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Soccer Hall of Adequacy
Posted 20 Aug 2008 at 06:13 PM by Dan Loney
If there's one thing that Benito Mussolini and Kent Brockman both got right, it's that democracy doesn't work.
The actual Soccer Hall of Fame website should have the press release at some point here, but suffice to say that the bar has been lowered. Instead of 75% and the chance of an empty class, the threshold is now 66.7%. Failing that, the Hall will send the voters - the stupid, insensate, teeming mass of mediocrity that led us to this sorrowful fate, but I'll get to that - the list of the top five vote getters, and re-poll. The top vote-getter (or vote-getters, if there's a tie) will then be inducted. Call if the Preki-Fawcett Act of 2008.
We had two problems here, and I don't see how the Hall could have solved them. One is continuing to put men and women in the same voting pool. Which I agree with, I can't emphasize that enough. Right now, women's soccer is based on a single club which calls itself the United States National Team. Until a women's pro league establishes itself enough to consistently produce memorable players, any separate voting for women's players will eventually be forced to induct the entire 1999 team, one player at a time. Call it the Tracy Ducar Event Horizon.
The other problem is the paucity of the voting pool. Let's compare with baseball for a minute. The Base-Ball Writers Association of America consists of around 750 vapid, mouth-breathing Red Sox fanboys. Er, I mean, 750 professional writers whose job is to cover one sport in two "leagues." The Oneonta voting pool is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Er, I mean, 120 or so fairly randomly assorted folks from real live writers to comedy blog bottom-feeders *cough*. Those folks cover all kinds of sports, all over the world, even the soccer specialists. The dumbass who thinks that Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame can argue with the dumbass who thinks Mark McGwire belongs in the Hall of Fame using a common frame of reference. The indoor soccer partisan trying to sell Steve Zungul to a bitter Joy Fawcett supporter is speaking a different language.
In theory, the Hall would pick those who transcend these cliques, leaving only the very, very best. But, then we have an empty class this year and next.
In theory, we expand the franchise...but to whom? Some would say they're already scraping the bottom of the barrel *cough*. More to the point, it's not like more writers are being hired. The baseball model that links "expert" with "professional" is already completely broken. So the Soccer Hall would have to come up with voting criteria that's a lot closer to fan All-Star balloting than an academy of wise conferring immortality.
Or, the Hall could pick a person - for want of a better term, call him or her a Grand High Inquisitor - and provide a list of voters and some garden shears. Won't vote for women? Gone. Will only vote for women? Gone. Won't vote for outdoor players? Gone. Won't vote for foreign players? Gone. In the words of Gandhi, let the streets run red with the blood, brains and intestines of the infidel.
Who, me? Why, no, I couldn't - oh, all right, I'll do it. I'll lead as two kings.
The actual Soccer Hall of Fame website should have the press release at some point here, but suffice to say that the bar has been lowered. Instead of 75% and the chance of an empty class, the threshold is now 66.7%. Failing that, the Hall will send the voters - the stupid, insensate, teeming mass of mediocrity that led us to this sorrowful fate, but I'll get to that - the list of the top five vote getters, and re-poll. The top vote-getter (or vote-getters, if there's a tie) will then be inducted. Call if the Preki-Fawcett Act of 2008.
We had two problems here, and I don't see how the Hall could have solved them. One is continuing to put men and women in the same voting pool. Which I agree with, I can't emphasize that enough. Right now, women's soccer is based on a single club which calls itself the United States National Team. Until a women's pro league establishes itself enough to consistently produce memorable players, any separate voting for women's players will eventually be forced to induct the entire 1999 team, one player at a time. Call it the Tracy Ducar Event Horizon.
The other problem is the paucity of the voting pool. Let's compare with baseball for a minute. The Base-Ball Writers Association of America consists of around 750 vapid, mouth-breathing Red Sox fanboys. Er, I mean, 750 professional writers whose job is to cover one sport in two "leagues." The Oneonta voting pool is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Er, I mean, 120 or so fairly randomly assorted folks from real live writers to comedy blog bottom-feeders *cough*. Those folks cover all kinds of sports, all over the world, even the soccer specialists. The dumbass who thinks that Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame can argue with the dumbass who thinks Mark McGwire belongs in the Hall of Fame using a common frame of reference. The indoor soccer partisan trying to sell Steve Zungul to a bitter Joy Fawcett supporter is speaking a different language.
