It was revealed today that Deadspin had purchased the Hall of Fame vote of a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America. The sports and humor website intends to crowd-source the ballot, which the writer will then submit as his own. After the votes are tallied, the writer in question will reveal his/her identity and his/her justification for selling the vote. But waiting is no longer necessary! I'm proud to say that Baseball Arcade has deduced the seller's identity.
I don't want to get too much into the morality of the actual selling here. I'm no fan of the way the BBWAA voting has been handled of late. The Hall of Fame election process has been particularly irksome to me--so much so that I could write an entire post about it. However, I feel like selling a vote is not the best way to bring attention to the flaws in the system.
Discussing the ethics of selling a vote, however, is not the point of this piece. The point is to reveal the seller's identity. Using the twin powers of SCIENCE! and SMALL SAMPLE SIZE!, I have determined that the member who sold his vote to Deadspin is...
Bill Ballou of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
I had written about Mr. Ballou previously in my piece on the MVP Award. At the time, I had pegged him as merely another anachronistic dinosaur of a writer deathly afraid of modern analysis. I now realize that I was oh-so-wrong. It all fits as part of a long and complicated Dr.-Doom-level plan. Bill Ballou bided his time, no doubt preaching the value of Pitcher Wins to all he met, keeping himself beyond suspicion until he had the opportunity to enact his daring scheme to first embarrass the BBWAA and then conquer the world. Of course!
The key lies in Deadspin's own article. They state that their intention was to "make a mockery and farce of the increasingly solemn and absurd election process." Clearly, whoever sold their vote is sympathetic to Deadspin's goals. They already realized the flaws in the system and wanted to bring them to light.
Who else has done more to make a mockery of the voting process than the man who voted Mike Trout SEVENTH for the AL MVP? The AL MVP was merely Phase 1 of Mr. Ballou's plan. This is Phase 2. I have no idea what Phase 3 will be, but I recommend all citizens of Cooperstown, NY be on high alert.
I take back the mean things I said about you, Bill. You were merely playing a long game.
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