First of all, let’s do some kudos. I’m a relatively young chap (23, to be exact), so I could be wrong about this, but I can imagine there was a time when Hall of Fame ballots were guarded closely, secured in the notion that the sports-page reading peasants didn’t need to know who their hometown columnists were voting for. Did this time actually exist? Like I said, no idea. But I can imagine it, and that’s the only thing that matters.

So kudos to Phil Rogers and the Chicago Tribune for disclosing Rogers’ 2008 Hall of Fame vote. Well done, sirs. Your transparency is much appreciated. What’s not so appreciated, not even by me (who, being 23 and a Cubs fan, would seem the primary demographic for this sort of vote) is casting said vote for former Cubs first baseman Mark Grace. Ick:

He didn’t hit for power, which is the first thing most people look for in a first baseman. But otherwise he was terrific: .303 career average, more than 11/2 walks for every strikeout, elite fielding skills, leadership in the clubhouse. He led the majors in hits in the 1990s, with 180-plus in seven of those seasons. In the end, he gets in on the tie-breaking standard I use: performance in big games. He was 11-for-17 with five extra-base hits in the five-game series against San Francisco in 1989. He singled off Mariano Rivera to start Arizona’s ninth-inning rally in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. He gets the benefit of the doubt.

Sigh. “Leadership in the clubhouse.” That’s one of themma’there buzzwords that sportswriters use in Hall of Fame arguments when “numbers” and “facts” don’t line up with their choices. Unfortunately, as Matt Snyder at FanHouse has already covered, that’s not nearly enough to justify Mark Grace — a player both Snyder and I love, keep in mind — as an entrant to the Baseball Hall of Fame. It just isn’t.

Anyway, it’s a Hall argument, so it is by its very nature pointless and stupid. But dammit, if you’re going to be pointless and stupid, at least have the facts at your back. “Likability” means as much in baseball as “drinkability” means in drinking beer: full of sound and reduction, signifying nothing.