Let's redefine baseball's HOF criteria

One morning around the age of 11 or 12 my father and I woke early one morning and made the 2 hour drive from our central Minnesota home to the Minneapolis Airport.  My old man had a business trip to Waterbury, Connecticut of all places and he took the opportunity to take me with and make a 1 day detour to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It is among the greatest moments of my life.  

If you havn't been to Cooperstown I suggest you go even if you aren't a baseball psychopath.  It's just a really pretty place.  30 years later my most vivid memory of the entire experience is pulling into Cooperstown in the early morning hours after a 3 hour car ride from Waterbury.  A fresh blanket of pristine, wet, February snow had fallen and our tracks were the first into the sleepy old town of Cooperstown.  

Now is the time of year when the Baseball Writers of America receive their Hall of Fame Ballots and submit, among eligible players, their choices for induction to the 2021 HOF class.  A player must have his name on 75% of the ballots to be selected.  

Recently I heard of a journalist who left his ballot blank and advertised on social media that among the players who he felt met the statistical standard needed to get elected he felt they fell far short in the character necessary to be deemed HOF worthy.  He was primarily talking about Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds, all of whom have had their name connected to some sort of performance enhancing rumors, some more concretely than others.  

The writer in question has every right to apply his vote as he wishes but I think we've taken this thing too far.  It's time to open up the entire process and here's my argument why.  

First off the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is 2 entities (3 if you include their commitment to baseball research) under 1 roof.  The Hall of Fame itself is a wing of sorts where all of the plaques are placed on the wall.  The bulk of the facility is a museum dedicated to telling the story of baseball.  This story includes the good and the bad including baseball's racist past, cheating scandals, and the evolution of the sport as a business.  

Secondly, the HOF describes in it's mission one of their roles as "Honoring, by enshrinement, those individuals who had exceptional careers, and recognizing others for their significant achievement's".  That's it.  Maybe there is something more written someplace about criteria and there is certainly larger discussions in the writers community that subjectively establish more detailed definitions of what is a hall of famer, but according to the HOF it is about having an exceptional career.  

Thirdly, baseball has evolved, often times not fast enough but it has evolved to now include a more thoroughly vetted system of justice.  Players caught using PED's for example are suspended 50 games for their first offense, 100 for their second, and a lifetime ban for their 3rd.  This includes accidental positives thus giving players a chance to redeem themselves.  Roughly half of the 400 plus homerun club who aren't in the HOF today are suspected PED users but who played under a system that didn't test or punish PED use.  What will we do when a player who tested positive and served a punishment hits 500?  It shouldn't have to extend in perpetuity.  

When you put all of this together the only fair and logical way to determine if a player is hall of fame worthy is to ask yourself if they had an exceptional career.  Barry Bonds, Curt Schilling, and Roger Clemens clearly meet this criteria.  Let the museum tell the story about how they were suspected of cheating and let the fans of baseball be the owners of each players legacy just as we own the legacy of other terrible human beings who are already enshrined.  Let Shoeless Joe have his day, we all know what Pete Rose did both good and bad, and we all know the racist history of Cap Anson (who is already inducted).  This gives the writers freedom to not have to be the moral judge of players.  

Roughly 20000 people have played Major League Baseball and only 263 players are in the hall of fame.  Widening our criteria won't damage the uniqueness of the achievement.