The whole process surrounding MLB teams and how they construct their team-specific Hall of Fame tends to be pretty arcane and arbitrary, but the Kansas City Royals look to have taken that to a whole new level with their voting process for their 2013 class. Today, they posted the Royals Hall of Fame ballot online so fans could vote on it via Twitter. As you might expect, things have begun to go awry. Here is the ballot complete with the voting percentages at the time of posting:
Bo Jackson is in first, sweet! Who's in second? EMIL BROWN! Oh, internet. You've done it again. yup, Brown, who played all of 410 games with a .279/.340/.428 slsh line for KC has the second-most votes. The scary part is that based on the tweets, most of the votes are sincere.
Why the Royals didn't trim the list down more is a bit baffling considering that it meant they had to include luminaries such as Jimmy Gobble (who has a 5.29 career ERA) and Runelvys Hernandez (career 5.50 ERA) whose only real claim to fame is that he is the only Major Leaguer ever named Runelvys. And why do they both have more votes than Jermaine Dye who is a two-time All-Star with a career OPS of .820 in his time with Kansas City?
But you want to know the real crazy part, the make up of the ballot isn't even the most confusing thing about this vote. Check out the description of how the voting is tallied:
Royals Hall of Fame Voting (Regular Phase) shall be completed every other year by a committee of 40 total electors consisting of the following: (1) All living members of the Royals Hall of Fame; (2) Select Royals Board members; (3) Select members of the Kansas City Chapter of the Baseball Writers of America; (4) Select Kansas City Electronic Media members; (5) Select members of Royals Front Office Staff; and (6) Royals Fans casting votes as a virtual committee member via social media from this page. Royals fans will collectively cast a total of three (3) elector ballots for three eligible candidates. Individual electors can vote for up to three players on their ballots. Fan votes will be allocated to three players as follows: the top vote getter from this online fan ballot will receive three (3) elector votes, the second highest vote-getter will receive two (2) elector votes, and the third highest vote-getter will receive one (1) elector vote. The KC Royals will monitor the online voting and determine the allocation of the three (3) fan elector ballots in their sole discretion
And that is just the first of FIVE paragraphs on the machinations which, oh by the way, include a freaking ELECTORAL COLLEGE! That's right, the Kansas City Royals, embracing the dumbest part of the American voting system since 1973.
On second thought, maybe we shouldn't mock the Royals here. They at least seem like they are going to be able to vote SOMEONE into the Hall this year. Let's just hope that someone is Bo Jackson and not Emil Brown.
