When to use the term “Hall of Famer”

By Blaidd Drwg

I see a headline on ESPN.com today that says “Hall of Famer Conlin accused of molestation”. It was a sad story about famed Philadelphia sports writer Bill Conlin being accused of molesting a couple of kids in the 1970’s. My problem is with the headline – winning the Spink Award or the Frick Award or the Buck O’Neil Award (o.k. maybe the O’Neil winners should be called Hall of Famers as the award has had 2 winners, one of which is they guy who the award is named after and SHOULD be in the real hall) does not make you a Hall of Famer. Yes, they get to make a pretty speech during the induction ceremony, but they aren’t being inducted into the Hall of Fame. The Baseball Hall of Fame website does not list winners of these awards in its Hall Of Famers section and they don’t have plaques in the Hall of Fame. Contrary to popular belief, there is no “Broadcasters Wing” of the Hall of Fame. The award winners for the Frick and Spink awards have a display in the section of the museum devoted to baseball in the media in a gallery called “Scribes and Mikemen.”

To the media – PLEASE STOP CALLING WINNERS OF THE FRICK AND SPINK AWARD WINNERS HALL OF FAMERS! When you wrongfully call someone as perverted as Conlin a Hall of Famer, you are doing a disservice to the memory of all of the cheats, liars, racists, drug addicts, alcoholics and all-around assholes that are currently inducted into the actual Hall of Fame (not to mention the large number of guys who were inducted that were actually nice guys).

Post Script – After writing this and before posting it, ESPN changed the title to “Veteran writer…” from “Hall of Famer…” What do you want to bet ESPN got a nastygram from the Baseball Hall of Fame about the misuse of the term Hall of Famer.