So I spent the time I would have been spending writing up my team-of-the-decade post (a) working and (b) engaging in a kind of heated Twitter battle with a national media type (and others) regarding his actual Hall of Fame ballot. The team of the decade thing should come tomorrow (but I'm still out of town, so posting this week may be a bit sparser than normal).

Anyway, about the Twitter thing. Behold:

Alomar
Dawson (but not Raines)
Larkin
Parker (but not Edgar! And for the love of God, not Raines? What?!?Q?FZ??!)
Morris (but not Blyleven)
Mattingly (but not...oh, hell, there's no comparison to voting for Mattingly, just don't do it)

The discussion revolved around Blyleven/Morris, as it always does, and for one simple reason: it ought to be the easiest to understand. Everyone ought to be able to understand it. You might not be into stats, might not be willing to accept that Raines' on-base ability and baserunning made him more valuable than Dawson and his power and throwing arm. But Blyleven and Morris both did the same thing at about the same time, and Blyleven was clearly better in every possible way. All Morris did better was convince his (generally much better) teams to score runs for him -- and he didn't even do it more total times, just at a better percentage. That can't balance out the obvious reality that Blyleven was much, much better at actually pitching, and for longer. It just can't.

If you want to vote for Morris, I think you're crazy, but fine. If you want to vote for Morris and not Blyleven, you're wrong. Totally and completely wrong. There are no two ways about it, and really no room to (rationally) disagree. Blyleven was better and is more deserving. The only way to define a "Hall of Fame" that includes Jack but not Bert is to take the name literally -- Morris was probably marginally more "famous" than Blyleven. But then you'd better vote for McGwire and Murphy too, and it's kind of hard to justify Larkin. So that explanation is out.

So anyway, Blyleven over Morris. Period. The end. But really: Parker over Raines? How??!