...
By Cameron Kiszla
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan is among the most prominent voices in the sport, but he gave up his right to have a say in who gets into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Hall of Famers are elected by the Baseball Writers' Association of America, of which Passan is a member.
Interestingly, he's also listed as a HOF voter, something he's publicly said he doesn't do.
Read More on MLB
He recently spoke on the topic with Matt Barnes on the "All the Smoke Baseball" podcast, explaining that hypocrisy was part of his decision.
A Dispute Over Barry Bonds
Passan explained to Barnes that he believes Barry Bonds is "the best baseball player not named Shohei Ohtani that I've personally seen," but the push to keep him out of the Hall of Fame is not telling the full story of baseball.
“The Hall of Fame’s job is to tell the story of baseball. Not just Major League Baseball. It’s to tell the story of the Negro Leagues. It’s to tell the story of pre-MLB baseball, back to the 1860s, when the whole racket started. It's to tell the story of Japanese baseball, just baseball around the world. It should be a magnet for fans of baseball," he said. "And I just feel like not honoring the people who were the best at the game is a really disingenuous way to tell the story.”
...
Passan admits that Bonds, a reported user of performance-enhancing drugs, "was an incredibly talented, otherworldly baseball player who was a flawed human being and made a choice that disrespected the game."
“The Hall of Fame can tell that story,” he said. “It can tell the story of Barry Bonds, the great baseball player, but also Barry Bonds, the flawed human.”
When HOF member Joe Morgan sent an email asking voters to keep alleged steroid users out of the HOF — but not players accused of other wrongdoing — was wrong.
"I’m sitting there like, there’s some real pieces of [expletive] in the Hall of Fame already. Terrible, terrible people," Passan explained. "And you’re telling me that Barry Bonds, because he chose to pursue an area of the game that was beyond things, that makes him worse than Ty Cobb? That makes him worse than people who are racist?”
Because of that and issues with voter transparency, Passan, who still goes to the HOF and takes his children there, refuses to vote.
“I just didn’t want to be part of something that I didn’t agree with,” Passan said.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines