MLB Bullets Says "The Tribe Has Spoken"

It was announced today that Columbia University will no longer award the Pulitzer Prize to any work of journalism written after 1998. "In light of the Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair scandals," said Chairman Paul Tash, "as well as countless smaller acts of plagiarism and fabrication, we can no longer vote for anyone from the 'plagiarism era.' Without being able to tell which writers are dirty and which aren't, we've decided not to honor anyone. After all, winning the Pulitzer Prize is an honor, not a right. When you get an endowment from a newspaper baron who's been dead for a hundred years, then you can vote for whomever you want."

• Three people were elected to the Hall of Fame, but most of the talk revolves around the guy who gave his vote away. In case you missed it, Deadspin revealed that the voter who gave his vote to the website was Dan Le Batard. Le Batard gave his explanation for his decision at the link above. Also, it should be noted that despite Deadspin's offer to buy the vote, Le Batard actually gave his vote away for free. He didn't even request a charity donation.
• As he and everyone else predicted, Le Batard was stripped of his vote in future elections.
• Le Batard, who works for ESPN, explained his position further on ESPN's Mike and Mike show. Also, his bosses at ESPN made their own statement on Le Batard's actions.
• Craig Calcaterra rounds up a sample of the media freak-out over Le Batard's actions. Calcaterra also picks up on San Francisco Chronicle writer Henry Schulman's comment that it would have been OK if Le Batard had publicly polled his ESPN viewers and said that a lot of the criticism comes from the connection to Deadspin, a site that publishes a great deal of media criticism. Also a lot of juvenile crap between their occasionally solid journalism.
• Calcaterra, who seriously is never going to get let in to the BBWAA, recalls a past BBWAA faux pas and says "at least . . . David Wright didn't get three Hall of Fame votes."
• Dan Wetzel uses the Le Batard brouhaha to blast MLB and the BBWAA for denying access to media who don't cover baseball on an everyday basis.
• Tomas Rios says the whole incident is a reason to ignore sports writers.
• Gwen Knapp makes one of the more reasonable criticisms of Le Batard, both agreeing with some of the things he did and criticizing others.
• Jonah Keri looks at the failure to elect Craig Biggio and says that the voting process deeply needs reform that it is never likely to get.
• Ken Rosenthal thinks the voting process is fundamentally a good one, although he's open to a few "tweaks."
• Lewie Pollis says that one needed reform is that all ballots need to be made public.
• The Hall of Fame passed the buck on to the BBWAA and says if changes are needed in the voting process, it's up to the BBWAA to propose them.
• Grant Brisbee tries to figure out why someone wouldn't vote for Craig Biggio. He forgot "people who just hate the Astros or guys named 'Craig.'"
• Rafael Palmeiro is "disheartened" that he didn't get enough votes to stay on the ballot.
• Jayson Stark gives a good overview of "where are we now." He also looks forward to future elections and thinks the Hall is headed for trouble.
• Ken Davidoff fears that an unfair PED backlash against Mike Piazza may permanently keep him out of Cooperstown.
• Ted Berg explains why he doesn't care who took steroids when considering the Hall of Fame.
• Had Bodley remembers that Greg Maddux almost became a Yankee.
• Moving on to the next scandal, the Alex Rodriguez arbitration decision is expected to be handed down next week. Word is coming out that Rodriguez might accept a reduced ban of 100 games or less.
• Ian O'Connor thinks that if Hal Steinbrenner wants to establish himself as the new "Boss" in the mold of his father, the Yankees need to sign Masahiro Tanaka.
• Yasiel Puig has wisely hired his cousin to be his personal driver from now on. Or maybe not wisely. I have no idea how good of a driver his cousin is. I'm not sure he could be much worse than Yasiel, though.
• Justin Verlander had muscle repair surgery on Thursday but expects to be ready for opening day.
• Bobby Parnell has been medically cleared to pitch again.
• Tony La Russa is a candidate to become the next president of the Seattle Mariners.
• Conor Glassey figures out what percentage of scouts played baseball professionally. The percentage is probably lower than you think.
• The Pirates pitching coach expects A.J. Burnett to retire.
• OK, now on to the uniform section of today's post. Paul Lukas takes a look back at the Cubs 1972 road jerseys and why they had the numbers right over the middle of their guts.
• The Pirates are making the gold "P" their primary logo, instead of the Jolly Roger. The pirate flag will still fly on the sleeves of some uniforns.
• In a similar, although far more controversial move, the Cleveland Indians announced that the red block "C" will now be their primary logo, although Chief Wahoo will stay on the uniforms, which will not change. Hey, it's a start. And I'd better not hear any of you say that a red "C" is a crappy logo.
• Finally, Marlins president David Samson is one of the contestants on the upcoming season of CBS' Survivor. Oh sure, They can vote him off the island, but we can't. And we're not even allowed to make him stay there, either,