I write about baseball. I live in America. So why can’t I be one of the Baseball Writers of America? It strikes me as hard to believe that there are only 472 people in all of America who are “Baseball Writers.” After spending long hours working in a deli this summer and taking every free minute I had to read the baseball columns in all four of the New York papers, it seemed like there must have been hundreds of baseball writers in the Big Apple alone. There’s no way they all voted for the recent Hall of Fame elections.
However, the exclusive group of people who do vote must adhere to dated ideals, worthless stats and plain stupidity, judging by their Hall of Fame selections. The writers consistently overlook players whose intangibles made them great, whose pure grit and desire earned them championships and whose love for the game that they played earned them the right to a spot in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
This is not to say that Ozzie Smith didn’t deserve to make the Hall. But, each of the 472 eligible voters are allowed five choices, yet Ozzie was the only player who received a high enough percentage of the votes to become commemorated in Cooperstown. It seems ironic that all of the recent press about Ozzie discusses his love for the game, his permanent smile and his fantastic attitude. But it’s not ironic because Ozzie didn’t actually have those things, he did, instead it’s because the same press glorifying Ozzie’s intangibles overlooked Mr. Intangible himself, Gary Carter. Gary finished with 343 of the 472 votes, just 10 votes shy of the minimum percentage for entry.
I’m a Mets-biased writer, and I always have been, but Gary’s case for the Hall could be argued by anyone who truly loves baseball. Not only was Gary one of the top-five hitting catchers of all time, but he was one of the most memorable players of his era. Looking back on my early baseball-watching days, it’s difficult to recall a Mets game before 1989 in which Gary Carter was not wearing mud, blood and a giant smile. His clubhouse leadership, upbeat attitude and obvious love of the game made him the fan favorite on one of the most beloved teams in baseball history. Gary Carter had knee problems so painful that Joe Theismann would probably wince when he saw Carter run, yet Gary never failed to run out every ground ball, break up every double play and even occasionally lay down a surprise bunt. The Kid, as he was dubbed, played every single game as if it were his first and last. To anyone who really appreciates baseball, he is a shoo-in Hall of Famer.
Even if, in all likelihood Gary Carter will eventually be enshrined in Cooperstown, that he is not in yet is a complete travesty. For those of us who aspire to someday write about sports professionally, there is a more important lesson to be learned. We must never forget that there is far more to sports than numbers and factors and averages; there are those intangibles that we cannot quite put our finger on. Indeed, it is those intangibles themselves which make sports enjoyable both to play and to follow. It is important that we keep that in mind and celebrate all the Gary Carters in sports, who are there to remind us of exactly why we watch.
