On the Hall of Fame

"But baseball players ARE more than just their pure numbers and production. They are. I've always thought of the Hall of Merit (its purely notional status notwithstanding) as the place where the numbers alone are considered. But the Hall of Fame is supposed to be something more than merely that, regardless of how the concept has been abused by idiot voters. It's not just supposed to celebrate the statistically 'best' players in baseball, it's intended to celebrate those players as they were remembered by the generations who watched them, in their historical context. Because baseball isn't a game played by a set of computers simulating imaginary matches and recording the outcomes on spreadsheet. It's a game played by people, and watched by people, given cultural significance, embedded in national and regional memory, and passed down as living history from one generation to the next. A Hall of Fame that doesn't make any sort of allowance on the margins for the human element (i.e. 'narrative') in its membership criteria is a curious, aridly depressing idea. " - from a  greatcomment on BTF