Why Not Roger Maris in the Hall of Fame?
The latest voting in the Veterans Committee Hall of Fame elections last week was outright ridiculous. No one got in – -and there are so many qualified players being shafted not the least of whom was Roger Maris. In this day and age of “juiced” records, steroid enhancing accomplishments, the man who “first” broke Babe Ruth’s season home run record is not being treated well. He finished with a mere 16 votes. Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, one of the voters, said it would be “awfully hard” for anyone from the 25-player ballot to get into the Hall. “And maybe that’s the way it should be,” Seaver said. The way it was for Roger Maris back in 1961 when he was going for the record was that Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick ruled that an asterisk would to be affixed to Maris’ mark because it was achieved in 162 games, rather than the 154-game season teams played in 1927 when Ruth broke his own record. Perhaps that was what “poisoned” the waters for Maris for all time for he was a heck of a ball playe
