Joe Morgan has numbskulls' panties in a wad

Hall of Fame second baseman, and sometimes clueless TV baseball color guy, Joe Morgan, released a letter this morning urging voters not to elect roiders. Red Satan has more.

He got a lot of flack, most of it partially to totally undeserved. (Why B-Ref has him in an Astros hat, I don't know. B-Ref's normal policy has been to do cap photos by team WAR, not games played, and his numbers were a lot higher with the Reds.)

First was that he was clueless about roiding.

Second, that he might be speaking out of turn about teams pushing players in HOF votes. Don't know how much is team-related, but do writers push players? You bet your ass they do.

Third and related was that he is a hypocrite about greenies. Wrong. I've covered that one in depth, contra many people before this dust-up. People like Jeff Passan are wrong on that, wrong on the hypocrisy charge, and wrong on the story framing of smart young bucks like them having to clear up clueless stupidity of old coots. (Oh, Passan is now joining in with a few ESPNers and others to say he'll no longer vote. Good! He is also a Big HOFer, I think; another reason for him not to vote.)

Third was that there are roiders in the Hall already. Like Reggie Jackson, per my speculating on speculating? (If it wasn't Nolan Ryan.) Or racists like Cap Anson? And alleged but actually not racists like Ty Cobb? (People citing him in this conversation only show their cluelessness in the face of revelations that most the racism claims against Cobb were made up, primarily to sell books.)

So? Two wrongs don't make a right.

And, if you're willing to blink here, what cheating do you NOT find acceptable?

That said, if Morgan was implying there are no roiders in the Hall at this time, he is possibly wrong. So half wrong for easy tabulation.

Fourth was the insults claiming the fourth-greatest 2B ever, by JAWS, himself was unworthy of Cooperstown.

Next was his strong opposition to Ryan Sandburg in the Hall. Ryno wasn't bad, but as 2B JAWS shows, he wasn't a slam dunk. So, Joe was half-wrong.

Reality? Let Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens fess up. And Bud Selig as commish. And managers Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox, as I have blogged before. Then, a truth and reconciliation committee. (Oh, and Mark McGwire still isn't a HOFer, and I say that as a Cards fan.)

So, of five issues, including, indirectly, the Ryno one, I'll give Joe two totally rights, two half rights, and three-quarters right on amphetamines in baseball. (Oh, and also contra Passan and other Gen X and younger kids? Diet-pill level amphetamines were legal even after steroids were banned.)

That's 3.75 points out of 5, or 75 percent. Re the Sandberg issue, I'll give Morgan a boost for, overall, being a "small hall" guy, also contra some of the oldsters at ESPN and many of the young bucks like Passan. So, bump him to 80 percent — a decent B grade.

And, I see that dumbshits at Deadspin have joined the greenies-related pile-on.

(I would like to have somebody directly ask Morgan the Byrnes-Boswell angle and see what he says about the possibility of a roider already being in Cooperstown.)

And, Buster Olney's got his panties in a wad over all this, per the header.

First, Buster, the 10-player limit's been in place for long before roiding.

Second, the Hall making a conscious decision, or semi-conscious one, about roiders is NOT "gerrymandering."

Third, to Passan, who also says the BBWAA in general wants both the 10-player cutoff expanded to 15 AND all writers' ballots to be made public?

First, there were people wanting a larger ballot before the "backlog." NO, NO, NO. This itself shows that the BBWAA has too many Big Hall writers still in its ranks. Like Passan. Like much of ESPN.

On the transparency issue? Canton for pro football, and Springfield for basketball don't release their writers' ballots either, as far as I know.

Passan's almost making some of ESPN's baseball writers look tolerable.

Finally, if Passan says he knows there are roiders in the Hall — how does he know?