2013 US Soccer Hall of Fame Ballot – something in the way you love me won’t let me be
Posted on January 25, 2013 5:40 pm
Roger Allaway always cringes when I botch eligibility years, and this year shows why. Last year, I thought we’d have Brandi Chastain and Brian McBride in their first year of eligibility. Since Chastain and McBride are the kind of player that doesn’t tend to have a second year of eligibility - in a good way - then I thought my ballot would simply be one more piece of confetti in the ticker-tape parade.
However, there are no clear favorites making their first appearance on the ballot…and (almost by definition) there aren’t any clear favorites left on the ballot, either.
Get me wrong not – I always take this vote seriously, I always want to have reasons for every vote or non-vote, and I hold very dear the idea that the Hall of Fame should confer as well as celebrate fame.
But glancing at this ballot – which you can also do here – is giving me a very strong sense of one vote can make a difference. There aren’t three players measuring their heads for tiaras and fifteen guys turning up in Google searches for the first time in half a decade. Instead, there are fourteen guys who, to my mind, can make claims to Hall status.
In years past, I would have given Wade Barrett an “attaboy” vote. Now, taking a vote away from someone might cost them. No one has been elected, or failed to be elected, by just one vote. But if it ever will happen, it’ll be in years like this.
Which is the other reason I’ve decided to, once again, use all ten votes. This goes against the way a lot of people feel about Halls of Fame, and probably goes against stuff I’ve said in the past about the Soccer Hall of Fame, so I think I owe you all an explanation.
Well, first, let me explain why I think it’s a problem. Last year, I didn’t vote for Jason Kreis. This year, I’m probably going to. Next year, depending on the ballot, I might not again.
If there were a Fire Joe Morgan for MLS, they would be crucifying me right now. How can a guy not be a Hall of Famer in 2012, a Hall of Famer in 2013, and not a Hall of Famer again in 2014? That’s worse than “Hall of Famer, but not a first ballot Hall of Famer.”
There is a strong school of thought that says there shouldn’t be any borderline candidates at all for a Hall of Fame. It should be for the greatest of the great, the best of the best. Maybe means no. “Of course” or nothing.
I sympathize with that, but I can’t indulge it anymore. Now, if colossal MLS/indifferent or non-existent US career isn’t something that you vote for, then the 2013 ballot is very, very easy for you. And probably very empty.
But not only do I think players like Jeff Agoos and Preki should be in the Hall, most voters agreed with me. We have a rough baseline of – and I’m certainly not trying to crapmouth Agoos and Preki here, I voted for each of them every year – the bottom rung of players who should make the Hall of Fame in the MLS era. You must be as tall as Preki in order to ride.
Every player on the ballot doesn’t have Preki’s qualifications, but over a dozen are roughly at that level…and none of them are a slam-dunk like Reyna and Meola last year. Hell, few of them have better bios than Earnie Stewart, and it took him something like six tries.
Here’s the other thing. A good but not great baseball player who nearly but doesn’t quite make Cooperstown – there’s a word for that kind of player. Multi-millionaire. Fred McGriff has thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of admiring fans who owe him some cherished sports memories – and for years, he was paid a lot of sweet, tasty American currency. Nothing wipes away tears faster than a hundred dollar bill.
Down the road, the equivalent of Taylor Twellman or Tony Sanneh would be a very rich and famous man, too. But we’re not there yet. Twellman is a household name in your household, but our households are still in a sporting ghetto. Even if you take at face value Don Garber’s assertions that MLS has broken through to the American cultural mainstream (hint: it hasn’t), these are players who helped make that possible, without reaping the benefits.
On this ballot, I have a chance to give those guys some recognition. This was a generation that played for love of American soccer. Maybe/hopefully the last one who played for love and little else. I don’t feel right about telling those players that they don’t live up to some arbitrary vibe I have about greatness. They fought too hard, they were hurt too much, and they played too damn well.
I can’t vote for all of them, but I’m going to vote for ten of them.
Which ones, though. I have until February 22 to decide.
Oh, and one of them is going to be Shannon MacMillan, too. She’s probably the easiest choice on the ballot left.
(Also, a Hall of Fame should physically exist. But I can’t do everything at once here.)
My picks: Cienfuegos, Lassiter, Diablo, Fraser, MacMillan, Armas, Kreis, Razov, Olsen, Twellman.
The women on the list mainly elicited the reaction “how many 99ers are we going to have in the Hall, anyway?” We’re talking about people who were at most the seventh-best player on that squad. That said, if you want to drop Razov and Armas for Parlow and Fair, I won’t argue too much.
I miss FJM, too.
Cienfuegos, Etcheverry, Fraser, Shannon Mac, Armas, Joe-Max, Parlow, Olsen, Sanneh…very, very tough to choose the tenth. Twellman and Lassiter are almost twins in terms of accomplishments, but Taylor’s got lots of years ahead for consideration, so I would likely favor Lassiter.
…not that I’ve got a ballot or that anyone’s actually soliciting my opinion.
I don’t really cringe. I just pretend to.
I’m hoping that this will be Etcheverry’s year.
