Halls of Fame are Losing their Luster

CNNSI.com has an article about...um, golfers (I can't believe I'm bringing this up) that you should read. Not for its content, surely, since the writer (using the term loosely) is whining about how tough it is to judge which young golfers are Hall of Fame material at this point in their careers, but rather to make the point that too many goddamn Halls of Fame exist when golf has one. It's a sport for millionaires in designer clothes. They don't sweat, they don't do work, and they don't care if the fans watch or not. They get paid not to perform for people, but for sponsors. I have never heard a golfer tell anyone that he plays for the fans, or that he "really loves it when the crowd get pumped up" for him.

Plus, in case you haven't ever been to one of these lesser HOF's, almost EVERYONE who ever played the game is in. The golf HOF includes so many golfers, in fact, that it has started inducting people before they even finish their careers. So, unlike baseball, the only sport with a true Hall of Fame, where voters and fans alike debate candidates based on their entire careers, including late dropoffs in production that sometimes derail candidacies, other sports like golf let people in for merely achieving a certain ranking or number of wins. That's the key difference between Cooperstown and everywhere else: ugly, lying numbers will get you in everywhere else.

Even the NFL, which is the embodiment of stupid, has what it claims is a Hall of Fame, yet there are so many truly mediocre players in it that one might be forgiven for wondering what, exactly, the criteria are for enshrinement. Who gives a flying fuck about the best pass-blocking guard of all-time? Not I. Not you, either. Emmitt Smith? He "must" be "better" than Walter Payton, HOF voters say. Why? Well, he had more yards--it's that simple. Never mind that he played in a half-dome, on turf, in Dallas for his whole career (well, until he went to Arizona), whereas Payton played on grass in Chicago in the motherfucking snow and on a team that had only a running game and nothing else for his whole (comparatively short) career! But no, Emmitt is the best ever! No argument! He will be put into the HOF as just that.

Worse, the NFL and others have taken to including non-athletes in their HOF's. There are fucking trainers in the NFL HOF, I'll bet. Glorified waterboys. Assistant coaches. Is there anyone NOT in the NFL HOF that wants to be? Just get some pissant job with the league, hold onto it for a few decades, and boom! (as John Madden, that idiot--and incidentally, NFL Hall of Famer--would say): you're in!