In theory, the Hall would pick those who transcend these cliques, leaving only the very, very best. But, then we have an empty class this year and next.
In theory, we expand the franchise...but to whom? Some would say they're already scraping the bottom of the barrel *cough*. More to the point, it's not like more writers are being hired. The baseball model that links "expert" with "professional" is already completely broken. So the Soccer Hall would have to come up with voting criteria that's a lot closer to fan All-Star balloting than an academy of wise conferring immortality.
Or, the Hall could pick a person - for want of a better term, call him or her a Grand High Inquisitor - and provide a list of voters and some garden shears. Won't vote for women? Gone. Will only vote for women? Gone. Won't vote for outdoor players? Gone. Won't vote for foreign players? Gone. In the words of Gandhi, let the streets run red with the blood, brains and intestines of the infidel.
Who, me? Why, no, I couldn't - oh, all right, I'll do it. I'll lead as two kings.
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The other thing they changed is that they actually made the waiting period a real three years instead of the two years and a day type of three years.
There were be no new names on the player ballot, so we - the voters - get another crack at Preki and Fawcett without any new shiny objects cluttering up the ballot. The public reasoning is that I'm guessing they realized that two years was too short - and I agree. The unstated reason is that they're probably afraid of having players on the ballot this January show up on WPS teams next spring.
I'm against a split ballot, but I do recognize that there are voting blocks. Anti-non-American, Anti-women, pro-women, anti-MLS, anti-indoor. I think that there are too few voters that are willing and able to take the wider view.
I've been to three of the last four inductions and I have to say I'm always surprised at some of the strident opinions I hear from other voters. There are a lot of closed minds.
But the HOF voting isn't just writers, living member of the Hall get a vote. Frankly, while I like the idea of a "writers (or media)" ballot, I don't know that there are enough warm bodies to get a fair sample size.Posted 20 Aug 2008 at 06:23 PM by AndyMead 
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Dan, there's a potato famine in Idaho! You have to go there right away!
Posted 20 Aug 2008 at 06:25 PM by Eric B
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Dan, this has to go in the soccer-blog Hall of Fame ... speaking truth to power, the coining of a phrase using the locution "event horizon," the invocation of The Mahatma, and the juxtaposition of Steve Zungul to anybody ... this rises to a Keith Olbermann level of wordsmithing!
I now call upon the capos de tutti capis of BigSoccer to add a rep function to the blogs. This needs to be done before more brilliance goes un-repped!Posted 20 Aug 2008 at 07:00 PM by TOTC
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For example, one would have to take the 3.5% of voters who marked down "Debbie Keller" - for reasons which are both obvious and obnoxious - and demand that they hand in their decoder rings and satin jackets.
It's often been said in relation to Cooperstown that the voters really needed to come out sometimes and say "Nope, nobody this year. See ya in twelve months".
Instead, like with the list this time around, in years where nobody much becomes eligible the voters are told to pick a couple of the people who they passed on last time.
And either they're hall-worthy or they're not. It's not a case of them becoming MORE worthy a year or two later when the competition isn't as tough.
IPosted 20 Aug 2008 at 07:16 PM by Bill Archer
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The Hall's voting is having problems transitioning to club based careers from national team based careers. Well, yeah, the Veterans Committee is slowly filling out the NASL section, but right now, I'm not sure someone like Jaime Moreno or Steve Ralston would get in.
I think the Hall's board is concerned - and they should be - that if the Hall doesn't honor players based on their MLS careers, then MLS will eventually take on the NSHOF with an MLSHOF.Posted 20 Aug 2008 at 07:36 PM by AndyMead
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I think an even bigger problem for the NSHOF is that there are already a bunch of Hall of Famers who weren't particularly good players, much less great ones. I mean, people complain about the baseball HOF, but some of the names in the soccer HOF are ridiculous. Sometimes it seems like anybody who has more than about 10 national team caps will get into the Hall of Fame (on that basis alone)!
Posted 20 Aug 2008 at 10:12 PM by TomEaton
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Still laughing at "the Tracy Ducar Event Horizon."
Posted 21 Aug 2008 at 12:45 AM by geordienation
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I don't think comparing anyone to Keith Olberman is a compliment.
Posted 21 Aug 2008 at 04:05 PM by Beakmon FC
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Kind Beakmon, listen carefully.