Next year is going to be a strong one. New names on the ballot next year will include Brian McBride, Eddie Lewis, Clint Mathis, Jaime Moreno, Steve Ralston, Kristine Lilly, Briana Scurry and Kate Markgraf. No Chastain, however. As of last year, she was still playing a few games a season for the California Storm in the WPSL.
Cien, Etcheverry and MacMillen.
Everybody else was a nice player who had a nice career. Greatness they had not.
As Dan would say.
Joe-Max Moore never gets as much credit as some other guys, but he was a tireless worker and a quality performer.
100 caps
24 goals (#5 all-time)
14 assists (tied with Tab Ramos for #6 all-time)
Made 3 World Cup squads
Played in 2 World Cups
To me, that’s Hall of Fame performance.
@Roger – holy mother of pearl, you could almost fill a ballot with the newcomers, if that’s the list. McBride and Lilly aren’t going to have a second year of eligibility, but after them, it’s chaos.
So, all the more reason to vote for marginal guys this year.
I agree with Hararea. Joe-Max rates, as well as Bill Archer’s list. And to me it’s hard to leave off 100 goal club guys, but that’s more debatable.
Don’t like double-commenting, but after looking at Roger’s list I couldn’t help adding:
McBride and Lilly, being in a class by themselves, deserve to be in a class by themselves.
If you catch my drift.
If Etcheverry is not voted in this year I am screaming bloody murder. He is arguably the most valuable player ever to play in the league. His long balls, spot kicks, corner kicks and dribbling were amazing. He was a team leader who told his team not to fear the likes of Toluca and Vasco da Gama on their way to CONCACAF and PanAmerican Cups (Never duplicated). As Bruce Arena stated, he was a tenacious competitor, the best in MLS.
I think it’s harder to decide on who qualifies for the U.S. soccer hall of fame than just about any other sport’s.
First, because there aren’t really any statistics that give a very reliable indication on who is better than who, you can’t really assess the quality of most of the players from the past who are already members unless you’ve seen them play, which in most cases is pretty unlikely. Second, even for players from the MLS era, how do you decide who’s more deserving, a player who plays well in MLS for ten years, or a guy who plays well in MLS for five years and then goes to a bigger league but never really breaks through there? Brian McBride is absolutely deserving of inclusion based on his national team career, but if he were up for induction based solely on his MLS career I wouldn’t vote for him. What about players like Twellman or Kreis, who were terrific MLS players but could never get consistent national team minutes? Can’t you argue that if they were that good they would have been regulars on the national team?
Every so often I come up with my own personal “MLS Hall of Fame,” based only on MLS accomplishments. I’ve noticed that as time goes on, players that at one time I would have considered locks eventually fall out of favor. I wonder if we should have to wait for ten or fifteen years after a player retires before we have to decide.
Poor Cindy Parlow and Ben Olsen got killed by the Font Monster…
It would be a crime if Lasiter gets in and Etcheverry doesn’t.
One thing that’s been missed in the discussion of players Loney can vote for is that this is the first year on the Veterans Ballot for Valderrama and Vermes.
Should be interesting to see how they do.
The reason why Dan doesn’t discuss who he plans to vote for on the Veterans Ballot is that the Veterans Ballot is not a media vote. It is a vote among all current living Hall of Famers.
However, it will be interesting to see how Valderrama and Vermes do.
The soccer hall of fame needs some serious changes.
First, the US Soccer and MLS halls need to be separated. Some players would be in both, of course. Combining them makes the difficult job of choosing hall of famers virtually impossible. If the hall ever gets a real building again, they could (and probably should) be co-located.
Second, there needs to be a longer waiting period before players are eligible. Three years is not long enough to put a players career in a historical perspective. Baseball has a five year waiting period. I think soccer, due to its relative infancy in the US, should have an even longer one, maybe ten years.
Third, the ballots for men and women (and MLS vs US) should be separate. With a limited number of ballot slots, it really doesn’t make sense to ask voters to compare men’s and women’s careers. Obviously, if you split the voting up you are going to need to decrease the number of slots.
Dan, your reasons are why I think Linda Hamilton should have gotten a couple of years ago. Unless you were hard core (east coast, even) women’s soccer fan way back in the day, you don’t know what she really brought to the field. As it is, she, like most of the pre-1999ers still won’t be known.
Of the women on the ballot you linked, Hucles, Roberts, and Fair are definite “contributed a lot but not Hall of Fame level” And for me it is hard to differentiate Parlow and MacMillan from each other. Parlow scored more goals, MacMillan had a few more caps.
I posted, but I realized how much indecision I have. I have a hard time picking between Sanneh, Armas, Olsen, Twellman, Fraser and Kreis. I’m rethinking my omission of Cindy Parlow. And next year’s class has at least three people better-qualified than anyone on this year’s ballot. At least.
This HAS to be Etcheverry and MacMillan’s year. Maybe Moore’s. I know I’m the only guy voting for Lassiter, but so be it. Beyond that, I’m agonizing over whether to vote for people who aren’t getting in, no matter what I do.
Popular Store Items
Popular Posts
Latest from the Forum
About Big Soccer
Copyright © 2011 Big Internet Group, LLC. All rights reserved. Click here for our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Views expressed by the bloggers and users of BigSoccer do not represent the views of Big Internet Group, LLC.