The Baseball Hall of Fame Today’s Era Committee announced they voted Relief Pitcher Lee Smith and Outfielder/DH Harold Baines into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Smith was slowly gaining votes, but only received 34% of the votes in his fifteenth and final year on the ballot. 

Baines was only on the regular Hall of Fame ballot just a few seasons as he fell under the 5% threshold on his fourth year and only had a max 6.1% of voters in 2010.

I can understand Lee Smith’s legitimacy as a Hall of Fame candidate. He was a reliever that often pitched multiples innings to get saves. The Hall of Fame was late to the game when it came to voting in relievers. He was a member of some good teams and he was a large part in maintaining those wins. He held the title of Most Career Saves for thirteen years, until Trevor Hoffman surpassed him in 2006.

Harold Baines has never been a Hall of Famer in my eyes. The only achievement worth noting is that he was voted into six All-Star Games and won the Silver Slugger Award once. He bounced between the White Sox and Orioles throughout his career and wasn’t the best player on his team at any point in his career. He did win one World Series ring, but it came as a coach in 2005.

Since Baines is now a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, it’s now time to vote in DH Edgar Martinez. He was a much better overall player than Baines. This will be Martinez’s final season on the ballot and it would be a shame if Baines made it before Martinez.

The bar for the Hall of Fame has slowly been lowered over the last decade due to the true stars of the 90’s aren’t getting voted in due to steroids. We have to dive a little deeper and vote players in that were ‘good’ and didn’t have the steroids stench on them…which turns the Hall of Fame into the Hall of Okay.

If the writers just voted the players in without worrying about steroids, then guys like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and others should get in, but we were left with guys like Jim Rice, Jack Morris and Burt Blyleven. The Hall of Fame is being hurt by steroids as it is, so just vote the tainted guys in now before more marginal players stink up the joint.

Follow us on Twitter @Sweetbob & ‘LIKE’ us on Facebook!

About the Author…

Bobby Roberts (otherwise known as Sweetbob) is the creator of ‘America’s White Boy’ and contributor at Project Shanks. His writing has been featured on ESPN’s ‘SportsNation’, Sports Illustrated’s Hot Clicks, Guyspeed, and various other sites. You can follow him on Twitter at @Sweetbob.