St Louis Cardinals: Too Few Votes for Jim Edmonds

How did former St Louis Cardinals outfielder Jim Edmonds receive only 11 (2.5%) hall-of-fame votes?

Another year of Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) voting is complete and we the St. Louis Cardinals’ fans are left with the feeling of being robbed once again.

Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Pete Rose, Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines and so many more need to be enshrined as the best players the game has ever seen, but a political system was devised and it’s failing us all. Dammit Jim! You were robbed of at least spending some time on the list. 

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When I heard that Jim Edmonds garnered only 2.5% of the vote and would be dropped from all future ballots, I felt like a pre-Caitlyn Bruce Jenner wondering if I needed a “sports-change” away from my beloved baseball addiction to cricket or lacrosse.

I mean how does a person wrap their head around a center fielder with more home runs than HOF center fielders Ty Cobb and Kirby Pucket combined getting so few votes? Jimmy Baseball’s home run numbers rank 6th out of the (now 20) HOF center fielders (Griffey Jr. made it 20 with his well-deserved first ballot entry).

Some of the St Louis ESPN talk radio discussion centered on the front-loaded list of names that are sucking votes away from others each year. If Bonds, Clemens, and McGuire had been voted in, more would be there for Edmonds now. But still, if he had made the 5% threshold to make the cut, starting there and making it in would not likely occur.

Jim Edmonds demonstrated the offensive stats and the adept defensive talent to be in the hall if he was popular. Some didn’t like “Hollywood” and his attitude, especially in when playing for the Angels.

But so freggin what? Get over that stuff writers – it comes with being a star. Did the show Housewives of Beverly Hills suit their tastes wrong for their beloved shrine? This is a shrine which should be OURS by the way.

Should the fans start one of their own in this new age? Let’s setup something new with 100% online voting that cuts out the BBWAA and is called the Baseball Fans Hall of Fame (BFHOF) perhaps. L

et’s set numbers that the fans feel are important and let the us decide if special circumstances need to be factored. I’d love to hear read the headlines “The BFHOF inducts Pete Rose”. Imagine… Would we see some action from the MLB leadership after that happened? BBWAA HAA HAA HAA HAA!

If NCAA football can evolve into an organization that holds a playoff instead of a popularity contest (please expand to 8 teams NCAA) then why can’t the BBWAA?

I pray they can and if they really want to hear cheers from around the world, open up all of the players in retrospect and make it a demonstrated measure of offensive and defensive statistics (build-in compensations for a particular era too).

Next: Hall of Fame voting gives mixed results for St. Louis Cardinals

Get out of the popularity contest that the Baseball Hall of Fame has always been and move towards a just, fair and equitable system.