“The Public Is Stupid:” Voting For the Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame

A great philosopher and beloved dead uncle once said “with great power comes great responsibility.” To date, no one has deemed me worthy of receiving great power (and rightfully so; I would misuse it the first chance I’d get), and so I’m reduced to creating and maintaining a fictional Hall of Fame based on the teachings of fictional character Ron Swanson. This gives me some infinitesimally small amount of power, and since Uncle Ben never mentioned that, I don’t feel obligated to exercise any responsibility at all. As such, I am abdicating any and all responsibility in the selection process, save for organizing the candidates for your voting pleasure.

Based on your feedback, the new nominees are:

Wade Boggs – For mustache-having, For love of meat (fried chicken before every game) and scotch, For popularity with the ladies, and For unquenchable iconoclasm as expressed through his appearances on The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Cheers

George Herman Ruth – For love of meat and scotch, For popularity with the ladies, For unquenchable iconoclasm, For disdain of unnecessary rules and regulations, For general joie de vivre.

Bill Veeck – For toughness (lost a leg in World War II), For woodworking (carved an ashtray into wooden leg he received after losing leg in World War II), For love of meat and scotch, For unquenchable iconoclasm, For blatant disdain for unnecessary rules and regulations (hired Eddie Gaedel to pinch hit), For general distrust of authority. You know what, just go read this comment.

Satchel Paige – For love of meat and scotch, For unquenchable iconoclasm, For blatant disdain for unnecessary rules and regulations (jumped contracts constantly in his youth), For general distrust of authority.

Mickey Mantle – For love of meat and scotch, For general popularity with the ladies, For toughness (played on a bad knee his whole career).

Ted Williams – For love of meat and scotch, For having wives with similar names, For toughness (fought in both World War II and the Korean War, crash-landed a plane and walked away), For unquenchable iconoclasm

And the holdovers from last year:

For toughness – Cal Ripken, Iron Man Joe McGinnity, Thurmon Munson

For blatant disdain for unnecessary rules and regulations – Gaylord Perry, Jim Bunning, The 1890s Baltimore Orioles, Dock Ellis

For love of meat and scotch – David Wells, Billy Martin, John Kruk

For Nickname – Duke Snider

For unquenchable iconoclasm – R.A. Dickey, Dick Allen

For killing a man in cold blood – Carl Mays

For mustache-having and intimidation factor– Goose Gossage

For saving the American flag from a couple of  damn hippies–Rick Monday

Ok, the voting is now open. As before, the leading vote getter and everyone who receives at least 75% of that leader’s total will gain the immortality we all seek but will never achieve because we are not good enough: