Gammonites, preparing to watch Bud Selig enter the Hall, are reconsidering their hypocrisy

A Gray Lady sportswriter says his inky ilk are balking at the superhuman dishonesty of seeing Bud Selig enter the Hall of Fame next year, while Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are still being denied on "ethical" grounds. 

Only a figure with the Voldemort legacy of Selig - a man who once sought to decorate MLB regular season bases with promotional logos for the movie Spider-Man 2 - could make the world reconsider the stunted morality of the steroids era, over which Bud cravenly presided. Reports the Times David Waldstein:

In a sudden and surprising shift of sentiment, the baseball writers who vote to decide who should be inducted into the Hall, and who should not, appear to be backing away from their punitive approach to Bonds and Clemens, and perhaps others as well.

Well, a stopped clock... After 15 years of sanctimonious pimping, these dwarfs of righteousness finally cannot live with the unspeakable reality of Selig's bronze plaque on the wall next to Ruth, Gehrig, Mays and Musial. Let that be the Rug's greatest achievement - after the collusion scandal and the World Baseball Cup: His hypocrisy knocked open the halls of Cooperstown. Once he got in, the barriers fell. Hey, how about enshrining Putin and Trump in 2020!

Well, it's time to consider the SIX REASONS WHY SPORTSWRITERS BECOME TOOLS OF EVIL. (Note: I was a news reporter for 35 years. Some of my best friends wrote sports. With a beer in their hands, they'd second this heartily.) 

1. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: In fifth grade, every kid who can write a complete sentence - but who will never hit the curve - wants to someday cover sports. For the rest of their lives, the sportswriter is lashed to that childhood dream, and some never fully escape the playground. They mock players. They give snide nicknames. They glorify the winner and trash the loser. But for all their bluster and bullying in the pulpit, they cringe in the presence of grownups - a.k.a., the owners. They live in fear of Principal Skinner.  

2. THE ONE-STOP SHOP. It's the complexities of life that drive journalists mad. You can never do enough interviews. You can never escape the self-doubt: Did I get it right? But sportswriters work in a staged environment. They watch the game, report the score, track the plays and then interview the contestants, who are trotted out, half-naked, for mandatory sessions. Beat writing becomes a numb, pre-packaged, daily pageant. You're one of those Westworld robots, who relive the same story, over and over. Most sportswriters never knock on a stranger's door to get an interview, or agonize over which source to believe. It's a game. The jock speaks, and the sportswriter writes down the words - "It was a curve, and I hit it," From there, the job is all about being witty. 

3. THE PRESS BOX. If you're writing about school lunch programs, you're basically alone. But sportswriters get sequestered into a makeshift luxury box with a pasta buffet, where they chew the fat with each other for hours. Stat sheets are distributed, coffee is free, the toilets work, and civilians are not allowed. Satan could not design a better Hell. Eventually, everyone - no matter how devoted to old journalism school professors - snaps like a Hershey Bar. They compare notes. They vent about the idiot shortstop, or the manager who hates their guts. They achieve a perfect cynicism. And they write that same story - again and again, Groundhog Day - with a group mind that is impossible to avoid.

4. THE ECONOMIC DISPARITY. The sportswriter enjoys a nice middle class gig, but it's hard work, long nights, road trips and shitty hours. Worst part: They cover athletes who believe alien lizards run the government, who can't write a letter home, and who make $21 million per year... while batting .250. It's not fair, dammit. It's. Not. Fair. It's a class thing. Sometimes, it's a race thing. Sportswriters are just like all of us, but they stare across an economic divide that eventually makes them old and bitter. Thus, every A-Rod story must include a reference to his money... but nobody ever prodded Bud Selig about his take-home pay, (which was $22 million, by the way.)

5. THE FOLLY OF HUMANITY. Keep this in mind: Half the people you meet in life will be of below average intelligence. This explains religion, politics, racism and love. It also explains sportswriters. Nobody cares about an insufferable dolt who collects Thruway tolls for a living, but it's impossible to ignore the idiot columnist who wants your favorite team to re-sign Vernon Wells to a 10-year deal; that kind of stupidity is impossible to ignore.

6. THE ACCESS. The sportswriter needs calls to be returned and press credentials to be approved. That means honoring two sets of bosses - his editors and his sources on the team. In hard news stories, anonymous quotes are almost never allowed, the rare exceptions granted for matters of public interest. Yet sportswriters routinely quote unnamed sources about players, trade rumors, women, lifestyles, speculation - whatever. Google your favorite player. You'll know what I mean. The anonymous quotes might be accurate. Who the hell knows? But as long as nobody's name is attached, the calls will get returned and the credentials will be approved. 

So now they'll vote in Bonds and Clemens, and then maybe McGwire and Sosa, along with the Great Selig. Good for them. Someday, I'm sure they'll feel pressure to add Senator Curt Schilling - whose 216 career wins puts him behind Mickey Lolich, Kenny Rogers, Jerry Reuss and Tim Hudson. Good grief, he whines about sportswriters even more than I do. 

Oh well, it's like the fifth grade pet show: Everybody goes home with a prize. Selig has opened the gates to Hell. Frankly, they all belong together.