Keith Olbermann is a person who know how to connects the dots to make everything make sense.
In one of his last broadcasts for Fox Sports Net's "Keith Olbermann Evening News," that ill-fated Sunday night sports show which was supposed to go head-to-head with the George Michael Sports Machine, he spun a wonderful 10-minute essay on Roger Clemens the week after he was espied refusing autographs to kids and pushing photographers in New York.
Olbermann talked about anger and, without using the word "steroid," pointed one of the first fingers at Clemens for using them. An absolutely brilliant piece of journalism. It's too bad FSN was probably too cheap to save the videotapes.Posted 21 Aug 2008 at 04:53 PM by TOTC
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Kenn Tomasch let me a guest columnist on his blog:
http://kenn.com/blog/?p=559
"It’s not often you get to hear a different voice than mine in this space, but a soccer fan I know asked for the floor, and I thought he had a good take on the topic of the National Soccer Hall of Fame (something I’ve written about before). Dave Wasser is one of the good guys, and has the greatest collection of old soccer DVDs and tapes ever.
Anyway, Dave’s column on why the Hall doesn’t belong in Oneonta, New York anymore is after the jump. Enjoy."
Soccer Deserves Better Than Oneonta, New York
by Dave Brett Wasser
The National Soccer Hall of Fame is in Oneonta, New York. In the late
1990s, with millions of dollars raised from the State of New York and
private donors, a "40,000 square foot, state-of-the-art museum facility"
opened its doors.
Now I want them to move.
Most diehard American soccer fans have never visited the Soccer Hall
of Fame. I've been there a few times. It is a wonderful museum with
great displays about the history and culture of the game.
But Oneonta, New York? The remote town almost four hours by car from
New York City is not on the way to-or from-any place else. The museum
draws a crowd for special events, like this past weekend’s induction of
the latest class to enter the Hall. However, on most other days, there
are hardly any visitors.
Jack Huckel, the Director of the Hall of Fame, is a good person who wants
to make the museum a success. I'm not blaming him for the museum's
predicament. It's just a matter of good business. No matter how attractive
they make the Oneonta property, it's still in the middle of upstate New
York.
Oneonta got the Hall of Fame in the 1970s because at the time, nobody
else wanted it. The town is near Cooperstown, NY and the hope was to
draw baseball fans who make the trek to that sport's Hall of Fame. It
hasn't worked out that way.
Fortunately, plenty has changed in American soccer since the 1970s.
MLS and its partners are building soccer-specific stadiums around the
country. The Hall of Fame should be rebuilt next to one of those stadiums.
Red Bull Park, currently under construction in Harrison, New Jersey, is
the logical choice, due to its proximity to New York City.
The first question to ask is, does MLS even want a close association
with the Hall of Fame? The Hall is mostly about the world of soccer
before MLS began in 1996. MLS might think the Hall is not relevant to
their league, but that would be foolish. In the coming years, plenty of
MLS players will enter the Hall (a few are there already) and eventually
the league will dominate the entrants as Major League Baseball does
with that sport's hall of fame.
Of course I am well aware that the expense of building a new museum
would cost more than the one they are leaving. In addition, there would
be costs associated with moving all the museum's artifacts to New
Jersey from upstate New York. And I don't presume to know whether
the building in Oneonta could be converted to some other use.
Yet the Red Bull corporation is determined to spend what it takes to
make their team, and their new stadium, a success. The question is
whether putting the Hall of Fame next to Red Bull Park would pull in
more fans. I think it would. The key to drawing fans to a sporting event
is giving them more than just a sporting event. Going to a museum
before or after a game adds to the experience of watching a soccer
match. And learning about the history of the game makes today's
game more meaningful.
The New York Red Bulls haven't been around very long. But soccer
in America sure has. The presence of the Hall of Fame next to their
stadium would place the Red Bulls within the evolving history of the
sport. It's a way of saying to the fans "we're creating a legacy here,"
a statement many feel RBNY has yet to make.
Other teams in other sports are doing this kind of thing. The New
England Patriots are building a team Hall of Fame and museum next
to their stadium. (See this article for details on that project.)
Since 1996 professional soccer has struggled to draw much of an
audience in the New York metropolitan area. The new stadium in
Harrison, NJ is going to help. Moving the National Soccer Hall of
Fame to Harrison would help even more.Posted 24 Aug 2008 at 08:04 PM by DaveBrett
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