ESPN’s Dan Le Batard explains his decision to give his Hall of Fame vote to Deadspin - #MMBSports

In late November, Deadspin announced that it had acquired a Hall of Fame vote from a BBWAA member. Upon the announcement of the voting results on Wednesday, the site revealed both its utterly ballot of players and the writer who promised away his right to vote: Miami Heraldcolumnist and ESPN personality Dan Le Batard.

Le Batard did not sell his vote for money. He gave it up to the Deadspin community to expose the silliness of the current Hall of Fame voting process. He explains:

I hate all the moralizing we do in sports in general, but I especially hate the hypocrisy in this: Many of the gatekeeper voters denying Barry Bonds Hall Of Fame entry would have they themselves taken a magical, healing, not-tested-for-in-their-workplace elixir if it made them better at their jobs, especially if lesser talents were getting the glory and money. Lord knows I’d take the elixir for our ESPN2 TV show if I could….

I’m not sure what kind of trouble this is going to bring me. I imagine I’ll probably have my vote stripped. But I don’t want to be a part of the present climate without reform anyway. Given that climate, doing THIS has more impact than my next 20 years of votes as sanctimony bars the HOF door on the steroid guys. Because, in a climate without reform, my next 20 years of votes will be counted but not actually heard. At least this gets it heard, for better or for worse.

Well, that actually makes a whole lot of sense. Inevitably — and as he predicts — Le Batard will face scorn from some fellow members of the BBWAA. But he’ll also draw a heck of a lot of attention to a system that could definitely stand an update.

And in the process, he “voted” for players like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza, who have been shut out of Cooperstown in part because of the very sanctimony Le Batard is protesting.

CREDIT / SOURCE - USA Today @ogtedberg