A digital alternative: Looking at baseball's other Hall of Fame vote

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Each year, baseball writers decide which former players are worthy of being immortalized in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The road to Cooperstown includes a ballot vote in which players need 75 percent of the nearly 600 votes cast by qualified members of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
On Tuesday, we’ll learn which of the players from this year’s ballot hit the magical 75 percent threshold, when results of the BBWAA ballot are announced at 2 p.m. ET on MLB Network. Public ballots point toward five players getting the nod, a large class by BBWAA standards. Of the 34 names on the ballot, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio and Mike Piazza appear to be getting enough love from the writers, though Piazza is toeing the line.
Many fans and pundits will tell you these Hall of Fame elections aren’t perfect* —*heck, even the proudest BBWAA members will tell you their process could use some revision *— but this is the system we have in place, so it’ll have to do.
Well, there is another.

The Internet Baseball Writers Association of America holds an election too. It’s not as prestigious or as decorated as the BBWAA vote. It doesn’t carry the same weight, doesn’t come with a bronze bust and a well-attended ceremony in July, but at the very least, it’s another way of distilling the MLB Hall of Fame ballot. It's a digital alternative.
The IBWAA vote is open to a much wider group, since it allows entry to bloggers and Internet baseball scribes, plus doesn’t require 10 years of membership before getting a Hall of Fame vote like the BBWAA does. This year, 227 IBWAA ballots were cast, a record number for an upstart group that started with 20 voters in 2009. It’s just more than double the 113 ballots in 2013. (Disclosure: I’m one of the 227 voters).
The organization —*spearheaded by L.A.-based writer Howard Cole —*has the same 75-percent threshold and has elected seven players so far, including Piazza in 2013 and Biggio in 2014, who are still hoping for Cooperstown. IBWAA voters, however, haven’t given their 75 percent yet to Barry Larkin, who was elected in the official vote in 2012.
The IBWAA will announce the results of its Hall of Fame vote on Tuesday as well, at 12 p.m. ET. Ahead of that announcement and the actual Hall of Fame results, The Stew chatted with Cole about why the IBWAA exists, the mission of its Hall of Fame vote, the potential 2014 class and what he’s learned from this year’s rise in voting.
Question: IBWAA Hall of Fame votes are way up this year. Does that tell you something about interest in Hall of Fame voting in general, or are you just a really good recruiter?*
Answer: It’s the interest in Hall of Fame voting. Everyone’s excited about*Cooperstown, and about participating in baseball any way they can. It’s interesting, though, that some prominent writers – national guys – are so receptive to the idea, and join the group almost immediately. Flattered, even. While others don’t respond at to multiple requests.

Obviously you can't reveal the IBWAA results here, but as the caretaker of all the ballots, what have you learned about what voters think about this year's candidates?
Well, I can tell you that we’ll have several winners this year, one or two more than the BBWAA will, I imagine. And players connected to PEDs do considerably better in our elections. There is no patience for the idea that if a player is suspected of using, and only suspected, that it’s a disqualifier. We elected Mike Piazza two years ago. I guess that’s a hint right there.
A little more generally speaking, why was the IBWAA formed? Was a Hall of Fame always intended to be a part of it? Or was it something that comes up later?
Like most fans, I saw certain players as obvious Hall of Famers, and I was frustrated with the results. So that was part of it. But the larger issue for me was the exclusive nature of the BBWAA, especially when we started. You can’t vote without first being in the BBWAA, and I couldn’t get a sniff to save my life, even though I’d been blogging for 10 years at the time.*

The BBWAA’s constitution stated very clearly that an applying writer’s work had to be tied to a print publication. Independent websites, no matter how successful, wouldn’t do it. The hoops a blogger had to jump through were too many and too narrow, and I wanted in.
It’s changed since then, slowly. The BBWAA does everything slowly. But it’s still a rather arbitrary process for Internet writers trying to get in, and there’s politics.
Hall of Fame voting was always half the plan. That and the season awards. So we’re active September through the beginning of the following January.
By nature, this Hall of Fame vote is always going to the stepson to the BBWAA vote. Is there some value, though — aside from the fact that it's fun and it's brings new voices into the conversation — to having another vote?
Well, I’m a stepson, so I get that. And we are having fun. It’s baseball, for God’s sake. What could possibly be better? And writing is a lonely profession, even if for most of us it’s not actually a profession. A sense of community is important, and I feel like I have 300 more friends than I did before, and they all love baseball.
I wanted the IBWAA to be a digital alternative to the BBWAA, and it is. People can judge for themselves how valuable the whole thing is.*
What sort of response has this gotten from the Hall of Fame and the BBWAA?
I get about an email a year from someone or other with an edge to it. In September, a BBWAA member wrote to say that our “piggybacking” the BBWAA’s announcement was “annoying,” which led to a group discussion about just that. We decided to stick to our schedule. A year earlier a former BBWAA officer emailed a warning about using the trademarked Cy Young Award. Something about cease and desist orders and [BBWAA secretary/treasurer] Jack O’Connell supposedly following up with me, but he never did. We actually use the phrase, Cy Young; not Cy Young Award.
That said, we have 15 or 20 writers who are in both groups, so that’s enough of an endorsement for me.

What do you think it says about*Hall of Fame voting that Barry Larkin is in the actual Hall of Fame but hasn't been elected by the IBWAA, while the situation is flip-flopped for Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio?
It’s unfortunate. I vote for Larkin every year, but I’m just one guy. It’s confusing to have his name of the ballot, but we polled the members on that too, so there he is. No one’s talking about Barry Larkin now. Why would they? So there’s no momentum. But I like that we elected Piazza a year ahead of the BBWAA, and Biggio at least a year ahead. We also elected Bert Blyleven before the BBWAA. We’ll separate ourselves from them more this time.*
We've heard a lot recently about changes being made to the Hall of Fame voting process — some that have happened and some of that been proposed — having managed your own voting, how would you improve the BBWAA voting process?
Just replace the BBWAA with the IBWAA. No, honestly, I don’t think the process needs all that much changing. It’s easy to criticize the BBWAA, and I’m guilty of some of that myself, but all things considered, I really do think they handle elections well.
Obviously, the Deadspin thing last year was ridiculous, and turning in a blank ballot just to make a point is too. We don’t accept blank ballots, by the way. And while it may be difficult to weed out long-retired writers, or general sports columnists, that’s something worth considering.
Give more Internet writers the vote, obviously, and more women. And go paperless, already. You shouldn’t need the United States Postal Service or a fax machine to vote in 2015.
Do you think this will take greater form one day? Whether that be an actual Hall somewhere, a slicker presentation online or even a ceremony?
Well, we vote on everything, so whatever the members want. But it’s not a goal of mine. I’m thinking more along the lines of AFL/NFL, ABA/NBA.
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Mike Oz is an editor for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz