my hypothetical ballot in the 10 years leading up to this because I wanted to be in practice for when the time came to submit a real ballot. My theory was that if I was used to doing the work for a decade, once I got an actual ballot, it wouldn't seem much different to fill out the real thing.
I was right. I'm not daunted by the task. The only difference to me is my work actually counts for real now.
To reiterate, during the course of the next two months, you will likely disagree with me from time to time. Perhaps it's my stance on how to judge PED-related players or that I vote for too many players. Maybe it'll simply be a disagreement on where the line should be drawn with one specific player.
That all comes with the territory and I'm so looking forward to it that I'm thrilled at the idea of arguments with fans. I want everyone to be part of the process.
You will not, however, in good conscience, be able to accuse me of not doing my homework, not taking this job seriously enough or not caring enough about the Baseball of Fame. If you pay attention, my promise to you is it'll be evident that this is truly one of the greatest joys of my professional life and my work will reflect as much.
I care deeply and sincerely about the Baseball Hall of Fame and I'm incredibly humbled to be a very small part of the process. Now let's get to work.
